Cell Engulfing Bacterium

Hello,

I’m trying to come up with ways of animating a cell engulfing a bacteria.

It’ll be a process much like the one at this link , but I want to do mine in 3D. I’m also trying to set it up so that it’s a dynamic process, i.e. where ever the bacterium collides with the engulfing cell (phagocyte) it will begin the engulfing process.

Anyone know of any easy way to cause the cell to dynamically deform for engulfing? Would NURBS be the best bet here?

Any similar animation subjects that I can look at?

Many thanks for any help,
…John

Actually, NURBS would be a good idea (assuming speed is not an issue. NURBS support is almost universally software, and likely not optimized at that. That is, unless you write it yourself). It could be any form of higher-order surfaces like Bezier Patches or subdivision surfaces. Generally, you will want to control the mesh by changing the position of a few control points.