Nick Zuccarello shares a little MEL script he created “addMarkersJointsToVerts.mel” that will place a marker and a joint on a vertex, or a series of selected vertices in Maya.
Here is a little script that I hacked together, it will allow you to take a selection of verts from a model and build a marker and joint that will follow that vert where ever it goes on the surface of the source mesh
The newly created joints and markers will follow the vertex which is a useful setup for creating blendShapes or used as a simple riveting system, attaching eyelashes, buttons or the like to a character. Nick also notes that another use may be with Maya nCloth meshes, baking out the the animation onto the provided joints. Nick also notes that this is something that he just hacked together and hopes that someone with maya mel/python skills could clean it up and possibly add to it making this script cooler. Check out Nick’s add Markers and Joints To Verts script in Maya here.
