2026-08-06 Animation & Rigging module meeting

[sybren]

The meeting was on 2026-08-06T16:00:00Z.

People present are referred to by first name for brevity. Others are referred to by full name.

Present: Christoph Lendenfeld, David Woolf, Eitan Traurig, Nacho de Andrés, Sybren Stüvel

Links

• Video Call, open for everybody interested to join
• Previous meeting notes
• A&R Module Meetings calendar for inclusion in your own calendar app
• Draft agenda for the next meeting
• Long Term Plans & Current Focus
• Issues & Pull Requests
• #module-animation chat channel

Opening

• Please raise your hand when you don’t understand things for any reason. The purpose of these meetings is collaboration. It is absolutely fine to ask for explanations.
• There are no recordings of the meeting. This way everybody is free to say or show anything they want.

Since the Last Meeting / Announcements

• The Layered Actions project has started! :party:
• #162364: Refactor: Add ID::id_type() accessor function
• Reminder: double-check PR titles before landing.

Landed

Names are from the Git log.

Blender

• f40b64e4d02: Fix #162068: Rigging: Clarify “Weight from Bones” in the description (YimingWu)
• 63d2c59e1bb: Fix: Markers - exhaustive check for Lock Markers (RedMser)
• ade68c48b65: Markers: clarify name of convert pose marker operator (RedMser)
• e01801fb48e: Fix #159418: Anim: Scaling keyframes with snapping incorrectly updates handles (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• f13eda6d31e: Fix: Ignore non-bone hits for bone selection (Philipp Oeser)
• 2bad74a818e: Fix #162135: Anim: node socket versioning error with embedded node trees (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 1d51ce84788: Python: Update API docs for frame_change_pre app handler (Simon Thommes)
• b24ff33355f: Fix #162135: Anim: node socket versioning error part 2 (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 58103fc888f: Fix #162046: Empty bone name crashes Blender (Christoph Lendenfeld)
• af9ba6af762: Fix #162155: Allow walk/fly with constraints that have no influence (Philipp Oeser)
• f5b15134543: Fix: Anim loop mode ‘Stop at End Frame’ + starting at end frame can fail (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• d620e03e752: Fix: Anim loop mode ‘Stop at End Frame’ + start at end frame + cancel fails (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 4bdfb6df7ae: UI: Bring Time jump buttons inline with playback buttons (Christoph Lendenfeld)
• c53af423f92: CODEOWNERS: add an Animation & Rigging section (Sybren A. Stüvel)
• 9c5bf7b4934: Fix: Empty bone name could still crash Blender on file load (Christoph Lendenfeld)
• 76d2e97a2f4: Fix #162328: Shape key crash with pose markers (Pratik Borhade)
• 2291b976628: Anim: use camera lens parameters in Fix to Camera operator (Sybren A. Stüvel)

Technical Documentation

• 5c8f7ae6: Update docs/release_notes/5.3/animation_rigging.md (Christoph Lendenfeld)

User Manual

• 8c4ee3644: Anim: document for the updated Add Bone operator (Wayne Dixon)
• 3aca09fb7: Animation: Move inbetweens page to top level of the Animation & Rigging category (Christoph Lendenfeld)

Ongoing Work

• Module Focus: Layered Actions project, currently working on the Animation Filter replacement prototype.
• High Severity bugs:
  • #161861: Calculating a motion path causes a crash if hide_viewport or hide_render is keyed (fix)
• Christoph:
  • Christoph’s weekly report
  • working on the animfilter replacement prototype
  • #162421: UI: Align time editor lines and labels with scene start
    • Test build available, please try it out!
  • #162373: UI: Allow alpha on playhead
  • #162081: Anim: Dynamically determine motion path update range taking the lessons from the threaded evaluation into main gives a 4-10x performance boost for updating.
• Nathan:
  • Nathan’s weekly report
  • Worked on the animfilter replacement prototype
• Sybren:
  • Sybren’s weekly report
  • Worked on the animfilter replacement prototype
  • #159418: Anim: Scaling keyframes with snapping incorrectly updates handles
    • Fix landed, also on back-port list for 5.2.
  • #162401: Anim: backward-incompatible changes for 6.0
  • #162415: Anim: use camera lens parameters in Fix to Camera operator
  • #162418: UI: use multiline label in Fix to Camera operator UI

Patches: Review & Decision Time

• #162239: Fix #74726: Renaming a vertex group now updates modifiers that reference it
  • Should renaming a vertex group also rename the bone it corresponds to?
  • Sybren: gut feeling says “no”
  • Christoph: it’s useful when fixing up a rigged character, for example after swapping the armature for another, to be able to just rename vertex groups to make them match. If that has side-effects, where it changes the bone name but ONLY if it happens to match a bone, that would be weird.
  • Nacho: can you see in the UI whether a vertex group is for bone deformations?
  • Sybren & Christoph: nope.
  • Sybren: having these chained renames (vertex group → bone → bone-referencing property) makes things too complex. For example, it’ll break when some custom property happened to be a bone name, but Blender didn’t know about it and thus didn’t update it.
  • Conclusion: don’t rename the bone when the vertex group is renamed.

Demo Time!

Christoph & Sybren give a demo of the ‘animdata filtering replacement prototype’.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be on 2026-08-11T10:00:00Z. Again it will be open for everybody who’s interested. The provisionary meeting agenda will be updated before the meeting.