If you dislike the smooth skin behavior, you can detach the skin, edit the skeleton or the deformable objects, set new binding options, then bind again. Skinning can be an iterative process of checking the binding, detaching, editing the skeleton, and then binding again. For more information on detaching skin, see Detach smooth skin.

However, if you just want to edit the smooth bind options (for example, Max Influences and Dropoff Rate) without detaching and binding again, you can do so. For more information, see Edit maximum influences, and Edit joint smooth skin attributes.

To change the smooth skinning deformation effects, you can edit the skin point weights with the Component Editor or the Paint Skin Weights Tool. As you check the binding, you can use the Paint Skin Weights Tool to view joint influences and change them by painting. This tool provides an intuitive way to modify the deformation effects. For more information, see Painting smooth skin point weights.

Note that when you edit joint smooth skin attributes and change Dropoff attributes, you then need Maya to recalculate the affected skin point weights. In turn, this can alter any other changes you might have made to the skin point weights. Consequently, it’s a good practice to edit the Dropoff attributes first, and then proceed to editing and painting the skin point weights.

You can also control smooth skinning deformation effects with smooth skin influence objects. A smooth skin influence object can be any NURBS surface, NURBS curve, or polygonal surface (mesh). For more information, see Smooth skin influence objects.