One important bit of info if you take that approach - and it is a good approach, that is how most of the best commercial conforming skirts are rigged - you have the Hip bone, and it is associated with the "hip" polygon group.  If you attach a bone to the Hip (call it "RightHandle" for example), and do not associate it with any polygon group, then that bone will deform the "hip" polygon group, which is Realmling's point.  However if you connect a child bone to RightHandle, and the new child bone is also not associated with a polygon group, then the new child bone will not deform anything.  Can be really annoying when you don't realize this is what's going on.

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