Auto Weighted Deformer (work-in-progress)
The Auto Weighted Deformer is a Maya plug-in extending the MPXDeformerNode class and currently under development. It uses a vertex on a mesh's surface as a point of origin to create a Locator handle whose transformations drive the mesh deformation depending on how far each vertex in the mesh is from the handle. The 'Weighting Type' attribute controls whether the distances between the vertices and the handle is calculated in a linear or quadratic fashion. The 'Reach' attribute determines the distance until which the deformer has influence. Here is a quick demo.
Applying more than one node to the same mesh and keying the handle transformations with the deformer's reach can yield some interesting results.
Potential applications are Blend Shape sculpting, rigging or pushing poses in animation. I'm currently working on a C++ version of the plug-in to compare performance as well as a feature enabling a user-defined cage to control the deformer's range of influence.
