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Yawp - Yet Another Weight Painter

by MozzarellaARC·Workflow

Images © MozzarellaARC. Used for product review; image policy.

Why we like it

YAWP earns its place in the superhive library by consolidating vertex group lookup and weight manipulation into a single Blender sidebar panel. Worth noting: auto-selection carries a slight threading overhead that may become noticeable at higher vertex density.

What is Yawp - Yet Another Weight Painter?

YAWP - Yet Another Weight Painter is a Blender 4.2+ add-on for rigging and weight paint work. From a single sidebar panel, it lets you look up vertex group data and their immediate parent-child relationships in one click. It's aimed at character artists, riggers, and technical artists who rummage through hundreds of vertex groups across different naming standards or languages.

The add-on centers on agnostic selection: auto-selection picks a vertex group from a vertex selection based on the highest average weight, and an influence overlay temporarily highlights vertices influenced by groups co-affecting the active one. A set of weight tools handles manipulation without changing modes, including a Mean Weight slider that preserves relative differences, set-to-common/min/max values, custom smoothing, world-space mirror across an axis, prune clusters, and trim weaker side.

Auto-selection performance runs near native, with a slight threading overhead that may become noticeable at higher vertex density. YAWP installs as a Blender 4.2+ extension and is released under the GPL-3.0-or-later license. A demo video is available.

Who is Yawp - Yet Another Weight Painter best for?

Yawp - Yet Another Weight Painter is best for character artists, riggers, and technical artists who work through large numbers of vertex groups across different naming standards or languages in Blender.

How much does Yawp - Yet Another Weight Painter cost?

Yawp - Yet Another Weight Painter is completely free to download and use.

Key features

  • Quick vertex group relational data lookup, showing immediate parent-child relationships in a single click
  • Agnostic auto-selection that picks a vertex group from a vertex selection by the highest average weight
  • Influence overlay that temporarily highlights vertices influenced by groups co-affecting the active one
  • Mean Weight slider that preserves relative differences, plus set-to-common/min/max values
  • Custom weight smoothing, world-space mirror across an axis, prune clusters, and trim weaker side
  • Handles vertex weight manipulation from a single panel without changing modes
  • Familiar naming convention across the interface, with tooltips to help you navigate

Tags

#weight painting#rigging#vertex groups#weight paint#Blender#interface#vertex

Frequently asked questions

Does YAWP work with Blender 4.2?

YAWP requires Blender 4.2 or newer and installs as an extension. It operates in edit and weight paint contexts, giving you vertex group lookup and weight manipulation tools without leaving your current mode. If you're on an earlier Blender release, you'll need to update before using the add-on, since it's built around the 4.2+ extensions system. Once installed, the panel lives in the 3D Viewport sidebar under the YAWP tab.

How do I install YAWP in Blender?

YAWP installs through Blender's extensions system. Download the .zip file named yawp, then open Blender and go to Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions, use the dropdown menu, and choose Install from Disk before selecting the zip. After installing, find the add-on in the 3D Viewport sidebar (press N) under the YAWP tab and its YAWP panel. From there you can toggle auto-selection, the weight overlay, and the influence overlay to start working.

Does YAWP slow down on high-density meshes?

YAWP's auto-selection performance runs near native, and most of its optimization targets this area. There is a slight overhead from threading during auto-selection, and that overhead can become noticeable on meshes with higher vertex density. It's worth weighing this against the convenience of quick lookup through vertex selection. For lighter meshes the difference stays minimal, but on very dense geometry you may want to keep it in mind.

Is YAWP free, and what license does it use?

YAWP is listed as free here in our catalog and is released under the GPL-3.0-or-later license by MozzarellaARC. For current licensing terms and any updates, check the developer's page directly. The add-on's core features cover vertex group lookup, auto-selection, and a set of weight manipulation tools including the Mean Weight slider, custom smoothing, world-space mirror, prune clusters, and trim weaker side.

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