Sucked Trough a Straw

Step 1
The scene
Start by opening the scene Garden_hose.scn. The scene contains a garden hose, a curve which the hose is extruded along (and can be used to animate the hose) and a low resolution melon which will deform the hose. If you need the melon to be visible outside the hose as well, simply parent it under the low-res version.

Step 2
The watermelon
Select the melon_lowres and from the Constrain menu choose Curve (Path) and pick the garden_hose_crv curve. Set the Path %age in the Path Constraint PPG to 0 (zero) and click the animation icon to set a keyframe at frame 1. Go to frame 100 and change the Path %age to 100 and set another keyframe.
Step 3
The effect
Now, select the garden hose and from the Modify > Deform menu chose Shrink Wrap and pick the melon_lowres. In the Shrink Wrap PPG check the Reverse checkbox. You can use the Amplitude slider to exaggerate or bring down the effect of the deformation on the hose as well as animating the melon_lowrez object. Select the melon_lowres and press [H] to hide it.





The project files used in this tutorial can be found at:
http://www.Redi-Vivus.com/Caffeineabuse/Sucked_Trough_a_Straw.zip