How is animated deformation done?

Question

Unity

In many games, there are moments when some element is deformed for a while, for example, it falls and deforms when it falls, for example, like a ball falls and becomes a little flattened and then becomes normal, or something crashes into a jelly-like object and it vibrates for a while ...
Question - how to achieve such animation?
Of course, the first thing that came to my mind was to draw each frame and, with some action, call a method that will play the sequence of frames, thereby creating the desired effect.
But is there any way to make this task easier?
And then if a lot of elements, for example, fall, when they fall, they all deform, and for everyone to draw frame-by-frame each movement ... I certainly understand that this method is used, but maybe now there is something that simplifies this task?

Answer 1

So, food for thought: https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/mesh-def...