Rigging a model that is was not built with rigging in mind

edisahorseofcoure

Hi, can someone tell me if it is possible to say take a downloaded model that is not rigged in any way and is only one  object, can it be modified with separating parts that would need to be apart to be rigged and animated.  I haven't found any topic anywhere that specifically tells the work flow to do that.  I am thinking using the element selection in 3ds max would be the right approach to break something up and set pivots and  groups.  Any insight on the right way to do it would be appreciated.

sprunghunt

You don't need to break something up - you can just assign all of the verts in a single shell to be 100% weighted to a bone.