ratscloset posted at 9:28AM Sat, 19 October 2019 - #4367603

Place a Ball in the Scene where you want the Camera to rotate around. Have the Camera Point at the Ball. Make the Ball invisible and the Camera will Rotate around that point.

I had tried this before and gave up too soon. This time I got the exact camera move that I need. Thanks! I haven't tried it, but it seems like you could also animate the ball to get some complex camera moves.

an0malaus posted at 9:28AM Sat, 19 October 2019 - #4367606

Poser 11 has grouping objects, which don't render, but are designed to use constraints. My suggestion would be to parent the dancing figure to a grouping object. Apply the figure's BODY translations to the grouping object, which remains on the ground, so will be a stable target platform, rather than moving up and down with the figure's body, as the Posing camera does. Create another grouping object and a revolving camera (don't use the existing scene cameras). Parent the revolving camera to the second grouping object. This camera will always orbit that second grouping obj. Now, create a constraint from the second grouping object to the first one. This will cause the revolving camera's target to smoothly follow the figure's translations, but not bounce up and down.

If you have the figure jumping, you might want to make sure that the Y translations are applied to the hip actor, rather than the BODY/grouping object, so the constrained camera remains stable.

There are some tricky caveats with grouping objects and constraints. If your figure is scaled, or something the grouping object is parented to is scaled, everything parented or constrained to that grouping object will also acquire that scaling, so you sometimes need to compensate for that in the grouping object XYZ scales.

Thanks for the help. I tried it three separate times and couldn't get it to work, maybe because the figure has a body Yrotation. The view changed when I created the constraint, but the new camera (parented to the second group) didn't rotate around the first group and I don't know enough about groups and constraints to figure out where I went wrong. But I was able to get the results I need pointing the camera at a null object, allowing me to orbit around the figure.