Smooth Bind
Maya's skinning command
Also known as: Maya smooth bind · Maya skin weights · Maya bind skin · Maya paint skin weights · Maya skin cluster · Maya max influences
Definition
Smooth Bind is the Maya command, found in the Skin menu, that attaches a mesh to a skeleton so its vertices follow the joints. It creates a skin cluster with weights that decide how strongly each joint moves each vertex, and the weights are refined with the Paint Skin Weights tool. Options such as Max Influences limit how many joints can affect a vertex, which matters for game export, where four is a common limit.
In production
Set the mesh in its bind pose, with a clean mesh and joints placed correctly, before binding. Bind with a max influence that matches the engine limit, and paint weights to fix bad deformation at the shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. Test with extreme poses in the engine, and avoid deleting history on a bound mesh. Export only the skinned mesh and joints that the engine needs.
