I am having a rather annoying and confusing problem with camera parenting. I have read through the pertinent sections in the manual as well as some very good online tutorials, but I still can't get it to work, or at least understand it. I have a figure posed as I want it, and I have the main camera positioned at the angle etc that I want it. Now, I set the figure to be the parent of the main camera, so that if I move the figure, the camera will move with it and keep it framed exactly the same way regardless of figure movement, rotation etc. This works fine if I do it right at the beginning of a scene, when the figure is first loaded. BUT, if I try doing it when I have a figure already posed, and the camera set up, the moment I parent the camera to the figure (itself, or body, or hip etc) the camera moves!! I don't understand this. My understanding of parenting is that it makes the child object move along with the parent automatically, just as the forearm moves with the shoulder. But with camera parenting, I should be able to "turn that on" at any time, once I already have a scene posed, shouldn't I? I don't see why "activating" that should cause the camera itself to move! I'm not selecting "point at" or anything like that, just setting the figure as the camera's parent AFTER I already I have everything set up right. What's going on? Can anyone help me with this? Also, on a related question, why is it that once I parent a camera (or anything else) to a figure, I can never ever ever "un-parent it" again, so that it's just a root-level object again? I can drag it to any other object that already exists in the hierarchy editor, but not "universe", or just in the general root space. Why isn't absolute "un-parenting" allowed? I apologize if these sound like novice questions, but I have in fact been working with Poser 4 for about three years now (with good overall success) and I still don't understand this parenting stuff. Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you!

1. Parenting is "permanent" within the range of frames in the PZ3. Even if you start the parenting later, it holds for all frames. So the easiest trick is just to start a new PZ3 at the point where you want to change parenting. 2. Absolute unparenting is always possible, but for some reason Poser won't let you reach Universe in the Hierarchy editor. You have to use the menu choice Object:Change Parent. In that action you can put the object onto the Universe.

Thanks for your reply. The funny thing is, I'm not using multiple frames at all. This isn't an animation or anything, just a single still shot. And at the exact instant I parent the camera to the figure (body or hip) the camera moves right then and there instantly, before my very eyes. It's not that it's going back and affecting past frames, it's actually visually moving by itself (jumping, not panning) to another angle/location the moment I set the figure as its parent. It's really bizarre, it just jumps elsewhere right after I click the "Ok" button with the mouse on the "change parent" box. On the other note, I had in fact tried resetting the object back to "universe" via the menu rather than the hierarchy editor, but that didn't work either. It kept acting the same way, and when I subsequently checked the editor it was still listed as parented the same way. Am I crazy? Should I not be able to do what I'm describing with he camera? Basically just "sticking in in place" temporarily so it moves with a figure, and then "unsticking" it later at will? (Again, by later I just mean in physical time, after playing around with the scene, not later frames, since I'm only using one still-shot frame.)

Hmm. I just tried doing that. Parented the Aux camera to figure's Chest, and the camera then moved with the upper part of the figure. Parented it back to Universe, and it went back to being static. The view did change somewhat between the parented and unparented situations. I suppose ideally it shouldn't change, but it was only a small change.

In my case the change is disasterous. I am working with a very finely tuned setup angle that takes a long time to get in the first place, and the parenting action throws it off so far that the actual figure I'm parenting the camera to moves completely out of the window!! That's just not workable. The strange thing is, in a brand new window with just posette loaded up, I can move the camera around, pose her, do whatever, then if I "lock actor" for the camera first, then parent it to her hip, everything works fine. It stays put, and moves with her perfectly. But, in another more elaborate scene, even after locking the camera, as soon as I parent it to the figure's hip it moves off drastically. That can't be the way the program is meant to run. I must be doing somerhing wrong or just overlooking something...?

I've noticed something similar with
the Posing Camera, though I wasn't
doing the parent/unparent thing;
I was doing lock/unlock. (the red key.)
After a few lock/unlocks, the Posing
Camera went wildly astray, and I
couldn't find any way to make
it work again. Had to start fresh.
Maybe the same problem?
Edit: Have you tried just saving the PZ3 under a new name, and starting fresh after a reboot? Sometimes Poser gets tangled in its own skirts, but the tangle won't be written down in the PZ3.

Message edited on: 12/04/2004 15:05

I just did try that, with no luck. It still jumps angles imediately upon parenting, anf it seems to conistently reposition the camera in the exact same place each time. That predictable consistency is what indicates to me that it might be something intentionally accounted for by the creators, and that there might be a way around it we're just overlooking. Interestingly enough, I've found that if you lock the camera and then do it in reverse, that is, parent the figure to the camera instead, it does work fine, and you can then move the camera freely with the figure moving with it to stay in place in the frame. Of course, moving a figure via a camera is a clumsy and less than ideal way of posing, but it's interesting that the error doesn't occur in that instance. Also, after parenting a figure to a camera, there is no way through either method to reparent it to the universe. The only option for returning to normal is to parent the figure to something silly like the Aux camera, and then just not use it. However, the main camera then does proceed to have a different focal point, as though it had been "pointed at" some imaginary location in space, and so the rotations are all vastly off. I'm surprised this bug hasn't come up before. I wonder if Little Dragon would know anything about it.

Don't know if this helps. I tried doing what you described and the camera does indeed move quite a bit. The change seems to be more apparent the closer you're zoomed in on the figure which make sense. At any rate, I tried posing the figure, moving the camera around some and then before parenting it to the figure, did Edit->Memorize->Camera. The camera jumps when I parented it to the figure as before but Edit->Restore->Camera seems to bring it back to the original position. I'm not sure it's exact, but certainly much closer than the position it jumped to. The parenting isn't broken by the restore. In the image, first the original view, second the "jumped" view after parenting and finally after restoring the camera.

Try this. 'Memorize' the camera, parent it then 'Restore' it.

That seems to work. If it will help, here's a little script that does the sequence....... Each time you hit the script, it toggles the current camera between parented and unparented, to the current body part. If you change the current body part between hits, the script will move the camera to the new part. As usual, take the MESSAGE#####.TXT and rename it to CamPar.py or something like that.

Strangely enough, even this technique is not working for me. I don't believe I can run scripts since I don't have Pro Pack, but I tried it manually, and the camera jumps even more dramatically upon the restore. Step by step, this is what I did: 1. I loaded up a file 2. I moved the main camera manually to the angle and position I want in relation to the figure. 3. I selected Edit>Memorize>Camera 4. I selected the main camera in the drop-down menu below the document window, then used the menu option Object>Change Parent and selected the figure's hip. The camera jumps. 5. I selected Edit>Restore>Camera. The camera jumps WAYYY out of whack even more than before, so that it's now way behind and far away from the figure altogether. Very bizarre. Did I do something wrong? Maybe this only works with brand new project files? Anyone tried it with an existing project they'd already previously saved? (I tried resaving the file as a new PZ3, but that had no effect.)

OK, I tried a little experimenting. It does seem that using a PZ3 yields mixed results at best. For the most part, it doesn't work the same way. I had a hunch and tried something. 1. Load the PZ3 2. Edit->Restore Main Camera 3. Pose and set your desired camera angle 4. Select the camera & Edit->Memorize Camera 5. Set Camera Parent to Body of figure 6. Edit->Restore Camera This worked for the couple of PZ3s I tried it on. You can probably parent to the hip as well. What I found is that when you initially restore the camera it seems to change from the camera saved in the PZ3 to whatever your default is. Somehow, it looks like maybe if you don't restore it first, then memorizing and restoring actually restores the saved PZ3 camera. I didn't verify that that's the weird place it jumps to but it's the only thing I can think of. Hope that makes sense and I hope it works for you. I don't know near enough about Poser's behavior to do anything but guess as to what's going on but as I said, this technique seems to work for me.

Argh. I just posted a really, really long message here explaining how I got this technique to finally work, and it just vanished into the cyber-void without getting added to the thread. I hit back on my browser, and there's no record of it. I really hate computers. Basically, do the "Memorize - Parent - Restore" thing, and then if the figure body (or whatever you parented to) has any non-zero translation settings, you need to REVERSE those on the camera. So, if the figure body has Ytran set to 1.000, you need to SUBTRACT 1.000 from whatever the value of the camera's Ytran is after having restored the camera. I explained it in much more detail in my original message, but I really don't feel like retyping it all again right now. If the figure body has nothing but zero values for all translation and rotation dials, the original technique should work just fine.

Moral: use copy to save your message here before hitting post. Mine get lost half the time so it's become a habit. Glad you found a way to get it working. I haven't found it necessary to reverse settings using the regular or reset(for PZ3s) technique but I've done only a few tests. The parent figure translation thing certainly seems like it might be part of the equation. I wonder if you copy and pasted the figure's dial settings to the camera before setting up your shot--nah, that probably wouldn't work. Anyway, glad you found an answer.