Convert segmented bones to single bones.

Maybe someone has a quick solution to this?

I have a dinosaur model from a client that I have to export into .fbx and then into our company engine, but .fbx doesn’t support segmented bones and the tail is made from such bones.

Does anyone know how to convert those quickly to a string of bones, that will retain the weight paint??

Not sure if I’m understanding exactly what your asking…

but if your asking …

can I divide a bone down into more bones easily…? the answer is Yes…

select your bone… hit ‘W’ … then ‘S’ and choose how many segments you want from the left hand tool bar of the 3D window…

If the there was only one bone on the Dinosaur’s tail then their is only one weight assoicated with that bone…

your best option is to select the Mesh > Properites Panel > Object Data(3point triangle icon) > Vertex Groups… the black down arrow Icon > pick “lock all”
this will lock all your current weighted vertex groups… then find the one Vertex Group for the one tail bone…
delete it…
now select the tail bone… Tab into edit mode > W > S > pick however many segments you need > name the bones with something that makes since to you later
Select your mesh and Tab into Weight Paint mode (this won’t work right if you don’t)
Select all the newly created Tail segment bones > (they should show as being in Pose mode)
hit ‘W’ > pick “Assign automatic from bones”
(if you don’t get this option… or the option is ghosted out… you know your Mesh or the Armature is in the wrong mode… Remember Mesh in Weight Paint mode… Armature in Pose mode…)

This should give you automatic weighting on those new Tail bone segments without messing up any previous weight work that has ben done on the rest of your Mesh…

but as usall save your work first before you go messing around with it… just in case something doesn’t go right the first try…

Hi!

Thanks for the reply but that’s not what I mean.
Blender lets you have a single bone that’s dynamically sliced into segments. People use it for spines or tails or sometimes limbs,
so they don’t have to add a lot of bones, and the weights for the vertices belongign to that bone are distributed evenly on the virtual slices. However these don’t export to .fbx or any other format and I’ve come across a model that’s been rigged this way at work.

What I’d like to do is to press a single button, sort of like “make duplicates real” to have these segments convert to real bones without all the hassle.

Okay… so your wanting to convert B-bone segments into more bones…

My above explaintion I believe is your best option… IMHO

Unfortunately there is no “make B-bones segments into bones”… button…

(that would be a nice thing to have however) …

Heh, thanks, that’s what I was afraid of.
Yeah, it’s weird it’s not in there actually…
Or at least have the .fbx exporter make the segments into real bones…