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  • Published 30 Mar 2025

New Operator (Edit Mode): Align Bone (entire Bone Body) Orthogonally to World Space (pick: +X/-X, +Y/-Y, +Z/-Z)

Hi, folks.

Currently, there already exist features such as:

Align a Bone to another Active Bone in the Selection [ Ctrl+Alt+A ];

and:

Recalculate Roll [ Shift+N ], with the aid of a Context Menu.

However, there isn't a more immediate way to Align to any of the World Axes, the whole Body of the Bone (Head & Tail) available, so the rigger needs to make a lot of annoying steps just to reach an exacting Alignment of the Bone... In my case, I usually Add a temporary 'Alignment' Bone to the Skeleton I'm working in, and Rotate this Bone +90º/-90º (or anything like that), plus Clear Roll (or something like that), just to get exacting World Space Alignments. But this is annoying and lacks efficiency. And if the Bone is Added randomly, sometimes it's Invisible, because it was Added to an Active Bone Collection that is not showing and was accidentally set as Active; then I need to go grab that Bone in the Hidden Bone Collection, or just [ Ctrl+Z ], make sure I'm in a Visible and adequate Bone Collection, and Add the temporary Bone; and then I can manipulate its Orientation...... so it can be used as an Active element for the Bone I just want to Align to World Space (e.g., maybe World +Y ). After that, I just Delete the temporary Bone. Here is another method, using the Sidebar Region, but that is also innefficient:

youtu.be/jvNoQWhAoDk

If doing this rarely, it's probably not a big deal. But when it comes to a Rigging expierence on the long run in Blender, this simple lack of a 'vanilla' (default) Operation that just does that fundamental trick, is frustrating.

What I conceive, is a new Operator that would work a bit like the Recalculate Roll one, because it has got the Context Menu, with 3 lists (Positive/Negative/Other) of course containing what interests me the most: World Space Orientations.

Actually, I believe it can be extended beyond just the 6 available World Space Alignements, but I do not have thought further. So, I'm just suggesting the Align Bone To (whichever of the 6) World Orientation(s), without requiring to have another Active Bone in the Selection to be able to do this trick.

Thanks!

PS: Also, I'm not sure if this could be used the same way on Pose Mode...? I believe it would be useful as well and efficient, but most likely for different purposes. So, my focus here is mostly on Edit Mode.

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Development Status: Open

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pxy-gnomes
30 Mar 2025

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