Very basic : Apply pose mode while weight painting

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Hi all,

I’m returning to Blender after years away. Back in the day (around 2.7), I used to:

  • Enter Pose Mode
  • Select a bone of the armature
  • Then go into Weight Paint Mode on the mesh

At that point, the mesh surface could be weight painted directly to the selected bone (red = full influence, blue = none), and — most importantly — I could Ctrl-click other bones while weight painting to instantly switch which bone I was editing.

This made it super fast to paint fingers or other tight areas while checking deformation in real time.

In Blender 4.3, I just can’t seem to do this. Ctrl-click doesn’t work anymore, and I’m struggling to find an equivalent. I can’t believe this functionality would have been removed — am I just missing the new workflow?

Appreciate any guidance!

2

Nowadays you must hold ALT and click a bone to select it in weight painting mode. And before going into weight painting mode you must select the armature, then shift click the mesh and then go to weight paint mode to have this function available. So that the armature and the mesh are both selected, and the mesh is an active object, then go to weight paint mode. :+1:

3

ALT-key - great to know - thank you