Batch export and import of smooth skin weight maps

User Guide > Rigging > Character Setup > Skinning > Smooth skinning > Editing smooth skin >

When you smooth skin a surface, Maya creates one weight map per joint. Maya has a menu item that exports all the weight maps at once.

NoteIf you want to transfer skin weights based on spatial location and not UVs, then use Copy Skin Weights. With Copy Skin Weights, your source and target skinned geometry do not need to have the same UVs.

See Copy smooth skin weights.

Warning

You cannot export or import skin weight maps to lattices.
When importing painted smooth skin weight maps from a polygon mesh, the mesh’s UV maps must be free of any overlapping UVs. Otherwise, undesired results will occur.

Importing to a character in another scene

After you export the weight maps, you can import them to a smooth-skinned surface in another scene so that its skin deforms the same as the first surface. The surface in the second scene must have the same UV orientation as the original surface, but it can differ from the original as follows:

It can be scaled differently but must be proportioned similarly in regions of significant deformation, typically around joints.
It can have a different number of spans and sections.
It can have a different world space position.

Importing back to the original character

You can also import the maps back to the original surface. Examples of how this is useful follow:

If you are roughly satisfied with the skin weights for a surface but want to experiment with different weights to enhance the look, you can export the maps to have a backup of the satisfactory version.
If you apply an influence object to the surface, Maya alters the weights of the smooth skinning in the region of the influence object, sometimes with undesirable results. To avoid this situation, you can export the maps, add the influence object, import the maps to the surface again, then paint weights near the influence object. This avoids the unintended automatic weight alterations.