hi all,

I need to understand some stuff about the joint editor.

First of all what's the difference between the end point point and center point?

Thank you,

Paul

The center point is the position about which the joint will rotate.

The end point is usually, but not always, the center point of the next actor in the hierarchy.

The axial twist rotation will be along a line drawn between the center and end points.

If the actor points at another object it does so along a line projected from the center point through the end point.

Hope that helps.

Quote - The center point is the position about which the joint will rotate.

The end point is usually, but not always, the center point of the next actor in the hierarchy.

The axial twist rotation will be along a line drawn between the center and end points.

If the actor points at another object it does so along a line projected from the center point through the end point.

Hope that helps.

Thanks. So then I am more interested in the center point (green axes).

Essentially we can regard the green axes as the local (or object) coordinate system. Is this correct?

I need to render a hand from all different viewpoints.

I have two options:

a) keep a camera still and just rotate the hand.

b) keep the hand still, and rotate a camera around the hand. I believe this way is easiest. I will need the camera to point at the center of the mass of the hand.

What do you think is the best way?

Thanks!

Paul

If you use the hand camera it will automatically point to the center of the hand at all times.

Quote - The axial twist rotation will be along a line drawn between the center and end points.

PhilC is a very knowledgeable fellow, and it not often that I disagree with him, but I'm going to have to disagree on the above statement.

I don't think the endPoint has anything to do with axes of rotation, that is to say changing the position of the endPoint won't have any effect on the rotation of the actor! The position of the endPoint may affect the way the joint bends, but in Poser rotation and bending are two different things. A rotation spins an actor round one of its axes, and is dependant only on the position of its 'origin', its 'orientation', and the order of the rotation channels in the channel stack. A bend on the other hand is a deformation applied to the mesh by the JP channels when a transform is applied to an actor.

The axial twist rotation may often be along a line drawn between the center and end points, but there is no causal relationship here. You can move the endPoint and the twist axis will remain unchanged. Likewise, if you change the 'orientation' of an axis, the endpoint remains in the same location (the endPoint icon may spin, but as far as I know this spin has no consequences for the actor).

My normal method is to position the start and end points then click the "Align" button. This ensures that the twist is axial to the body part. But you are correct it is possible to then move the end point and the twist joint will stay as it was.

This is a little tool that I use when I want to get a precisely positioned view of something. I had been thinking of doing a bit of an update on it, and this thread has spurred me to action.

I call it "CamTarget.pp2", it consists of a cross-hair target prop and 6 locked cameras parented to the target. The idea is that you position the target in the center of the place you want to view, then scale the tatget to "zoom" in. The cameras use an infinite (flat) perspective like the orthogonal cameras, and the target will always be in the exact center of the camera view. This set up gives you very precise control of point that the camera orbits. The down side is that you can't use the Camera Controls palette on any of the new cameras, you can only move them via the target prop. It may sometimes be useful to view through the standard Poser cameras whilst positioning the target. When first loaded the view will change to the "Target_FRONT_CAMERA", right click in the Document Window to view through a different camera. The target will use the Foreground colour.

The original version only had one camera, this new version has 6 cameras, Front, Back, Left, Right, Top, and Bottom. These views are relative to the orientation of the target prop. This new version is hot of the press just this minute, so has not been thoroughly tested yet. Seems to work OK in P6, should work in other versions.

You will need to loose the ".TXT" part of the file extension before you will be able to use the zip. The file will install under the props folder to a folder named "CAMERA pp2".