First envelope or animate the skeleton?

[nonparagon]

Hi xsi freaks,
I have a somewhat bizarre question...
When doing animation what is the preferred way to work (for you): do you create a skeleton, rig and animate only that (to get key body positions and timing) and then perform the envelping of the geometry; or you go the classic way - envelope, and animate? I've been going the second way up till now but in the XSI manual there's a sequence that puts animating the skeleton first. What could you say about this process? Is it more efficient or there's a chance to run into some problems with geometry attached later ?

[atyss]

Bonjour nonparagon,

The important thing is to have one basic position that will be used when you set the enveloppe. This pose will normally fit your enveloppe object.

In my case, I build the rig, and store the skeleton pose for all control objects and bones that rotate. Then I set the enveloppe, and start weighting it. During the weighting process I define other poses, like a "crucifix" (I model my character with arms at 45