Option to not create new collection when merging rigs

[Chuki Cicha]

When merging rigs, add the option to not create a new collection with all the meshes.
Let’s say you already have a scene, with your character and some outfits, to have it arranged, you usually divide them into collections, so with just one click you can see any outfit. Now let’s suppose you are going to add a new outfit, you have to merge the new rigs with the old one, and if you do that, all the meshes are added to a new collection, and you manually have to remove them from the new collection through the object properties → Collections tab.

It would be nice to have an option to not create a new collection, maybe a popup, or a general settings into Global Settings.

[Alessandro Padovani]

Not that I want to discuss your workflow of course you have your own needs. But if I was to use a scene with multiple outfits on a character I’d not merge rigs, since each outfit may very well have its own extra bones and merging them all together may make a mess.

Then to tell the truth I’d avoid using multiple outfits on a character for performance reasons, and I’d rather switch the characters each one with one outfit. But of course this is a personal choice.

[Thomas Larsson]

The tools in the visibility sections are intended for switching outfits. or perhaps undressing the character in various stages, see https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/visibility-section-version-15.html. There does not seem to be a performance hit if you exclude unused meshes in the outliner, whereas they do still consume resources if you just hide them in viewport and render.

But adding an extra option to the Merge Rigs button would be easy, and should not disturb since the tool already brings up a popup.

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[Alessandro Padovani]

Thank you Thomas for the head up, I completely skipped that section. Not my way to organize things, but it is interesting that collections can be used that way and have no performance hit. Also the visibility masks are great to avoid poke throughs.

[Thomas Larsson]

Implemented in last commit.