Here is some information you may find useful when working with envelopes.
You can mute envelopes in the same way as other deformations. This gives you faster performance because you can pose a skeleton without continuously updating the envelope as you work.
To mute an envelope while posing the deformers
In an explorer, right-click the Envelope Operator and activate Mute.
On the Select panel, choose Selection and click the icon of the Envelope Operator to open its property editor. Activate the Mute option.
Click the Lock icon to prevent this property editor from being recycled so that you can easily unmute it later.
When the skeleton is in the desired position, unmute the envelope.
Transferring and Merging Envelopes
You can transfer and merge envelopes between objects in your scene. See Attribute Transfer [Modeling and Deformation Basics].
Combining Envelopes with Soft Body Deformations
If you want to combine a soft body and an envelope deformation on an object, you should apply the soft body operator before the envelope.
Another technique you can use is to apply soft body to an envelope deformer. Note that you cannot apply soft body directly to a skeleton because it has no points; however, you can parent objects to bones, apply soft body to the objects, then use them as envelope deformers.
Using Volume Deformations with Envelopes
If you are parenting volume deformers to a skeleton and using them to create bulging muscles on your envelope, make sure that Envelope Mode is active in the Proportional Volume Operator property editor. This option makes the volume deformation relative to the parent (in this case, the skeleton deformer), so that the volume deformation gives the expected results as the skeleton moves.
It's also a good idea to always apply the volume deformation to a cluster, so that the volume deformer does not affect unwanted areas of the envelope as the skeleton bends.
For more information about volume deformations in general, see Manipulating Points by Volume [Modeling and Deformation Basics].
If weights have become unnormalized, for example, if you have removed deformers after freezing weights, then you can quickly renormalize them by painting in Smooth mode using a large brush radius and a tiny, tiny amount of opacity. The small amount of smoothing that results from this technique is usually not noticeable.
