Free Hair Bone Generator add-on rigs a hair strand from a single selected vertex

Rigging stylized hairstyles remains one of the most mechanical steps in character preparation: the rigger places bones along each strand by hand. The free Hair Bone Generator add-on reduces this work to selecting a single vertex at the tip of a strand — it then builds the bone chain on its own.

The tool was released by a developer going by morimoristudio and is distributed through the official Blender Extensions platform. The result of generation is a Guide Armature with a single connected chain of deform bones that follows the overall flow of the strand.

One vertex instead of placing bones by hand

The workflow is short. The rigger selects the hair mesh, enters Edit Mode and selects a vertex or a small area at the tip of the strand. They then open the sidebar (N key), go to the Hair Rig tab, enter a chain name and click Generate Hair Chain. The add-on determines the flow of the strand by itself and lays out bones along it.

The generator is not tied to a single hair modeling method. It supports open hair cards, closed and tubular strands, as well as selecting several strands at once.

Braids and strands made of separate mesh pieces are supported too

For complex cases, the add-on has an Advanced section. There you can manually mark the tip and root of a strand (Hair Tip and Hair Root) and choose the generation method: Follow Strand builds the chain along the curve of the hair, while Straight keeps it as straight as the selected strand allows. The panel shows whether each point is marked manually or detected automatically, and lets you clear the mark.

Braids and strands assembled from disconnected mesh pieces get a dedicated solution: simply mark the tip and root, then select the needed fragments — or press A to take the whole object. Another detail arrived in version 1.1.0: regenerating on the same marked range fixes the existing chain instead of creating a second one next to it.

The result can be tweaked right after generation in Blender's standard “Adjust Last Operation” panel, without rerunning the operation:

• Chain Name — the name of the chain;
• Bone Count — the number of bones;
• Bone Coverage — how much of the strand they cover;
• Hair Root Depth and Hair Root Sideways — lifting the root end out of the strand and shifting it sideways;
• Reverse Direction — reversing the direction of the chain;
• Show In Front — displaying bones on top of the mesh.

Requirements and where to download

The Hair Bone Generator add-on requires Blender 4.5 LTS or newer; the developer states that version 1.1.0 has been tested on 4.5.12 LTS, 5.0.1 and 5.2.1 LTS. The add-on runs entirely inside Blender, needs no external dependencies or network access, and does not request any special permissions. Update 1.1.0 was released on August 24, 2026; on the extension page the add-on has the top rating, with a small number of reviews.

Interface labels and tooltips are translated into English, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Tooltip translation is enabled in Blender's settings (Preferences → Interface → Translation → Tooltips), while error messages and warnings in Japanese and Korean are still shown in English for now.

Why tools like this are appearing now

Hair Bone Generator addresses a narrow task, but the choice of task itself is telling. Stylized characters with voluminous card-based hairstyles are common in indie game development, mobile projects and among virtual presenters, and they account for a significant share of manual hair rigging. Meanwhile, major vendors invest more in realistic hair simulation and grooming than in bone chains for stylized locks.

Update 1.1.0 added generation modes and fixed the creation of duplicate chains — the tool is likely being refined based on feedback from working riggers. The Blender Extensions platform has made this kind of distribution noticeably easier: a small add-on reaches users through the built-in extensions manager, without a separate website or update system. Against this backdrop, the niche of highly specialized free automation tools in Blender will likely keep growing, and for riggers this means shifting work from placing bones to tuning weights and chain behavior.

How do you rig stylized strands?

• With a bone chain generator
• By placing bones manually