Blenderole

The biggest difference Blender bones have is that each bone is not one object. One armature is actually made up of ‘N’ bones. When you link the mesh to a skeleton you use just one armature. And you don’t do that with a skinning modifier, but with an armature modifier where you specify which armature the mesh is connected to.

Another difference is that the envelopes are set on the bones, not on the meshe’s armature modifier. You use normal scale (’S’ hotkey) to scale the sizes of the enveloopes. ALT+S though scales the falloff ratio of the envelope.

Where to find weight paint.

Painting weight is just like any other software. But instead is done on the mesh object. It’s better to have already an applied armature, then simply go to Weight Paint, like on the picter. There will be one more panel with the configuration for the brush. You can also hit ‘W’ to have the envelopes applied to the weights and go on from there.

Quickest procedure to create a chain of bones:

. Space, Add, Armature;

. Position this one bone over the length you want the chain to cover;

. Go to Edit mode (either through the UI or the with TAB)

. Press W to subdivide the bone into many others.

You can also add bones by going to Edit mode, pressing space, then Add/Bone. They will be on different hierarchies, if you want to add one bone to another chain, select both and press CTRL+P.