Hi fellas. Im new to maya, well, not really "new" about the part of modelling and stuff, but really amateur in the part of skinning and rigging.

So, i want to make a robot to be used in unity3d. Not an android, a mechanical robot with humanoid form.

The problem is, i dont have a clue how to proceed when it comes to skinning. At the beginning, i thought that i could even avoid completely the skinning process keeping in mind it is just a robot and the arms, legs, etc are mechanical parts that will not move with the skin and need to be separated, for example, the movement of the leg comes from a rounded gear so i cant use skinning or it will look terribly bad. So, with just making the correct parent movements and placing some controlers here and there.. that should be it. But then i started to watch some videos, and i noticed that, even with robots, its highly recommended to do the skinning process.

So, my question is, is that right? how do i skin a robot? i mean, how can i make a skeleton that will not be attached to the "skin" of the robot , so i can move freely the rotating point of the arm, the head, or watever without deforming other parts of the body? im really confused at this point.

Thanks in advance.