Of course they want to push the medium in ways it has been laking, games right now are a product made for an audience, not a personal meaningful creative project.
You should be able to push and pull in the Z-depth by clicking outside of the widget and moving the stylus/mouse up or down to bring it forward or backward.
Hey there, I have an action set for you... :) It goes through all the proper steps for you at the push of a button. Have at it, http://www.filedropper.com/combinenormals
If you are scaling the biped it will push the mesh along the same lines, Try editing the mesh to fit the biped not the biped to the mesh and you should be fine.