Abstract: It is very difficult to deform flexible objects in computer animation. This paper presents a novel approach to address this problem. A detail-sensitive and deformation-sensitive simplification is first conducted on the original mesh. The simplified mesh is then deformed, and this deformation is transferred to the original mesh to produce an initial result. Because of the discontinuity between some vertices, an as-rigid-as-possible optimization is employed to prevent the shape distortion and control the surface stiffness. Various experimental data demonstrate that our algorithm is intuitive, efficient, and effective in deforming large meshes.