Prepare your mesh

Most meshes work as they are. The mesh check on Setup tells you if one does not, before you spend time marking.

Must haveCopy Anchor Link

• A standing pose. The animal stands square, on all four feet. A sitting or lying animal is refused: pose it standing first. An animal caught mid-stride works, but check the left and right marks against each other.
• Real geometry on both sides. If one side comes from a Mirror modifier, apply the modifier first.
• Not already rigged, or strip the old rig first. The mesh check offers Strip The Old Rig, which leaves the old armature alone.

Good to haveCopy Anchor Link

• Both sides the same shape. Then you mark one side and the other copies itself. A bent or scanned animal works too; its legs start with Each side placed separately.
• Legs that are apart low down. Legs that share one surface are bound with the slower robust method. Retopology does better still.
• No stray pieces. A loose fragment picks up weights of its own and moves on its own. Select The Small Pieces shows them.
• Clean points. Doubled points and holes are the most common cause of bad automatic weights. Merge And Clean Up fixes both.

You do not need toCopy Anchor Link

• Face a certain way. The add-on reads which way the animal faces. If the mesh alone cannot say, it guesses and tells you; marking the nose and the tail base settles it.
• Apply scale or rotation, or move it to the centre. Everything is left as it is and measured as it stands.
• Use a certain size or unit. Every measurement is a fraction of the animal's own size.
• Put it on the floor. The floor is taken from the feet. If the animal floats, Drop Onto The Floor moves it down.
• Remove fur cards. Pieces that are fur or hair are left out of binding and attached to the nearest bone afterwards.
• Worry about a heavy mesh. Binding works on a grid, so it takes about the same few seconds however many faces there are.

Separate partsCopy Anchor Link

Eyes, jaw, teeth, tongue and whiskers can be separate objects. Pick them on Generate under Face parts and they move with the rig. Other objects that belong with the animal, such as a collar, can be bound with With selected parts.