Yes, you can.

The feature is available from version 2.0, you no longer need to join the meshes to a big mesh.

There are two ways:

1. Use 'Protect Selected Vertex Weight' feature, please watch the tutorial to learn more.

2. If there are only a few vertices sticked together, you may clean them manually.

Yes, the kernel is written in c++, and we have been optimizing the code.

The latest version has achieved six times faster than the initial version.

High resolution grid works well on fingers and toes, but high resolution grid may bring side effects on other mesh parts, like the clothes, the hair, or the equipments, these parts may break into pieces in high resolution mode, it's not perfect in all cases.

To combine Blender's built-in heat map diffuse skinning and voxel heat diffuse skinning is a better solution, you always get perfect result.

Yes, it supports both official version and pitchipoy version of Rigify.

The add-on is also compatible with Auto-Rig Pro.

No, the add-on is more suitable for 3d models.

When you selected the bone, there is a 'Deform' option in the 'property->Bone' panel, uncheck the option, and delete the bone name from the vertex groups of the mesh, then run voxel heat diffuse skinning again.

Like Cycles is better than Pong shading, physically based energy attenuation algorithm generates much natural vertex weights.

Sometimes, Blender's built-in Armature Deform->With Automatic Weight tool throws: 'bone heat weighting: failed to find solution for one or more bones', then give up.

If this happens, you can't use the advanced skill to protect selected vertex weights, for there is nothing to protect.

The surface heat diffuse skinning add-on can generate similar results to Blender's built-in Armature Deform->With Automatic Weight tool, but it never fails.

You can use surface heat diffuse skinning add-on to generate vertex weights for fingers and toes when Blender's built-in Armature Deform->With Automatic Weight tool fails, then combine voxel heat diffuse skinning add-on to get perfect vertex weights.

If you skin a high resolution mesh with default voxel resolution(128), the vertex weights is blocky.

You have several ways to fix the issue:

1. Skin the low resolution version, subdivide the mesh after skinning.

2. Add a 'Corrective Smooth' modifier to the mesh in 'Object Mode'.

3. Apply several 'Smooth' operation to all vertex groups from the 'Weight Tools' section in 'Weight Paint' mode.

4. Use high voxel resolution to skin the mesh.

Note: The issue have been fixed in version 3.0.

Yes, you can.

Voxel heat diffuse skinning just gives you a good start point, you can modify vertices weights anytime.

From version 3.0, the add-on has become a complete skinning portfolio:

Even if Blender's built-in bone heat weighting fails, you can use surface heat diffuse skinning add-on to generate vertex weights for fingers and toes, then combine voxel heat diffuse skinning add-on to get perfect vertex weights.

In short, version 3.0 gives you a complete skinning solution.

Please select both the meshes and the armature in 'OBJECT' mode, then the add-on will appear.

Please restart Blender to let the new version take effect.

The normals of inner side of the solidified clothes direct inwards, this will confuse the voxel skinning algorithm, it may think that the bones are not surrounded by any polygons at all, thus cause the solidified clothes have zero vertex weights.

There is a simple trick to solve the problem:

We can flip all the normals for the solidified clothes, the voxel skinning will work properly, when finished, we just need to flip back all the normals for the solidified clothes.

You can enable 'Detect Solidify' to fix the issue automatically since v3.3.0.

If you want to use higher resolution than 1024, you have to use the command line tool.

High resolution mode requires huge memories, and the task will run for a long time, running the add-on within Blender may cause Blender to crash, so you need to run it as an independent task.

Another reason is that you are a team or you have powerful servers, you may build your own automated workflow by writing shell scripts, distribute the heavy task to your powerful servers.

It supports 64 and 32 bit of Windows(x86_64), 64 bit of Linux(x86_64) and macOS(Arm64 and x86_64).

If the character uses a simple skeleton, such as motion capture skeleton, the vertex weights of the torso part may not good, the torso slightly moves with the arm movement.

You can fix the issue by adding two extra bones at the chest joint to balance the vertex weights.

Seats means persons, how many persons may use the add-on, if you are an individual user, you can install it on your Linux, Windows, and macOS, since there is only one person may use the add-on.

They are different licenses for different teams. For example, if a small team which has up to 20 artists who need to install the add-on, the team should purchase one license for 20 seats, it is much cheaper than purchasing 20 indie licenses, and the team can't purchase only one indie license and distribute the add-on to all their artists, for it is illegal in law.

The current user is lack of write privilege, please launch Blender with 'run as administrator'.

Blender installed from Microsoft Store uses special add-on directories, which will cause the add-on always can't find some files and keep crashing.

Please download and install Blender from the official website (www.blender.org) or other mirror websites.

BTW. One user told me that he created the missing add-on directory manually, and the issue disappeared.