[3dsMax] Dynamics and the Hungry Cell

[SunMoon]

I'm looking for a little advice on how to handle an animation. When a cell in the human body wants to eat something, it engulfs it, and I would like to show that. Basically, I would like a little sphere to move towards a much larger one. On contact, the smaller sphere pushes the larger sphere's surface inside until it pinches off making an encapsulation inside the large sphere.

I've searched through some of the forums and looked for information on collisions, which then led me to searching for posts on dynamics. I've taken an intro to 3dsMax 7 course and have my handy 3dsMax7 Bible next to me...any suggestions on what to read up on, a tutorial to look at, or even just a quick suggestion Max-related options to play with?

Cheers :smug:

[FutureMan]

Unfortunately in most cases dynamics is used to prevent interpenetration between two meshes/models.

I did some quick research, found this site on Amoebae and how they feed.
http://www.micrographia.com/specbiol/protis/homamoeb/amoe0100.htm

[FutureMan]

However you actually might get an interesting effect if you did use a cloth dynamics simulation plugin to wrap your cell around the other, Simcloth and ClothFx are both good.

SimCloth is free.
http://www.chaosgroup.com/software/simcloth3/

[SunMoon]

Great suggestion on using the cloth effect. I started off using the "cloth over chair" tutorial that comes in the 3dsMax Bible. Unfortunately I was having trouble figuring out how to close off the cell (pinch off the larger cells surface so it is now a new sphere surrounding what got eaten).

Still looking for suggestions though.

Thanks for the site on amobea feeding, it gave me some other ideas on how to make the cell look like.