During smooth skinning, you bind a model’s deformable objects to a skeleton. After smooth skinning, the deformable objects are called smooth skin objects (or skin objects, or skin). The points (NURBS CVs, polygonal vertices, or lattice points) of the deformable objects are then referred to as smooth skin points, or skin points.

As you smooth bind skin, for each smooth skin point, Maya assigns a weight value for each joint that influences that point. These values control the amount of influence of that joint on each skin point. Adjusting these skin point weights lets you control the deformation of your smooth skin objects.