Hi everybody...

I've been intensely learning Maya 5 over the past few weeks and I'm ready to start asking other people for help, since the books I've read and tutorials I've found aren't helping me anymore.

Here's the question:
I'm trying to apply a non-linear deformer to a NURB surface, but I want to vary the effect that deformer has on different areas of the surface.

Let's say a plane.
I create a 10x10 NURBS plane, with, say... 20x20 subdivisions. I switch to component mode, select all the CVs, and create a cluster. Then, using the Paint Cluster Weights Tool, I paint a circle (to a value of 1). So I've weighted a ring of CVs on the cluster/plane.

Now, I want to apply a non-linear deformer to that plane (we'll say a SINE deformer...) so it only affects that ring of CVs which I've weighted. That ring will be deformed and leave the rest of the plane unaffected/undeformed.

But Maya doesn't seem to want to work like that... Am I going about this the wrong way?