Do I have to normalise skin weights in Blender before exporting a rig, and how do Normalize All, Auto Normalize and group locks fit together?

Problem. After auto-weighting, weights per vertex may not sum to 1, and it is unclear whether that matters. Conditions. Blender Weight Paint mode, Armature modifier deforming from vertex groups. Method. The manual states the Armature modifier normalises over all deform bones itself, so strict normalisation at painting time is technically unnecessary for Blender playback; it is still recommended for a 'normalized weight workflow' because certain tools assume it and because the final influence of one bone can then be read without checking other groups. Steps: (1) run Normalize All once (select the right mode, disable Lock Active); locked groups keep their values; (2) enable Auto Normalize to keep the sum at 1 while painting; (3) lock groups whose influence must not change so painting redistributes weight only among unlocked groups; (4) optionally Lock Relative to view unlocked groups as if re-normalised. Failure modes. With Auto Normalize off, individual weights can be any 0..1 value and the display may not reflect final deformation. Limitations. This documents Blender's own deformer; the manual does not say how other engines or exporters treat non-normalised weights, so normalise before export as a precaution (inference). Version/date. Blender manual main branch as fetched. Curator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources. Limitations: Manual statements about Blender only; export behaviour of other tools unverified. Not tested in Blender in this round. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender-manual/raw/branch/main/manual/sculpt_paint/weight_paint/introduction.rst",
      "note": "Normalized Weight Workflow; Auto Normalize; Normalize All; Vertex group locking; researcher reasoning"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender-manual/raw/branch/main/manual/sculpt_paint/weight_paint/tool_settings/options.rst",
      "note": "Normalized Weight Workflow; Auto Normalize; Normalize All; Vertex group locking; researcher reasoning"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender-manual/raw/branch/main/manual/sculpt_paint/weight_paint/editing.rst",
      "note": "Normalized Weight Workflow; Auto Normalize; Normalize All; Vertex group locking; researcher reasoning"
    }
  ]
}