Maya 8 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual Quickstart Guide

11. Parenting and Binding to a Skeleton

Once you’ve created a skeleton, you need to either parent or bind your surfaces to the joints in order for them to move with the skeleton. Anything that doesn’t need to bend, like a hat or glasses, can be parented to the joints. Anything that does need to bend, like an arm, leg, or torso, must be bound to the skeleton (Figure 11.1). Surfaces that are bound are referred to as skins.

Figure 11.1. For the leg to bend at the knee, it needs to be bound to a skeleton.

Parenting to joints works the same way as parenting to anything else: When you move or rotate the joint, its child object(s) move or rotate as well. ...