Skin Selection

Blender 2.8:

The addon has been ported to Blender 2.8!

Cache performances have been improved in the latest version (3 times faster on average).

Blender 2.79 version: download the "skin_selection_1.90xx" file

Blender 2.80 version: download the "skin_selection_1.94xx" file

Skin Selection is a Blender addon to select the bones controllers based on the meshes surface.

It allows to hide all the controllers and work directly on the mesh, clearing out the viewport.

Hope it will be useful to you!

To support the work, this addon is not free, but still affordable. 

Thanks!

Notes:

-Selection can be wrong in ortho mode, switch to perspective mode! (numpad key 5)

-Multiple bones selection is not yet implemented.

-Bones controllers names must end with a two characters side, eg: "hand.l" or "hand_L" for left, "hand.r" or "hand_R" for right side, or ".x" for middle... This ensures skin selection to work with mirror modifiers.

-If multiple bones are included in the group, they must be from the same side.

-When switching to edit mode, the skin selection will stop.

Usage:

1)Create the vertex groups:

-Under the Vertex Groups Creation label, add up to three bone controllers.

-Click Create VGroup. A corresponding vertex group is added. The group are easily recognizable with the "fs:" prefix for "face selection" vertex groups.

-Assign the faces/vertices for this vertex group.

-Optionally if the group is from the right or left side, click Mirror Selected VGroup to mirror it on the other side.

2)Display options:

Optionally change the display parameter: color, alpha...

3)Click Start! 

-Only the meshes will be displayed.

4)Click an area on the mesh to select the associated controller. 

Click to select the first mapped controller, hold Shift for the second, and Alt for the third.

5)Press escape key or the Stop button to go back to the normal mode.

To report bugs, please send an email (sent by gumroad after purchase).

Release log:

[1.95.11]

Blender 4.2 support, Addon as Extension

Blender 4.0 support, fix incompatibilities

[1.94.15]

New option "Stop with Escape key" to stop Skin Selection with the Escape key optionally

New option "Keep Highlights" to keep on showing polygons highlighting after the bone selection when rotating, translating the bone.

Reorganized the interface with drawers (arrow icons to expand or collapse the UI)

Automatically rebuild mesh cache on topology changes

Fixed multiple armature switch and selection

Blender 2.91 fixes

Fix error when the armature pointer is lost

Fixed text display glitches with Blender 2.9x versions

Fixed proxy compatibility with Blender 2.9x versions

[1.93.10]

Improved cache performance, up to 4 time faster

[1.92.10]

Add Auto-Backface cull option to hide backface of highlighted faces

[1.91.17]

Update to Blender 2.8

Fully refactored:

-New face highlighting based on custom OpenGL shaders

-Caching function to store the meshes data

-Text label

[1.90]

Better performances when Subsurf is enabled

Fixed:

-Subsurf simplification was reset to 0 in some cases

-Face index error

-Mac platforms does not support Open Subdiv yet

[1.07]

Shortcuts to select the second and third controller can be user defined, between alt, ctrl and shift.

The error popping when the second or third controllers are not set can now be disabled.

[1.06]

Supports OpenSubdiv

[1.05]

Added drawing options for faster highlight (less accurate), longer highlight (accurate)

[1.00]

Skin Selection release!