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For those who don’t know the tool: morimoristudio’s Hair Bone Generator is a local rigging extension for Blender. It takes existing stylised mesh hair and generates a separate connected deform-bone chain through it, sitting between modelling and the later weighting, deformation and animation stages.
Hair tip in, bones out
Hair Bone Generator automates the part of hair rigging where somebody would otherwise place and align a succession of bones through a stylised strand. In Edit Mode, select one vertex or a small region at the hair tip, open 3D View > Sidebar > Hair Rig > Hair Bone Generator, enter a chain name and press Generate Hair Chain.
The result is a separate Guide Armature containing connected deform bones. From the second bone onward, each bone is parented and connected to the previous one, producing a normal Blender bone chain rather than a proprietary rig object. The tool targets mesh hair, not Blender’s procedural hair-curves system. The developer documents support for open hair cards, closed or tubular strands and hair built from several disconnected mesh islands.
Three ways through the hair
Auto is the normal one-click solver. It analyses the selected strand and builds a centre-line through the geometry rather than simply drawing a straight line between two points. Where the topology is clean and regular, the solver can follow ordered mesh structure directly. More complex geometry falls back to a general surface-based path through the strand.
The practical result is simple: the generated bones aim to sit through the middle of the hair rather than along one arbitrary surface edge. Version 1.1.0 also adds Follow Strand and Straight modes. Follow Strand prioritises the existing shape of the hair. Straight produces a cleaner, more direct guide through the selected strand. Artists can record Hair Tip and Hair Root markers when they want explicit endpoints rather than relying entirely on automatic detection. That gives riggers a useful choice between respecting the sculpt and simplifying the control chain.
Cards, tubes and braids
Flat hair cards and tubular strands need different ideas of “centre”, and the generator accounts for both. For open card-like geometry it estimates a centre through the width of the strand. For closed or layered hair it can place the guide inside the volume rather than simply following the visible surface.
Disconnected pieces can also be treated as one strand. This is useful for segmented braids, applied-array constructions and similar meshes where the visible hair is assembled from several separate islands. The user selects the pieces that belong together; neighbouring unselected eometry stays out of the calculation. That is important around dense hairstyles, where “nearest vertex” and “same strand” are very much not the same thing.
Bones are spaced by distance
Once the guide is solved, Hair Bone Generator resamples it by 3D path length. Bone Count ranges from 1 to 64 and defaults to 5. Bone Coverage ranges from 0 to 100 percent and defaults to full coverage. The requested bones are distributed evenly along the active part of the guide rather than simply being attached to whatever solver points happen to exist. Reverse Direction flips the chain orientation. This separation between solving and bone placement is useful: the extension can calculate as many intermediate points as it needs while the rigger still gets exactly the number of bones requested.
Nudge the root
A mathematically sensible centre-line can still leave the root joint somewhere inconvenient. Hair Root Depth and Hair Root Sideways therefore let the artist move the chain root relative to the local strand. Both range from -1 to +1 and use the local hair radius as their scale. Adjust Last Operation also exposes Chain Name, Bone Count, Bone Coverage, Reverse Direction and Show In Front.
Show In Front keeps the armature visible through the hair geometry, which is one of those tiny conveniences that becomes much less tiny after the twentieth strand. The current source also contains properties for Hair Tip Depth, Hair Tip Sideways and Chain Roll, but these are not exposed in the checked 1.1.0 Adjust Last Operation interface. A variable in Python is not automatically a button in Blender.
Regenerate, don’t duplicate
Regeneration is designed as correction rather than multiplication. If the same source mesh and recorded Hair Tip/Hair Root range are generated again, Hair Bone Generator rebuilds the existing chain instead of creating another armature on top of it. That makes switching between Auto, Follow Strand and Straight less likely to leave a small archaeological layer of abandoned rigs. The generated armature also stores source and generation metadata so the extension can identify its own chains rather than relying only on object names.
Naming behaves itself
Automatic naming uses the source mesh name followed by the smallest available positive two-digit suffix. A mesh called Hair can therefore produce Hair_01, Hair_02 and so on. The root bone takes the chain name, while child bones use Blender-style suffixes such as .001. The extension also checks for naming collisions instead of simply letting Blender silently invent another name. For anyone with scripts downstream, that is not glamorous. It is merely civilisation.
Bad topology gets a warning
Non-manifold geometry does not automatically block generation. The extension checks for edges shared by more than two faces and can warn the artist while still producing a chain. The developer specifically points to unwelded Mirror seams as a common cause and recommends Blender’s Select > All by Trait > Non Manifold command for inspection. That strikes a useful balance: generate when possible, complain when appropriate.
Bones only, please
Hair Bone Generator creates connected deform-bone chains. That is its production boundary. It does not document automatic weight painting, skin binding, hair dynamics, collision, grooming or secondary-motion simulation. Upstream, the hair mesh already needs to exist. Downstream, the generated bones can enter whatever weighting, constraint, physics or animation system the character pipeline already uses. The tool removes repetitive placement without attempting to become an entire hair department.
Small, local, inspectable
Hair Bone Generator 1.1.0 requires Blender 4.5 LTS or newer. The extension manifest sets Blender 4.5.0 as the minimum version. The developer reports testing on Blender 4.5.12 LTS, 5.0.1 and 5.2.1 LTS. Installation is available through Blender’s Get Extensions interface or from a downloaded ZIP. The current package is 78.5 KB.
The extension declares no external dependencies, no special permissions and no network access. Geometry solving and armature creation happen locally inside Blender. The source is public under GNU GPL v3.0 or later.
Hair Bone Generator will not animate the hair, weight the character or tell the art director that 146 separate bangs may be ambitious. It just gets the bones through them with much less ceremony.
Studios should test Hair Bone Generator on representative production meshes, topology variants, naming conventions and downstream deformation rigs before introducing it into an active character pipeline.
https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/hair-bone-generator/versions/
https://github.com/morimoristudio3D/hair-bone-generator
https://booth.pm/ja/items/8775888
| Product | Hair Bone Generator |
| Developer | morimoristudio / MORIMORI |
| Host | Blender 4.5 LTS or newer |
| Version | 1.1.0 |
| Input | Stylised mesh hair; selected Hair Tip with optional recorded Hair Root |
| Output | Separate Guide Armature with connected deform bones |
| Guide methods | Auto, Follow Strand, Straight |
| Bone Count | 1–64; default 5 |
| Bone Coverage | 0–100%; default 100% |
| Root controls | Hair Root Depth and Sideways, each -1 to +1 local strand radius |
| Other controls | Chain Name, Reverse Direction, Show In Front |
| Supported mesh structures | Open cards, closed/tubular strands, selected disconnected mesh islands |
| Regeneration | Same source range rebuilds the existing generated chain |
| Minimum Blender | 4.5.0 |
| Developer-tested builds | 4.5.12 LTS, 5.0.1, 5.2.1 LTS |
| Package | 78.5 KB ZIP |
| External dependencies | None documented |
| Network access | None |
| Languages | English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean |
| Licence | GNU GPL v3.0 or later |
| Pricing | ¥0 |
