Melowilo Animation LTD
Vertex Skin Weights Tool
Precision Vertex Skin Weights Made Easy
Vertex Skin Weights Tool is the perfect complement to Blender's standard weight painting workflow. While traditional weight painting excels at establishing general weight distribution, this addon gives you the precision control needed for fine-tuning and detail work. Together, they form a complete skinning solution for character artists and riggers who demand both artistic freedom and numerical accuracy.
Perfect Your Character Weights with Surgical Precision
Blender's built-in weight painting tools are great for broad strokes and initial weight distribution, but they sometimes lack the precision needed for critical areas like joints and facial features. This powerful addon fills that gap by giving you direct numerical control over vertex weights, allowing you to quickly create clean, artifact-free deformations where they matter most.
With your vertex selection in place, you can precisely adjust weight values for any number of bones simultaneously, whether you're working on a single vertex or fine-tuning multiple vertices at once for those complex areas where weights need to be perfectly balanced – something that can be very difficult and time-consuming with weight painting alone.
Real-Time Feedback for Complete Control
While Blender does offer weight information through its Item/Vertex Weights panel, this tool transforms that functionality into something truly practical and powerful. The real-time bones list transforms this data into an instantly accessible, context-aware display that integrates seamlessly into your workflow.. No more switching between panels or hunting for information – as you select vertices, the UI instantly shows you which bones are influencing them and by how much. Where this tool truly shines is with multiple vertex selections, intelligently displaying average weights across your selection – functionality the standard Blender interface simply can't match. This streamlined visual feedback makes the skinning process vastly more efficient, turning what was once a tedious back-and-forth process into a smooth, intuitive workflow.
After serving as a lead animator for many years, I had developed a specialized plugin for Maya that revolutionized how my team approached weight editing. When I eventually transitioned to Blender for a personal project, I found myself missing this refined workflow that had become second nature to our skinning process.
Rather than settling for workarounds, I decided to recreate this essential tool for the Blender ecosystem. Drawing on years of production experience and lessons learned from our battle-tested workflow, I was able to rebuild the concept from the ground up. The result wasn't just a simple port—it evolved into something even more powerful than the original. This Vertex Skin Weights Tool represents the culmination of practical skinning knowledge refined across multiple production environments, now optimized specifically for Blender's unique strengths. This is a simple workflow to learn and master, but at the same time gives you maximum control. Sometimes the simple but elegant solutions are the best.
Here's a Youtube Playlist with tutorial videos on how to use this addon: Youtube Tutorials Link
Key Features:
Multi-Bone Editing: Edit weights on multiple bones simultaneously - select any number of bones from the list to adjust them all at once
Precision Weight Editing: Set exact weight values with the click of a button or custom input
Quick Weight Nudging: Incrementally adjust weights up or down with automatic redistribution that maintains weight balance
Smart Copy/Paste: Copy weights from one vertex and paste to many with perfect accuracy
Advanced Mirroring: Mirror weights across axes with intelligent bone name matching (.L/.R, _L/_R)
Mesh-to-Mesh Transfer: Copy skin weights between completely different character meshes
Interactive Bone List: Displays and sorts influencing bones based on your vertex selection
Hammer Weights: Smooth and normalize weights using neighboring vertices
Who Needs This Tool?
Character Artists: Clean up skinning issues with surgical precision
Riggers: Quickly establish perfect weight values for mechanical joints or precise deformations
Animators: Fix weight problems without having to go back to the rigging department
Game Developers: Optimize skinning with exact weight values for performance-critical meshes
Why Choose Vertex Skin Weights Tool?
Our tool bridges the gap between Blender and industry-standard character rigging workflows. Inspired by professional tools from Maya and other DCC apps, we've created a complete weightmap editing solution that fits seamlessly into Blender's interface. The ability to select and adjust multiple bones at once transforms how you approach weight editing, saving hours of tedious work especially in complex areas like shoulders, hips, and facial rigs.
