Darkworld opened this issue on Aug 04, 2019 ยท 19 posts
an0malaus posted Mon, 12 August 2019 at 12:49 AM
It's more a case that if the eye target isn't parented to the head, or if one selects a scene prop or another figure for the eyes to point at, then that target moves, or the figure turns leaving the target behind, the eyes will not be restricted to their normal range of movement because limits don't apply to point at. It's just a small frustration that one Poser feature has been implemented in a way that ignores/overrides the normal operation of another Poser feature. In a perfect world, where this could and should be fixed, they would work together. If a user wants PointAt to override rotation limits, then simply turning off limits for the required actor's parameters should be sufficient. Without perfect memory of the chronology of Poser features, it would make some sense if PointAt had been implemented before individual channel limits could be disabled, but it remains just another of the myriad of relatively low priority issues that it would be nice to have work consistently with intuitive expectations. Similar to IK ignoring joint rotation limits completely, so knees and elbows get bent on the wrong axis.
My current suggestion for such situations in the latest version of Poser is to use Grouping Objects, and let their constraint channels be keyframed to indicate what one wants a figure to look at (still using Point-At). Have the eye target parented to the figure's head and sufficiently far away that both eyes' rotations are almost zero. Add grouping objects for everything that you will want the figure to look at during an animation, including cameras, and keyframe the constraints channels (on the eye target) accordingly. With all constraints off, the figure will look ahead at ~infinity (1000 yard stare). At other times, with a single constraint on, the figure will look at the object associated with that constraint. With constraints gradually transitioning between one another, the eyes will smoothly follow the target between grouping objects.
Verbosity: Profusely promulgating Graham's number epics of complete and utter verbiage by the metric monkey barrel.