Using Custom Mesh

Bind your custom mesh to a HEAT armature.

• Import your character mesh into your Blender project.

• In the HeatTools sidebar press the 'Import New Armature' button () under the HeatTools Armature section.
• Select your character mesh and resize it to match the size of the newly imported armature. You can easily resize your character mesh by selecting it and pressing the 'S' key.

It is helpful to be able to see the armature on top of the mesh you are working on. To do this select the armature and open the armature data pane on the right hand side of the screen and open up the 'Viewport Display' drop down. Check the 'In Front' option and the armature will stick on top of the mesh for easy visibility

In Front armature display settings

• With the Armature selected and set to be 'In Front' switch from 'Object Mode' to 'Edit Mode' either in the mode selection drop down at the top left of the screen or by pressing the 'TAB' button on your keyboard.

• Adjust the armature to fit inline with your mesh the way a skeleton would fall in a body. We recommend adjusting the skeleton with the symmetry button () activated so that whatever changes you make on one side automatically happen on the other. Also it is very helpful to stay in an orthographic view so that you are only moving the bone heads on two axis at a time. Further reading on adjusting bone placement can be found here in the Blender documentation.

Adjusting skeleton in Edit Mode to match the mesh

• Once the Skeleton is overlaying nicely on the mesh and all of the bones are in the correct position switch back to 'Object Mode' in the mode select drop down or by pressing the 'TAB' key on your keyboard.

• Select both the armature and mesh in your scene and click the 'Bind to Mesh' button () in the HeatTools sidebar under the HeatTools Armature section. This will automatically bind your mesh to the armature and weight paint it automatically for you.
• You can test that the binding worked by selecting the armature and switching to 'Pose Mode' in the mode selection drop down in the upper right corner of the screen. Grab a bone and rotate it, the surrounding character mesh should follow!

Binding armature to mesh and testing in Pose Mode

• You can now drop a HEAT animation directly onto your own character mesh by selecting an animation in the HEAT Bridge and importing it 'On Selected' (). Since your character now has HEAT bones the animation is applied immediately.

Custom character rigged with HEAT armature receiving animation from HEAT Bridge

Just as in retargeting, HEAT animations will only look correct if imported onto an armature who's rest position is a T-Pose. If your character is not in T-Pose you will have to adjust the skeleton after the mesh is bound and set the pose to rest as instructed in the retargeting section of this guide.

Next we will go over the VRM importer that is included in the HEAT plug-in.