The Tool Chefs have posted a free plugging for Maya that will allow you to deform a high resolution mesh with any closed mesh cage. The Tool Chefs Harmonic Deformer for Maya is based on Pixar’s 2007 White Paper, Harmonic Coordinates for Character Articulation by Pushkar Joshi, Mark Meyer, Tony DeRose, Brian Green, and Tom Sanocki.
a free form deformer that uses a closed mesh (cage) to deform an higher resolution mesh.
Select the object that you wish to deform, then select the geometry that will act as the cage. Apply the Harmonic Deformer, and choose the cel size, number of iterations, and then create Harmonic Weights.
The Harmonic Deformer Plugin is offered on OS X, Windows and Linux, running on Maya 2014 and Maya 2015. Visit The Tool Chefs for More information on the Harmonic Deformer for Maya.