Closed Surface UV Coverage
SkillAI & modelsEnsure textures and decals cover all visible surfaces of a closed or extruded Blender asset, especially front/back caps and sidewalls, instead of relying on partial projected planes, curves, or linework overlays. Use when back textures do not fill the model, side textures are missing, spin/turntable views expose plain sidewalls, or a model needs separate UV treatment for caps and side surfaces.
Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.
No other account needed.
Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.
Then ask your AI: use the Closed Surface UV Coverage skill
What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by cheshirejcat/blender in skills/create-3d-model/references/modules/closed-surface-uv-coverage/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.
This skill prevents a common false pass: a model looks textured from the front because it has a projected front image or curve overlays, but the closed surface has untextured back caps or plain sidewalls when viewed in a spin/turntable.
Failure modes to catch
- Back detail is only a floating plane or curve overlay, not a material/UV on the back surface.
- Sidewalls have procedural color only; no side UV island, generated/object coordinate material, or baked strip.
- A back projection covers only a center shape and leaves the actual silhouette/back mesh plain.
- Side/back QA uses front-biased frames and misses edge-on/back-on samples.
- Decorative HUD/aura is mistaken for surface texture coverage.
Required surface taxonomy
For extruded/logo-like assets, classify visible surfaces before look-dev:
front_cap— canonical front texture/decal.back_cap— back texture, back linework, or baked/procedural fill mapped to the real back cap.sidewall— depth surface connecting front/back, with its own UV parameterization or procedural material.overlay_context— HUD/aura/circles; never counted as model surface coverage.
Workflow
- Audit current coverage: list mesh material slots, UV layers, image texture nodes, and face counts for front/back/side material indices.
- Reject overlay-only fixes: curves/planes may add rim accents, but they do not satisfy back/side fill unless the mesh surface beneath is also textured/materialized.
- Create per-surface UVs:
- front/back caps: project local X/Z to UV 0–1 or map into a back/front atlas rectangle;
- sidewall: map perimeter arc length to U and depth/front-back coordinate to V;
- if a clean side texture is unavailable, use a generated procedural side material plus baked glow/edge strip and document it.
- Assign true surface materials: back cap and sidewall mesh faces must have material nodes, active UVs, and/or generated coordinates. Optional curves are accents only.
- Validate turntable frames: sample front, 45°, side/edge-on, back-on, opposite 45°, and rest. Back and side frames must show surface fill, not just outlines.
Acceptance gates
- Back cap mesh faces have either an image/procedural material with a declared UV/generated coordinate policy, not only separate curves.
- Sidewall mesh faces have a sidewall material with UV/generated coordinates and visible depth treatment.
- Overlay/context collections are excluded from coverage counts.
- QA contact sheet includes back and edge-on frames.
- A
surface_coverage_report.jsonstates which surfaces are image-textured, procedural, baked, or intentionally plain.
Handoff
Use after geometry is locked and before final material/look/animation acceptance. It complements blender-uv-texturing and atlas-uv-fitting: those skills explain UV/material setup; this skill enforces complete visible-surface coverage.
Script
scripts/surface_texture_coverage_audit.pyaudits selected mesh objects for UV layers, material image nodes, face material counts, and overlay-only warning patterns.
Signals
- GitHub stars
- 26
- Last commit
- Aug 2026
Advanced
- Catalog kind
- skill
- Gateway key
closed-surface-uv-coverage- Source
- github.com/cheshirejcat/blender