by Tayou·Modeling
Images © Tayou. Used for product review; image policy.
Bone and Vertex Group Merge earns its spot in the Blender Extensions library as a focused rigging utility: it folds selected bones into the active bone in a single operator while handling the associated vertex groups. The switch between chain-by-chain merging and flattening an entire selection gives it some flexibility for different armature edits.
Bone and Vertex Group Merge is a Blender add-on from Tayou for combining bones in an armature. It merges any number of selected bones into the active bone, working with respect to the meshes and their vertex groups.
The operator sits in the right-click menu as "Merge Bones", and its properties in the bottom-left corner let you adjust how the merge behaves. You can merge multiple bone chains in a single pass, with each chain merged individually by default, or merge all selected bones into the active bone regardless of their position in the hierarchy.
The add-on runs on Blender 4.2 LTS and newer and requires no special permissions. It's released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later, with source available on the developer's GitHub page.
Bone and Vertex Group Merge is best for blender artists cleaning up or simplifying armatures who need to merge bones while keeping mesh vertex groups intact.
Bone and Vertex Group Merge is completely free to download and use.
Bone and Vertex Group Merge lists compatibility with Blender 4.2 LTS and newer. It can be installed directly from the Blender Extensions repository on those versions, either by dragging the add-on into Blender or installing it from disk. If you're running an older release, you would need to upgrade Blender to 4.2 LTS or later before the add-on will run. The current version is 1.4.1.
Bone and Vertex Group Merge can be installed a couple of ways. From extensions.blender.org on Blender 4.2.0 and up, open Preferences, go to Get Extensions, and search for the add-on. Alternatively, download the .py file from the developer's GitHub page, then use Preferences > Add-ons > Install and enable it. You can also drag and drop the add-on into Blender or install it from disk.
Bone and Vertex Group Merge can merge multiple bone chains at once. By default each chain is merged individually, so selecting several separate chains processes each one on its own. It also offers a mode that merges all selected bones into the active bone while ignoring their hierarchical position. You select the armature, select the bones, then run the Merge Bones operator from the right-click menu, adjusting the behaviour through the operator properties in the bottom-left corner.
Bone and Vertex Group Merge is listed as free here in the catalog, and it's released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later. The add-on also states that it requires no special permissions. For the current licensing terms and any updates, check the developer's GitHub page. The extension is available from the Blender Extensions repository for Blender 4.2 LTS and newer.
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