Greetings! I need an additional brain on this matter. I have a series of pipes that must flow semi-organically utilizing referenced pipe sections.
I have modeled and textured a straight pipe that must be duplicated along an organic path.
The pipe piece must be referenced in and instanced multiple times ( hundreds of times) down a CV curve.
The pipe piece itself may or may not bend the geo depending on where it is on the path.
all pipe pieces must remain referenced and instanced so i may swap out with updated pieces as the project develops.
Things I have tried:
MotionPath/FlowPath- the lattice, even when set to a high resolution, will skew and ruin the pipe, nor will it adhere to the CV exactly, it offsets on the curve before snapping back to the straighter parts of the curve.
Bend Deformer- It seems to deform all instanced objects ( understandable ). However, when all are grouped, they still all become individually deformed, not just my isolated section.(still logically makes sense but I will call it ridiculous none the less 
)
Any ideas all you rigging minds?
Much appreciated.
EDIT:
Upon further inspection of the MotionPath/FlowPath method, I discovered an error within the model that prevented it from working.
Using this method works perfectly fine for what I am looking for in case anybody finds themselves using references and instances