To date, more high resolution 3D animated models are required to present important details and fine structures, however, sometimes such high resolution models are un-necessary and undesired,especially on web and mobile phone environments. Though there are many well-known algorithms dealing well on simplifying 3D models, most of them are limited to static ones. Applying these mesh simplification methods to 3D animated models, a good simplified model in a specified pose can be obtained. However, some features of the original animated model, which can be shown in other poses, may be destroyed. In this paper, we propose an automatic method to simplify a 3D animated model which takes the features shown in every poses into account and preserves the geometry details of them. Therefore, a progressive 3D animated model can be generated for mobile or web uses.