Help. I’m a beginner and I have no idea how to animate a bulge traveling down a pipe.

I have a project where I must animate a ball traveling down a pipe. The ball has a larger diameter than the pipe, and the pipe is equipped with pleats to allow it to expand around the ball.

Normally I’d just use a deformer to swell the pipe as the ball passes through it, however I need to also show the pleats unfurling as the ball passes and then re-furling once the ball is past.

Where do I begin? Soft/Rigid Bodies? nCloth?

Any help/ideas would be welcome.

Thanks.

Here are some ideas to play around with:

nCloth. A radial field passing through a pleated mesh will let you get the mesh to expand and return to its previous state if you gave the mesh a very low bendResistance.

blendShapes. texturing blendShape weights may be another approach. Create two meshes, one pleated, one unfurled as BS targets, then paint and animate the weights.

skinning with expressions. Sking the mesh and set up expressions for joint rotations based on the proximity of the ball.

Don’t model it; blend between two normal or even displacement maps, again based on how close the ball is.

Thanks THNKR!!! I had no idea you could paint weights on a blend shape.

Now I have one more question for you. Is there a way to parent the painted weights to a locator so that as I move the locator down my pipe my bulge moves with it?