Blender has a new version out, and the thing that first caught my eye was the image below.

The ability to smooth bone weight influences…   smoothly (without using a paintbrush).

When I started learning Blender’s rigging tools, I noticed the lack of a proper workflow for smoothing skinning weights. I spent days trying to replicate  a workflow that I have relied on for years in another software. DAYS. I even preparing a plan and was setting aside time to build a tool to handle this…  but then… BAM!  Here we go.

This is not the first time this Blender has  read my mind.

*10 minutes later*

Installed and tested this on Ubuntu.  Works!!!

I was so excited to see this feature added to Blender, I nearly put this as my Facebook Cover Photo.  Hey!  Don’t look at me like that.

Workflow is everything.  Key word being “flow”. Flow is a difficult state to reach when doing something as technical as rigging and skinning is a process that most everyone hates, even riggers. I’m one of the few that enjoyed the process as was able to get to a nice zen state and just… well…  flow!

I’m a big dork.  Where’s my badge?

This is also  not the only impressive improvement in the newest release.  Checkout the list of new features here.

*UPDATE*

CGCookie just released a short video demonstrating this new skinning feature, along with the Mesh Data Transfer tool, which simplifies the process of transferring skinning weights.