Animating a highpoly character can be very slow in the viewport, as the skinning needs to be calculated. In that case, a lowpoly version of the character can be cut into pieces which are then linked to the bones, so the animator has a good visual reference without any skinning happening. Cutting the pieces manually is quite time-consuming, so I wrote this script to automate it.
How to use: Make sure you are on the skinning pose frame on the timeline. Select your skinned mesh and execute the script. Puppet pieces are added to the currently active layer.
23/01/13: Now supports CAT and Biped bones, also does a name check to see if all bones are named uniquely in the Skin modifier Should now also work with meshes that have a distorted TM, should not freeze anymore thanks to DisableProcessWindowsGhosting
20/01/13: Automated mesh copy and modifier removal [download id=673] If you use this script, be awesome and donate a few bucks!