Bone Editing Tools Rollout

Bone Edit Mode—Turn on to change the lengths of bones and their positions relative to one another. When this button is turned on, you can change the length of a bone by moving its child bone. You can use this mode both before and after assigning an IK chain to the bone structure. Turn off this mode when animating bones.

Create Bones—Begins the bone creation process. Clicking this button is the same as clicking Create panel > Systems > Bones.

Create End—Creates a nub bone at the end of the currently selected bone. If the selected bone is not at the end of a chain, the nub is linked in sequence between the currently selected bone and the next bone in the chain.

Remove Bone—Removes the currently selected bone. The bone’s parent bone is stretched to reach the removed bone’s pivot point, and any children of the removed bone are linked to its parent. Any IK chains that included the removed bone will remain intact.

Connect Bones—Creates a connecting bone between the currently selected bone and another bone. When you click this button, a dotted line appears in the active viewport from the first selected bone. Move the cursor to another bone to create a new connecting bone. The first selected bone will become a parent to the connecting bone, which is in turn a parent to the second selected bone.

Delete Bone—Deletes the currently selected bone, removing all its parent/child associations. A nub is placed at the end of the deleted bone’s parent. Any IK chains that included this bone become invalid.

Reassign Root—Makes the currently selected bone the root (parent) of the bone structure.

Refine—Splits a bone into two bones. Click Refine, then click a bone where you want it to split.

Selected Bone Color—Sets the color for selected bones.

Apply Gradient—Applies a gradient color across several bones based on the Start Color and End Color values. This option is available only when two or more bones are selected. The Start Color is applied to the highest parent bone in the selected chain, while the End Color is applied to the last child object in the selected chain. Intermediate colors in the gradient are applied to bones in between.

Start Color—Sets the starting color for the gradient.

End Color—Sets the ending color for the gradient.