I am trying to get my model to look directly at the camera. From a distance this works ok. But for up close face shots, she either appears cross-eyed or she is looking way up or down. Is there a trick to this? Positioning by hand is difficult. Any ideas? Thanks! Nebula

If you slect the eye(or any other body part) and go to "point at" under the object menu, you should be able to get your character to look at anything, including the camera.

This is true. I neglected to mention that that is what I have been using, (point at). It works fine from a distance. But up close I think Poser gets confused where the eyes should focus when it comes to the camera. I would assume that Poser would focus the eye on the origin of the camera. However, I don't think the origin of the camera is at the center of the lens. I would think it would be set to the center of the camera. Therefore, up close, the eyes would actually focus somewhere below the lens. This is of course just a guess. In any case, up close, the eyes are off. :) Nebula

I had the same problem working on my latest image and came close to tearing my hair out. Distance is one thing, up close is another, and "point at" did seem to get confused. I finally said good enough (well, screamed it and scared a cat) and just accepted what I had. Wish I had an answer.

Have you tried importing a simple prop, like a small ball, (make it invisible, if necessary) place it beyond the camera, and have the eyes point at that?

Parent a square prop to the camera and "Point At" that instead. It allows you to adjust for the orign not being at the center as you speculated.

Well CryptoPooka, I wish I had the hair to tear out! And my cat seems to know better than to get around me when I'm working. hahaha I think I am getting close to getting it tho, doing it by hand. Kinda tedious. I also had the thought of adding an object like a ball or something, having her eyes point at it and then move the ball around somewhere behind the camera till it looks right. The trouble is finding the proper line of sight. If I get it to work, I'll post it or something. Thanks for the replies tho! Nebula

Sorry, Replied before I saw your ideas guys. I do plan to give it a try tho. Thanks!

With a decent focal length (like 90mm say) you should be able to get close-ups without getting the camera all that close to the face. That might help.

Ajax, that was what I was just going to say! I usually use a focal length of 100 on all of my renders, close up or not.:)My new default for my main and face etc are at 100 now. Pendy

Thanks, Denise, printed that up. I should know that, but I still have a problem with closeups.

the second one to me looks the best,...

I think the middle one, also.

middle looks best

Dmtyler & Nebula: Those tutorial screens are absolutely fabulous. Do you do these tuturials for a living? Do you have any online that I can check out? How do you manage to do them in that way?! Or is that giving away secrets?!

Ron .. Thanks for the compliments. I will confess, I do kind of do this for a living. 8-) I don't have any other tutorials online, but I do have intentions of doing some one of these days and getting them up on my web site. If anyone has any requests, I'll be glad to take them by email! As for how I did it, I took the individual screen shots with Snag-It (any screen shot program will do), and cropped them all to the same size and view. I used Photoshop to combine them all together and add the text. If I were going to add them to a Web page, I'd probably make individual graphics and do the text in HTML ... would probably download a lot quicker. 8-) Denise

Nebula, The key to making the "point at" function work properly with the camera is to make sure the "scale" setting on the camera is set to 100%. The scale changes by default when you change the focal length so you must reset it to 100%. If it is not 100% the eyes will not point at the camera properly. This should help. Pinto

Denise, my browser is showing just an x where the tutorial is for some reason...lots of good tips here :)

I have these problems too. I'll certainly try some of the tips here. But have you noticed in the galleries that we're not the only ones!?! :-)

PabloS, Yes, I've noticed that too. It's intresting that something out of place on a face is noticable right away and when it's right, it makes all the difference. As for Ron's question, I did the image in Photoshop to show the different results I got. I'm by no means any kind of expert. And no, I don't do tutorials for a living. I just tried to copy the layouts I have seen. I do thank you for the praise tho. It means a lot to know that others find your work to be good in some way. Thanks as well to those who mentioned which picture looked best. I would have to agree that the middle one does look the best. I look forward to trying Denise's method tho. I love a mathmatical solution to things and her idea certinally fits the bill! Thanks again Denise! Nebula

This has been very helpful to me. I'll have to see which tip works best for animation purposes. Thanks.