Tried messing with the vertex masking modifier, but it only seems to visually mask rather than masking vertices from manipulation. I’m probably not the only one here who would like to have similar functionality that lets a 3D artist use vertex groups to control which parts of the mesh that can be altered. It should also have some way to respect vertex weighting in the groups. That way you could perform various manipulations (move/rotation/scale/etc.) on an area of vertices and the vertex weighting in vertex groups would bias how strong those things happen. Combine this right along with the existing proportional editing, and we’d have a very powerful (if not exactly obvious) tool for polygon modeling.
Think about it… Start out with a vertex group having with a gradient in the weighting going across it. Then you could do a proportional move operation upon non-masked vertices with it’s own particular falloff. What you get is a smooth blended shape that proportional on it’s own couldn’t achieve easily otherwise. (To do the same thing now involves a lot of time-consuming manual vertex tweaking.)
Anything being worked on like this? Or an add-on? (As I said, existing vertex masking modifier doesn’t do it.)
Unlike the existing vertex mask modifier, ideally this editing mask would keep the mesh visible, but also make the vertex weighting visible so you know what you can/can’t move when it’s turned on. And it should have a quick invert button for convenience.
Maybe this should be called a vertex lock modifier to avoid confusion with existing vertex mask implementation, but it’s not like vertex group locking either. (Which only locks editing of vertex groups, not meshes.)