Time to learn how to take your model and make it move! This tutorial will be geared towards learning how to rig a character like the one that I give away on my site (Family of Rigs) in the Downloads section (http://www.bauervision.com/Downloads.html) – mainly a character that is simply a stand-in for bones, focused more on animation than aesthetics. However, the concepts herein can be applied to actual Bones used for skinning a character so that your mesh can move. These concepts, however, cannot be applied to Biped – it is already rigged.
LINK:
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_3/rigging/rigging_01.asp