Numerous tools have been added to make the process of creating and editing armatures easier. These are all available from handy hotkeys, and include:

• Merge Bones
• Add Bones Between Joints
• Separate Armature
• Layer Changing Hotkeys
• Automatic Bone Extension Adder
• ... plus improvements to existing tools

Merge Bone(s)

It is now possible to select a bunch of linked bones and "merge" them together. Each chain of selected and connected bones will be merged into a single bone. Currently, there's only one option to merge bones that are selected and linked to each other in a chain.

Use the hotkey Alt-M to merge bones.

Add Bone Between Joints (Fill Between Joints)

Depending on the number of joints selected, and which joints were selected, a new bone will be created:

• 1 Joint - A new bone will be created from the selected joint, to the 3d-cursor
• 2 Joints - A new bone will be created between the selected joints based on the hierarchy of the bones. When there is any doubt about which direction the new bone should be placed, the joint closer to the 3d-cursor becomes the tail of the bone.

Use the hotkey FKEY to add a bone between the selected bones.

There are now three new tools in the WKEY menu for Armatures in EditMode/PoseMode. These add .* extensions to the names of selected bones based on their position in 3d-space on the axis considered by that tool. They will remove any existing extensions for various sides.

The naming schemes work in the following ways:

• Left-Right names (along x-axis)
• Front-Back names (along y-axis)
• Top-Bottom names (along z-axis)

It is now possible to separate selected bones into a new armature using the hotkey Ctrl Alt P.

A few hotkeys similar to those found in the Action Editor, have been added to make it possible to quickly set one of several settings on multiple bones at the same time.

The tools available are (also accessable from the Pose->Bone Settings Menu):

• Toggle a Setting - Shift W
• Enable a Setting - Ctrl Shift W
• Disable a Setting - Alt W

The settings which can be modified by these means include:

• Draw Wire
• Deform
• Mult VG
• Hinge
• No Scale

Bone Roll - Align to Cursor

A new way to set the bone roll has been introduced. It aligns the z-axis of the selected bone(s) to the 3D-Cursor, so that the cursor intersects with the YZ plane.

This makes it easier to align bone rolls to a target, for use in rigs where arms/legs are not horizontal/vertical. To use this, just press Ctrl N, and choose the "Align Z-Axis to 3D-Cursor" option.

Credits go to Robert Christian (wavez) for providing the method as a working BPy script, that demonstrated this in action.

Subdivide Multi for Bones

Subdivide multi functionality is now available for armatures. It lets you specify the number of divisions that selected bones should be divided into.

This can be found in the WKEY menu.

Parenting Bones

Multiple selected bones are now able to be parented to the active bone in EditMode with the Ctrl P hotkey. Previously, only one selected bone could be parented to another at a time.

When X-Axis-Mirror is enabled, bones will be parented to the complementary bone of the active bone instead of the active bone itself. This behaviour is more natural than the previous behaviour.

Duplicating Bones

Duplicating bones now also duplicates the Transform Locks, and IK DOF settings, along with constraints.

Snap Cursor to Selected

The behaviour of Snap Cursor to Selected now targets the midpoint of the selected joints now instead of targeting the heads of the bones.

X-Axis Mirror Support

X-Axis Mirror option is now supported by more editing tools, including:

• Delete Bone (X)
• Recalculate Bone Roll Angles... (Ctrl-N)
• Duplicate Bone (Shift-D)
• Clear Parent... (Alt-P)

Bone Point Naming Scheme

The various places where the two ends of the bone are referred to now have a consistent naming scheme. Now head/tail are used for naming these places.

In addition to the improvements for rigging, there are new tools for posing. These include:

• Auto-IK tweaks
• Auto-Keyframing
• Layer Changing Hotkeys

Scrollwheel for Chain Length

When translating a bone using Auto-IK, you can now use the ScrollWheel on the Mouse or the Page Up/Down keys to adjust the chain length.

Notes:

• Up decreases the length, while Down increases it.
• The previously used chain-length is stored per scene
• Currently, it might be too sensitive. Also, it would help to have some kind of indication of the current chain-length somewhere...
• The chain length specified this way determines the MAXIMUM chain length possible for all chains (if 0, then the default chain-length is used). Chains are clamped to have a chain length which does not exceed the default chain length.

Transform Locks

AutoIK now respects axis locking (rotation locks).

Temporary DOF-Locks are turned on for those bones that are part of an AutoIK chain while transforming. These locks get cleared after transforming.

This works for all bones except the root bone of the chain, which doesn't seem to be able to be locked.

Assorted Changes

• 'Auto IK' is a great feature, however when solitary unconnected bone (without connected child bones) is grabbed it can't be moved because of IK. This can be really annoying. Preventing 'Auto IK' for solitary bones would improve user-experience by making mixing of FK and IK more convenient while using 'Auto IK'
• Auto-IK can now operate on more then 1 selected bone at once, (as long as they are not a part of the same chain).

Overview

The Auto-Keyframing code has been refactored to make it easier to add more options. There are now three "states" for auto-keying: off, add/replace keys, replace keys.

Description of modes:

1. No auto-keying is done
2. Add new keyframes or replace existing ones if possible (old behaviour)
3. Only modify existing keys, but not insert new ones.

In the TimeLine header, there is now a mode selector beside the 'big-red-button', which only shows up when Auto-Keying is enabled.

Internally,  the auto-keying settings have been moved out of G.flag and U.uiflag and moved them into their own variables in Userdef, and provided some macros to access those easily. As a result, old auto-keying settings are currently lost.

'Only Needed' Improvements

The 'Only Needed' option for Auto-Keyframing now works better with a few of the different transform options.

Rotating/Scaling using a pivot point that is not the center of the Object/Bone (3d-cursor, active), also inserts location keyframes if the location also changes. If "Only Centers" option is activated, then only location keyframes are inserted.

Tool Availability

Auto-Keyframing now works on the following tools as well as standard transforms:

• Snap Tools (Shift S)
• Clear Location/Rotation/Scale (Alt-G/S/R)

There are now popup layer-selectors for changing the active Armature Layers and to also to change the layers of selected bones. These are more convenient than requiring trips between the 3D-view and Buttons Window.

The hotkeys are for this are now as follows:

• MKEY - move selected bones to layer(s)
• SHIFT-MKEY - change the currently visible armature layers
• CTRL-MKEY - mirror selected bones