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What I want to achieve in my scene: A dolphin is moving towards an object (the sphere in this case).

The Distance to the sphere should determine the scale of the Dolphin but not by just uniformly scaling the dolphin. Rather the sphere should influence the scale of the vertex group by proximity so that for example the dolphin is scaled down on his nose tip where he is closer or inside the object and what's behind him is still the normal size.

Does this make sense? I want a smooth transition within the dolphin's mesh. It should scale at a certain point tied to the sphere so the Dolphin is fully scaled down on the side that's closer to the object but normal size where its more distanced.

I've already tried to create a node tree (see picture) but I am really not an expert. The dolphin uniformly scales by proximity but it doesn't consider the vertex group I created (it includes the full mesh of the dolphin). See blend file below.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Could you clarify? Scale about which point? Do you want the dolphin to scale along its own normals? Towards its nose? Away from the surface of the sphere? Can you describe/sketch out the end-effect? $\endgroup$
    – Robin Betts ♦
    Commented Jul 28, 2022 at 11:56

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i am not sure about the effect you want to achieve, but if you want this:

enter image description here

you can do it with this node setup:

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ haha, funny, I came to the same conclusion and thought, that looks so much better anyway :D ...but I'm afraid that's not the solution (which I also could not find) $\endgroup$
    – quellenform ♦
    Commented Jul 28, 2022 at 11:20
  • $\begingroup$ @quellenform I have no direct solution now and no time to figure it out - but Chris and you might be better with GN anyway - just my idea, maybe you can make something out of it: with the Set Position node there must be a way if you plug something in the Offset input... like Distance between Position (of the dolphin's vertices) and Location (of the sphere), set to negative values by multiplying or Map Range, scaling the original Position values. $\endgroup$
    – Gordon Brinkmann
    Commented Jul 28, 2022 at 11:39
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    $\begingroup$ i personally think a lattice modifier would be the much better way....but my dolphin doesn't shrink in length...i have no idea why🤷🏻‍♂️[1]: i.sstatic.net/80DUe.gif $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Commented Jul 28, 2022 at 11:42
  • $\begingroup$ @GordonBrinkmann Good idea! I also tried this with Set Position, but the result is unfortunately unusable. The problem here is more this individual situation, because no matter how the vectors are scaled/offset, it always looks stupid. And my opinion is: If it doesn't look good, it's wrong :D $\endgroup$
    – quellenform ♦
    Commented Jul 28, 2022 at 11:48
  • $\begingroup$ @Chris ...hm, yes, with Lattice Modifier it looks much better ;-) $\endgroup$
    – quellenform ♦
    Commented Jul 28, 2022 at 11:49

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