Need help with the Target Helper Object on C8.5Pro

Turk_WLF

I’m not sure how to use Target Helper Object & I can’t found any documentation/tutorial the internet on how to use it.

I’m hoping someone would be care enough to walk me thru on how to use it.

What I’m hoping to do is to have an object staying in one location and have it follow a moving object (similar to a TV Camera tracking a race car at a race).

Thank you,

Diomede

To answer your question directly, this discusses target helpers and cameras.  The next post will not use a target helper.

Target helpers are found along the the top menu, second row, in the main room (Assemble Room).  It looks like a dart board or archery target and is next to the bone tool.

In a new scene, click and drag the target helper icon from the top menu to the bottom right instances tray.  This places the target helper at 0, 0, 0.   You could also use the top menu second row INSERT and choose Target Helper Object from the drop down list, which will also place the target helper at 0,0,0.

The target helper will look like an empty rayed star (at least that is what it looks like to me).

I then inserted a new Camera (conical) but unfortunately points at the ground by default.  I adjusted the new camera rotation in the movement tab so that it is upright and points straight ahead.  For the new conical camera, that was rotation of X=90, Y=0, Z=180. 

I parented the camera to the target helper by using click and drag in the lower right box instances tray. 

Now the camera will move and rotate like the target helper.

I then inserted a primitive sphere from the top menu and moved it to the back of the Assemble room. 

I selected the target helper and used the Modifiers tab in the upper right properties tray.  I chose "Point at"  I used the drop down menu to choose the sphere as the object to be pointed at.  

The target helper now rotates to point at the sphere's hot point whenever the sphere is moved.  I could have parented the target helper to the sphere in which case the target helper would translate up, down, left right and in out with the target helper.

Because the new camera is parented to the target helper, when the target helper rotates to point at the spehere, the camera follows.

Diomede

The camera itself could be told to point at an object like a sphere or a target helper using the modifier tab.  Select the camera and use the Modifier tab and select the element in the scene that you want to point at. 

Reminder about the importance of hot points.  Point at will point at the object's hot point.  This can matter for large or irregular objects.  A hot point can be adjusted by selecting an object, turning on CapsLock, using the translate tools to move the hot point, then turning off CapsLock.

Dartanbeck

I use Target Helper Objects all the time for many things. It's a null object, meaning that it cannot be rendered, but it can be animated. 

One thing I love to do, like Diomede above, is to parent things to the helper object, and then I often have those things point at either that target helper object or even perhaps another one that is also parented to it or to something else. It's a whole vast set of possibilities.

In this video, I show how I use a target helper object to contain a light rig. Since I don't want the light rig to move exactly as the object I want it to follow (I want to control how it rotates and such), I parent another Target Helper Object to the object I want to track (the person's head) and use Align (Ctrl + K) to align the Target Helper with the light rig to the one that's parented to the head, so that it doesn't rotate unless I do so manually, and it only gets aligned when I ask it to, so it can end up with natural lag, etc., instead of following precisely.