I have a hand that I have to rig then pose. I have rigged it but when i pose the hand gets distorted. i have looked at a few tutorials. I am doing something wrong but I can’t figure what. Is there a quick step by step to rig, weight paint? 
Thanks
digiman
your vertex groups or weight painting is probably not correct
there is probably more than one bone affecting some vertices’s that they shouldn’t
the easiest way to fix it - is to select the verts you don’t want affected by a bone and remove them from the vertex group
this is done in the editing buttons panel
but 1st check your weight maps and vert groups to see which ones are the offending verts
If you are using a SVN version of Blender you can use weight from bone heat. It sounds like taking a blowtorch to your p.c., but it’s actually really, really easy. You select your mesh first, then your armature, press Ctrl p and select create from bone heat, in the pop up menu. You will probably need to do some minor touch ups on the weight painting, but it takes a lot of the drudge work out of it.
http://graphicall.org for new Blender builds.
Select your hand mesh, then check under the modifers panel that the armature has Envelopes turned off.
When you’re in Weight Paint Mode, you can SH-LMB on the mesh to see which bone(s) are influencing that area.
You can use a combination of Weight Painting, and “raw vertex group editing” (using the vertex panel (F9) to tweak the weighting.
Mike
Thanks Mike that worked. sometimes the problem is right in front of your eyes. Fatfinger I will try your method so i can get the practice I need. I have one more question. I notice there are a few ways to animate some vertex groups,or weight painting,or envelopes. is there a preferred method? what is the best way for realistic movements?
digiman
the more time you spend on it the more realistic
Bone Heat then weight paint
you can also correct joint deformation with shape keys driven by the bone that is bending
Would you post a link to the SVN blender? Thanks
digiman
SVN builds :