Does any1 know what these objects are meant to do? (I don't)

Target Helper Objects are used primarily for animations but you can use them to help get extra control in scenes. Target Helper Objects (THO) are invisible when rendered but always visable in the assembly room when working.(These are called Null Objects in other 3d apps) You use them in conjunction with behaviors like "Point At" or "Track". Example: You want to animate a camera flying through a scene while the camera itself points somewhere different than the direction it's traveling. The hard way to do it would be to actually 'drive' the camera through the scene and key frame it. The easy way is to us THOs. The first step would be to create a Motion Path for the camera to follow through the scene. The next step would be to create a THO, name it like THO1, and then create a Motion Path for it too. Finally, you assign the Camera a behavior of "Point At" and name the THO as the Point At target. Another way to use them is having body parts that are connected with IK functions to track a THO. (You can create walk cycles this way). It's a pretty simple tool with sophisticated uses. Hope that this helps. I wish it had been documented too! Mark

Attached Link: http://www.afx.com/tutorial/iktut.htm

There's a great tutorial at the Autonomous Effects site (go to the link) on using Inverse Kinematics in RDS. I'm sure it would apply to Carrara. I bring this up, because they have you create a "target" object in the tutorial, which sounds like the THO's you're talking about. It's definitely worth checking out. - Dex