Does the 3ds lattice tool exist in Maya?
 

I'm looking for something that would do what the 3ds lattice tool does (turn the edges of a polygon into tubes) but in Maya. Does anyone know if such a thing exists? I found something called lattice, but it does something entirely different, as far as I can tell.

Im not up on max by any means (never used it is what i'm saying!) but what do you mean turns the edge of a poly into a tube?

maybe you are looking for the smooth proxy? It is in effect a lattice having your less dense model in see through, and a smoothed version solid underneath so you can see what it looks like in a smoothed version while working on a low poly version