As the titles says, Basically I'm looking for a solution akin to this http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/plugins/impressobjects (please note the plugin is outdated and is very clunky to use with an animation system), where you can move two object near each other and they can 'collide' and push each other on a polygonal…
@Cube: MCG looks like a nifty solution, will have to test in 2017 and see how it well it fares (hopefully I don't need to upgrade to 2018 to keep the performance form dieing). @Eric: True, will have to keep this solution in mind I think when using non MCG versions of Max. Cheers peeps, much appreciated for the solutions!
You can do something lightweight with vanilla modifiers. Not as robust maybe, but still... Vol Select on the ball, using the hand mesh as the selection source, and have Soft Select enabled. Then add a modifier to deform the selection with, like a Push set to negative.