Distort Geometry With Deformer

[luis_alcala]

Really weird question and suggestions needed please. Created this pattern for a lug design and I was wondering if Maya has something similar to the Envelope Distort feature that Illustrator has. I am trying to deform the created geometry with a shape similar to the recording I attached. Really hope to get some knowledge or any ideas people may have on the matter. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read this. Any suggestions are MORE than welcome.  

[osidedan]

Hello! 

As far as I know, the closest thing in Maya would be a lattice deformer. Here I made a bunch of cubes to represent the lugs. Then I selected them all, and added a lattice deformer. After that I moved the lattice verts into a quick shoe-ish shape (quick example):

starting cubes:

after the lattice deformer and deformer adjustments:

Hope that helps, and let me know if you need more info on any of that! (Side note: you would probably want different divisions on your lattice deformer so you can have more control, this was just for example)

[luis_alcala]

Osidedan,

Hello, thanks for taking the time to reply. This is a great example, thank you. I was leaning toward that direction but I thought that maybe I was forgetting some tool that others knew about. I will give your suggestion a go and see what comes out.