The Bone Merger for Blender is an useful addon for animators. Its final purose is to parent a bone from a rig to a bone from another rig.
It can also be used to parent bone to object and vice versa, if an objcet different from an armature is specified.
This allows, for example, for props that follow characters hands; pieces of clothing, such as a hat that can follow the character's head; characters picking up things; and even changing a prop's parent, such as an object passing from hand to hand.
Sure enough, this addon allows to dynamically contruct relations between bones of different rigs.
This addon makes use of a chain of parented and constrained empties (shown in detial in the image below).
One object or bone (child) can have multiple parents; the "Parent Switch" panel allows the user to switch parents on the fly, just by putting a keyframe on the right constraint influences; switching parent is one keyframe away and it can also be esaed, animated and mixed since it's a gradual influence going from 0 to 1.
Once you get used to the Bone Merger for Blender workflow it will be impossible to animate without it!
This panel gives access to the main operator of the addon, "Parent and Constraint", and its options; as well as access to the "Manage Relations" panel.
Parent: The parent object of this relation. If it's an armature, a bone field will appear. Parent bone: the bone of the parent armature which will be the parent in this relation. Child: The child object of this relation. If it's an armature, a bone field will appear. In case of specification of a bone, only the bone will follow the parent; if a bone is not specified, the whole child object will follow the parent object or bone. Child bone: the bone of the parent armature which will be the parent in this relation.
New: a new relation will be registered, granted that the parent and child are different from a previously registered relation.
Overwrite: this option allows the user to quickly change the parent of a previously registered relation. Upon selecting it, the user can choose which parent to overwrite in case of multiple parents registered. Note: due to Blender limitations, the scrubbing is not limited to existing parents, so the user may "overwrite" an empty index that shows no parent name and it will count as a new relation. However, it is advised to occupy the next index in order and not skip any indexes.
Snap empty on parent: check this box to snap the child on the parent. Useful if the user isn't seeking an offset effect.
Hide new empties: check this box to automatically hide the newly created empties from the viewport.
Empties collection: select the collection where the empties will be linked. If no collection is specified, a new collection by the name of "bm_empties" will be created in the scene main collection and used.
Parent and Constraint: click this button to create a new relation with the parameters specified above.
Warning:
- If you change the name of the empties or the bones after the relation is registrerd, you have to update them by clicking on "manage relations", typing the new namesw in the respective fields, then clicking "update".
Note: thanks to CGCookie's addon updater included in this addon, when you open this panel and a new version of the addon has been released, it will prompt you the possibility of update it immediately. You need to enable "auto-check" in the addon preferences for this check to occur automatically.
Manage Relations: click to access the Manage Relations panel. See below.
This panel allows the user to update relation informations, such as change a parent or an empty, or delete relations altogether.
Update Note: the child can't be changed since the data of the relation is stored on the child. To change the child, please make a new relation and remove the previous one.
Remove Deletes this relation from the list; deletes the empties; removes the constraints. Does not remove any keys of animation.
Manually register new relation Prompts empty fields to register an existing relation manually if it's not appearing in the list and can't be detected by "Try auto recognize parenting".
Try auto recognize parenting This option may be used if one or more relations previously made with the addon have lost their parenting info and aren't shown in the Manage Relations panel. This option may also be used if the parenting with the empties has been done by hand, using the same method as the addon: this allows these kind of relations to be managed, changed or removed by the Bone Merger.
Why "try"? Because it is not guaranteed to succeed, given the number of variables involved in the process and how humans may have not followed it precisely, as well as changes between different versions of the addon.
This panel is only visible in pose mode of the child rig. It is currently only available if the child is a bone and not an object. This panel shows the influence of the Copy Transforms constraint on the bone, so that they can be animated and the relation can be switched or toggled on and off altogether. By pressing "I" on the influences a key will be put in place. Th epurpose of the panel is to quickly animate the influences while animating the rest of the character.
Show all: if off, only shows the influences of the active bone. If on, shows all influences of all relations in the rig.
This addon can be updated to it latest release from within Blender. The addon update options are in the "Preferences" panel, the one in the Prefrences window of Blender. It's the panel that appears when you enable the Addon:
The relations info is stored on the child bone or on the child object if no bone is specified as a custom porperty.
This addon was used in many production of MAD Entertainment studio, such as Food wizards and Due Battiti.
====================== BEGIN GPL LICENSE BLOCK ======================
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
======================= END GPL LICENSE BLOCK ========================
Addon coded by Betti Abbattista https://github.com/Betti83771
Addon updater: https://github.com/CGCookie/blender-addon-updater
Base idea: Corrado Piscitelli https://github.com/GigiSpligi
Name idea: Gmod addon https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104601200