UV Checker, In Your DCC
Adapt the site's UV texture generator into a tool that runs inside Maya, Blender, or Houdini. The focus is on the DCC integration: selection, materials, controls, and undo.
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The brief Constraints Acceptance criteria Suggested approach Stretch goals Breakdown template§the brief
Build a tool that generates a UV checker and applies it to the selected object's material. It should give an artist a quick way to inspect stretching without leaving the DCC.
Keep the interface small and make the ordinary workflow reliable: launch the tool, choose a pattern, apply it, and undo it. Check the error cases as carefully as the successful one.
§constraints
- Launch it from a shelf button or menu item. Include enough setup instructions that someone else can try it without reading the source.
- It acts on the current selection. No hardcoded object names. Handle "nothing selected" with a clear message, not a stack trace.
- Undo works. One Ctrl+Z cleanly reverses whatever the tool did. In Maya that means an undo chunk; in Blender, one operator.
- At least two checker options. Black-and-white and one more (coloured, numbered, or gradient) - enough that there's a real choice in the UI.
§acceptance criteria
- A shelf button / menu item opens the tool (or runs it directly).
- With an object selected, pressing "apply" gives it a checker material visible in the viewport.
- With nothing selected, the tool says so clearly and does nothing destructive.
- One undo reverts the material assignment cleanly.
- Resolution is selectable and only offers power-of-two sizes.
- Running it on a second object doesn't disturb the first.
§suggested approach
- Generate the image first, headless. Get a function that writes a checker PNG to disk (or builds it in memory) working on its own, before any DCC code. Test it by opening the file.
- Wire it to a selection. Create a material, plug the texture in, assign it to the selected object. This is the DCC-specific part - lean on the API docs.
- Wrap it in undo. Get the whole apply step reverting as one action before you add any UI.
- Start with resolution and pattern controls. Add more options only when they solve a task the user actually needs.
- Try the shelf tool on a fresh scene and ask someone else to use it. Note where the workflow or messages need explaining.
The Rosetta Stone compares tasks across Maya, Blender, and Unreal. Use it to understand the shared pattern, then check the API for the DCC you've chosen.
§stretch goals
- Per-cell coordinates (A1, B2...) baked into the checker, so an artist can point at exactly which shell is wrong in a review.
- Non-square textures with an aspect lock, so the checker doesn't stretch on non-square UV layouts.
- Add a 'restore original material' action and check that it preserves the previous assignments, including objects with several material slots.
- Try sharing the image-generation code between DCCs, with a small wrapper for each API. The cross-DCC examples give you a starting point.
§breakdown template
Include a short video showing selection, application, and undo. A still image can show the result, while the video explains how someone uses the tool.
## UV Checker Tool (Maya / Blender / Houdini) **The problem:** checking UVs meant hunting for a checker texture and wiring it up by hand every time. **Demo:** [60-second silent GIF: select object -> click -> checker appears -> spin the viewport -> undo] **Constraints:** shelf-runnable, selection-based, undoable. **The interesting bit:** [the undo chunk / material-graph wiring / the "nothing selected" guard - whichever fought you hardest] **Result:** UV debugging went from ~2 minutes of setup to one click. **What I'd change:** [restore-original / cross-DCC core / ...]