When you directly edit joint smooth skin influence object weights with the Component Editor, you can quickly specify whether the weights of particular joints or smooth skin influence objects can change. You can tell Maya to hold the weights (see Holding smooth skin weights).

In the Component Editor, under the Smooth Skins tab, note the Hold row. For each joint or smooth skin influence object, the value for Hold corresponds to the Hold Weights settings for the Attribute Editor’s Smooth Skin Parameters. On an individual skin point basis, the Hold settings correspond to the skinCluster node’s Normalize Weights setting.

If Hold is on, Maya holds weights at their current values when you modify the weights of other influence objects. For instance, having Hold on prevents changes because of weight normalization (see Smooth skin weight normalization). However, you can still modify the weights by entering new values in the Component Editor.