Pipe with round caps (ends)?

Question

I was trying to make a pipe with rounded cap or ends. Something like in the image, where I just added to spheres as "ends".

I've already surfed the internet a little and it looks like an uncovered issue, as simple as it seems.

I need to do this because I want to animate it later, like some type of growing body of water.

So, the method I'm trying out now is using a Bezier curve and applying some bevel, because of the "start bevel factor" and "end bevel factor" parameters which can modify the length of the pipe from its start or its end. Very handy.

What I've tried later, was to select a sphere for the bevel object, so it would return a pipe with rounded caps... but it was impossible.

So I'm totally open to new approaches, if you have any ideas!

Answer 1

You can do this with an array modifier and a curve modifier (see this post):

1. Add a slightly extruded circle/cylinder with no caps:

   

2. Add an array modifier:

   

3. Add a curve modifier:

   

   For the array to deform as expected the object origins must be in the same place.

4. Add two half spheres as start and end caps:

   

5. the length can be animated with the Count value of the array modifier.