Substance Painter automation by Viacheslav Makhynko

A practical course on building a custom texture exporter plugin for Substance Painter using Python. You’ll go from zero to a fully functional tool that automates exports, validates texture set names, and enforces resolution budgets — exactly what a production pipeline needs.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Understand foundational Python programming concepts
• Utilize Substance Painter Python API to create custom tools
• Develop an automated advanced texture exporting workflow
• Improve asset production management with validation systems
• Construct dynamic User Interfaces using PySide2/PySide6

✅ Requirements

• Skills: No previous programming experience required, but having some makes it easier
• Tools: Substance Painter, Visual Studio Code
• Hardware: Minimum 16GB RAM, dedicated GPU

📝 Description

This isn’t just another Python tutorial. It’s a focused, hands-on course where you build a real production tool from scratch. Viacheslav Makhynko, a Technical Artist at Ubisoft, walks you through every step of creating a Custom Exporter plugin for Substance Painter.

The course is structured around solving actual pipeline problems. You’ll start with the basics — setting up your environment and getting familiar with the Substance Painter Python API. Then you’ll build a working UI widget using PySide2 (with an update for PySide6), connect it to Painter’s events, and implement logging and debugging.

The real meat comes in the validation sections. You’ll write code that checks texture set names against naming conventions, enforces resolution budgets, and automatically applies the correct settings. These are the exact systems used in AAA studios to prevent broken assets from slipping into production.

By the end, you’ll have a polished, documented tool with hotkeys, tooltips, and code annotations — something you can drop straight into a portfolio or adapt for your team’s pipeline.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Technical Artists looking to add Python automation to their skillset
• Technical/Pipeline Directors managing asset production workflows
• 3D Artists wanting to move into more technical, programming-focused roles
• Tools/Gameplay/Software programmers expanding into DCC tool development
• Automation specialists working with game development pipelines

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Viacheslav Makhynko is a full-time Technical Artist at Ubisoft with over 6 years of experience in AAA game development. He’s worked on major titles including Watch Dogs Legion, Far Cry 6, and Beyond Good and Evil 2. Starting his career as a Tester, he evolved through Tech Quality Assurance into a Tech Artist role — giving him a grounded perspective on what actually matters in production pipelines.

🏁 Final Result

• A fully functional Custom Exporter plugin for Substance Painter with automated texture export, naming validation, and resolution budget enforcement
• Source code ready for portfolio use or adaptation into a production pipeline