Blendkit for Maya

Asset search, download and drag&drop directly inside Autodesk Maya.

Status: early development / alpha. Automated releases are now published to GitHub Releases: every merge to main produces a rolling Alpha prerelease, and master (or the manual Run workflow button) produces a regular release. The zip is self-contained — unzip into a Maya modules directory and restart Maya, no extra packages or setup required. You can still build locally with python bk_maya/dev.py build.

About

The Blendkit Maya plugin connects Autodesk Maya to the Blendkit service — search the library, drag&drop assets straight into the viewport, and re-use the same account / Full plan you already have for the Blender add-on.

It is a port of the official Blender add-on built on:

• Maya 2023–2027 (Python 3.9–3.11, PySide2/PySide6 via qtpy, OpenMaya 2.0)
• The shared Go blenderkit-client for downloads, auth and search
• A vendored qtpy / requests / packaging (see bk_maya/lib)

Repository layout

• bk_maya/ — the Maya plugin (core, UI, plugins, vendored libs)
• bk_maya/bk_proxor/ — proxor mesh-preview submodule (.prx / .prxc)
• bk_client/ — Go blenderkit-client submodule, shared with the Blender add-on
• tests/ — pure-Python unit tests runnable without Maya

Getting started (developers)

# 1. clone with submodules
git clone --recursive https://github.com/BlenderKit/bk_maya.git
cd bk_maya

# 2. create a venv and install dev tooling
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"  # or: pdm install / uv sync --group dev

# 3. enable pre-commit hooks (ruff + pydoclint)
pre-commit install

# 4. run the synthetic test suite
python -m unittest discover tests

To build a distributable bundle:

python bk_maya/dev.py build

To load the plugin inside Maya, point Maya's plug-in path at bk_maya/plugins/ and load maya_plugin.py from Windows ▸ Settings/Preferences ▸ Plug-in Manager.

Releases & versioning

• Version scheme: major.minor.YYMMDDHHmm, with a -alpha suffix on automated main builds (e.g. 0.1.2506071430-alpha). The major.minor part is the single human-editable knob in bk_maya/_version.py (BASE_VERSION); the timestamped patch + channel are generated at build time.

• Where the version lives at runtime: the build writes a generated bk_maya/_build_version.py into the package. The plugin reads it via bk_maya/_version.py and surfaces it in the Plug-in Manager, the Blendkit ▸ About menu, and the Maya .mod module version — so users and admins can see exactly which build is installed.

• Automated releases (see .github/workflows/release.yml):

  • merge to main → rolling Alpha prerelease,
  • push to master or the manual Run workflow button → stable release.

• Zip contents (blendkit-maya-<version>-py39.zip / -py311.zip): the version is in the filename, and the archive holds the blendkit.mod file next to the blendkit/ module folder. Pick the zip matching your Maya's Python — -py39 for Maya 2023, -py311 for Maya 2024–2027 (they differ only in the vendored lib/ dependency versions). Unzip both files into a Maya modules directory and restart Maya — see the bundled INSTALL.txt.

• Build channels locally:

  python bk_maya/dev.py build                 # dev build  -> 0.1.<stamp>.dev style
  python bk_maya/dev.py build --channel alpha # alpha      -> 0.1.<stamp>-alpha
  python bk_maya/dev.py build --channel stable
  python bk_maya/dev.py build --version 0.1.2506071430   # explicit override
  python bk_maya/dev.py release --python both             # emit -py39 + -py311 zips

Client binaries (future change): today the Go client is compiled from client/ on every build. When it moves to its own repo and ships signed binaries, point the build at the downloaded folder with --client-build <folder> (or the BLENDKIT_CLIENT_BINARIES env-var) — see the comments in bk_maya/dev.py. No other packaging changes are needed.

Quality

Check	Local	CI
Lint	ruff check .	.github/workflows/lint.yml → Ruff
Format	ruff format --check .	.github/workflows/lint.yml → Ruff
Docstrings	pydoclint .	.github/workflows/lint.yml → Pydoclint
Security	bandit -c _bandit.yaml -r .	.github/workflows/lint.yml → Bandit
Unit tests	python -m unittest discover tests	.github/workflows/PR.yml → Maya-Port-Unit-Tests
Go client	go test ./client/...	.github/workflows/PR.yml → Client-Unit-Tests

All checks are also wired up as a pre-commit hook — see .pre-commit-config.yaml.

How to contribute

• Share the word about Blendkit with your friends and colleagues, or on social media.
• Become a Creator and upload your assets to the Blendkit Free or Full Plan database.
• Report a bug or request a feature in the issue tracker.
• Contribute code — see CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

GPL-3.0. Same license as the upstream Blender add-on.