From Flux Developer Wiki

Enable Character Skin Envelope Editor

Flux Studio supports the new H-Anim 2001 feature; Single Mesh characters. These characters use a single mesh that deforms along with the bones to create a much more realistic effect than the articulated characters in the original H-Anim spec. This is the approach used in video games.

The Flux Studio samples that are included with the Flux Studio bundle contain both an articulated Character sample, and an a Single Mesh Character model.

This command will Enable the Character Skin Envelope Editor, which lets you customize exactly how the Skin gets attached to the bones.

The concept of Single Mesh Character is very powerful. Each Vertex in the Mesh is associated with one ore more Joints in the Skeleton. For each Joint that is associated with each Vertex, there is a corresponding Weight value. The sum of the weight values of a particular Vertex should be 1.0. For example, a typical Vertex on the top of the head will only have one bone attached to it ( the "skullbase" ), and the weight on that bone would be 1.0, since it is the only one. A second example is a vertex near the character's elbow. This vertex would be attached to both the forearm and the upper arm. If the vertex is right near the center of the elbow, then the weights might be 0.5 on both Joints. If the vertex is closer to the Shoulder, then the weight on the upper arm would be larger than the weight on the forearm.

Please Note, the term Joint and Bone are essentially the same. Character used the term Joint, while other systems tend to use the term Bone to represent the same concept.

The Flux Studio Character Skin Envelope Editor provides you with the tool to make assigning the joints and weights to the vertices very fast and easy.

The Skin Envelope Editor will attach a translucent ellipsoid to each Joint in the character. You need to select each ellipsoid, and place it so it encloses the part of the mesh that should be attached to that particular Joint. You do want there to be some overlap between the adjacent ellipsoids so that some vertices will be shared by multiple bones. Vertices that are enclosed within only one Joint Envelope will be 100% attached to that Joint. Vertices that are not enclosed in any envelopes will be attached to the same Joint as the closest vertex.

Once you have placed all the envelopes in the desired location, you can Bind the Skin to the Bones using the Character / Bind_Skeletal_Deformation command.

To initialize the ellipsoids so that they are in a good starting location, you can use the AutoSet_H_Anim_Skin_Envelopes command. That will get you started quickly.

Once you have Bound the Skin to the Joints, you can proceed to animate the character. When you move the character's Joints while Editing Animation Keys, the skin will deform along with the Bones. Also, when you run the scene in Browser Mode, or Publish the Scene, then the character's Skin will deform along with its Bones.