Unless there is a good reason to have this exposed as an option I'd rather follow the behavior of other modes that respect hidden geometry (sculpt & edit-mode).

Could you check with riggers if there are problems with changing the current behavior?

I do use the hiding and masking functionality a lot, and I guess it is a little strange that whenever I want to use hiding, I am forced to use masking. I didn't mind it much since it's a couple quick keystrokes (V, A). This change would save me those couple keypresses, so 👍 to the patch.

The only downside of this is the same as in other modes: New user downloads file from interwebs, enters edit/sculpt/whatever mode, and if any geometry was hidden in edit mode, they'll go "where did my stuff go!?". This is still a point in favor of this patch, since at least if we have some awkward design at the core of Blender, it should be consistently awkward. So also 👍 to Campbell's suggestion that this doesn't need to be an option, since it's consistent with other modes.

That said, and this is scope creep/off topic: Having a user pref (off by default) that toggles whether edit-mode hiding masks ALL other modes, could fix this awkwardness at its core! :)

"
Pierrick Picaut
@pierrick_picaut
Replying to @Brad Clark (RiggingDojo) @ArminHalac @3D_director

That would definitely be a good move as it’s always a waste to have to switch to face /vertex selection.
Plus, this would allow to pick bones without charging mode again."

My vote is for consistent behavior as well, the more places things act the same, the easier it is to learn, to use, expectations are the same and muscle memory over how it works is standard.
So, thumbs up. It is strange to do the work to hid faces, then you jump to weight mode and are shown the entire mesh...I would rather it work like sculpt mode as proposed here.

In D14163#378363, @Brad Clark (RiggingDojo) wrote:

I would rather it work like sculpt mode as proposed here.

The question asked is, should it always act as sculpt mode, or as an option like currently implemented by the patch. ;)

If you are going to keep it as an option to change how it works, then the default should be on like sculpt. If you removed the option to change it, then it should just default to sculpt. I like options though.

I'm also with Campbell. No need for a separate option, just make it respect edit mode hiding!

This patch was reviewed favorably in March 17 Animation & Rigging Module meeting. I offered to make a video demonstration of the patch for clarity:

Any progress on adding the hiding hotkeys Campbell requested?

Well, unfortunately I haven't been in a position to have much progress in anything for almost two months, and this will likely continue for a couple of weeks at least.

Adding as reviewer by request from @Sybren A. Stüvel (sybren).

@Campbell Barton (campbellbarton) I believe your requested changes are all done?

Another option could be to add a toggle visibility to the vertex paint uilist in the vertex panel. It could show a visibility icon like in the outlines. This would save a lot of clicks as well and a user can hide multiple groups at once.

Best would be if this only executes when actually being in vertex weight paint mode. So returning to object or edit mode, this hiding will be disabled.

Here's a quick mockup

@Sybren A. Stüvel (sybren) I actually agree with all your comments, but I feel that you reviewed this as new code rather than copy & paste duplicates. Therefore fixing only this would cause inconsistency with surrounding code, which is a concern you didn't seem to address (i.e. choose to keep as is/fix only new code/fix old code too etc?).

New code should use new code style. Only when moving should the old code be moved verbatim, so that it's clear it's only being moved without change in behaviour. And ideally it should have been refactored to get cleaned up *before* the move.

As for the current naming scheme, I don't like it at all. Also the "Hide Select Face" is weird.

The meaning is "Vertex Select: Hide", i.e. hide operating in Vertex Select mode.

To me that doesn't come across as such, from my perspective "Vertex Select Hide" is just three words thrown together.

Normally I would suggest fixing the naming scheme in a separate patch first, and then this patch can introduce the new operators with the new naming scheme. However, since we're about to move into BCON2 tomorrow, and I really want to see this patch landed before then, I'd say go ahead with the current naming scheme. A separate patch to address that is ok to land in BCON2.

Do take a look at the copied code, though. That should just adhere to the current standards.