Bone Layers in Blender<br /><br />In Blender, Bone Layers are a way to organize bones inside an Armature.<br /><br />👉 Think of them like folders or visibility groups for bones—so you can keep deform bones, control bones, and helper bones separate and easily manageable.<br /><br />🔑 Key Points about Bone Layers<br /><br />Organization<br /><br />Complex rigs can have dozens or even hundreds of bones.<br /><br />Bone Layers let you split them up (e.g., one layer for deformation bones, one for IK controls, one for facial bones).<br /><br />Visibility Control<br /><br />You can hide/show bones layer by layer.<br /><br />Makes the armature less cluttered when animating.<br /><br />Each Armature has 32 Bone Layers<br /><br />Shown as a grid of small squares in the armature properties.<br /><br />A bone can exist on one or multiple layers.<br /><br />Layer Access<br /><br />You can quickly move bones to different layers in Pose Mode / Edit Mode.<br /><br />Shortcut: M (Move bone to layer).<br /><br />🔹 Example<br /><br />For a character rig:<br /><br />Layer 1 → Deform bones (spine, arms, legs, etc.)<br /><br />Layer 2 → IK controllers (hands, feet)<br /><br />Layer 3 → Facial bones (mouth, eyebrows, eyelids)<br /><br />Layer 4 → Helper bones (pole targets, root bone, etc.)<br /><br />When animating, the animator might only need to see controllers, so they hide other layers.<br /><br />✅ In short:<br />Bone Layers in Blender are a system for organizing and controlling the visibility of bones within an armature. They help keep rigs clean and animator-friendly.
