Zooming in on objects

Hera

Earlier I often used a secondary camera to zoom in on separate objects, which I wanted to model, by selecting it and then selecting the secondary camera and click on View Frame (LMB) Aim (RMB) and then the camera always crept up really close to the object in question and it helped me a lot with complicated posing like clutching a hand aroud an object or adding a bulb to a lamp for instance.

But since upgrading to 4.9.3.166 this function has been very unreliable. It works for a while, for a camera and then it stops working, the camera only aim itself at the object but does not close in. Sometimes it helps deleting the camera and add a new secondary camera into the scene, but sometimes not even that work.

Now what has happened to the View Frame (LMB) Aim (RMB) function. Does it not work as earlier? And why? And is there something else to use instead?

Richard Haseltine

There seems to be a problem if the item being framed is far from the origin and the camera is not on the far side of the item. A workaround appears to be frame, rotate around object so it is in front of the origin, frame again.

Hera

When is the camera on the far side of the object? Related to what? The perspective view viewpoint? Or the default camera?

Richard Haseltine

The camera or view you are looking through and trying to adjust to frame the selected item.

Hera

I'm not sure I understand the relations here.

When I view an object through a camera, how do I know if the camera is on the 'far side' or the 'hither side'? In relation to what?

Or do you mean that I just rotate the camera around the object and hit frame until it works? Well that might take a whole night if the camera and object are not cooperative. And then I might also end up with the camera in the wrong position, like being INSIDE of the person who's hand I'm aiming to clutch something.

Richard Haseltine

In relation to the origin - the facing on the camera cube should help if you know where you are in the scene

Hera

So I guess it's just trial and error to get this function to work the way I want it these days.

Why was it changed? It used to work so excellent earlier for getting really close up views.

And is there another function I can try instead for these solutions?

Richard Haseltine

I assume it's a bug, I don't recall anything that souned relevant in the change log yet.

Hera

I hope it's something that will eventually get fixed then. As I need that funtionality a lot.

donalddavis

Sorry to necro this post, but I am having this same problem.  I can confirm that this is related to the camera and the distance from 0,0.  The further from 0,0 you are the worse it gets.  I have a rather large scene and selecting the eyes, for example, still puts the camera so far away that you can barely see the body of the figure muchless the eyes.

Richard Haseltine

As a workaround, if you try orbiting around the figure (which should work) so that the origin is on the far side (camera/view <> figure <> origin) then do the frame again it should zoom in correctly.

donalddavis

Oh wow, thanks.  That is really weird.

I am likely to put the section of the scene in a group, move it close to 0,0 do my work and push it back.

Also, Memorize pose seems to cause some weirdness too.

Syrus_Dante

Ah my favourit topic.

For my experience the Frame Selection & Aim at Selection result depends on what is currently selected in the scene. What is currently selected also depends on the current Scene Tool you are using.

If you want to zoom in realy close change the Tool to Geometry Editor select some polygon(s) and try frame or aim.

Another method would be Create a Null place it and frame or aim at this.

 

Avoid the camera while working on a scene

While comosing and tweaking your scene/figure/ect you wouldnt want to look throug a Camera, use the Perspective View instead.

Cameras are for to save a 'point of view' for render, while the Perspective View is your default view while working on a scene. The advantage of the Perspective View is that the changes dont get saved into the undo stack, so if you undo some of the last steps the Perspective View stays in possition, while you can have a look at the changes you undo, without the view jumping around all time in between.

As far as I know the Perspective View dosnt have such issues with zooming to the origin of the selection, but it all depends on the current selection.

 

Node Selection Mode: Root Node First?

While composing the scene you would usualy use the Universal Tool or one of its siblings Rotate/Translate/Scale Tool. Once you have choosen one of that tools have a look at the Tool Settings pane. In the bottom of this pane there is this setting called Node Selection Mode. By default it is set to Root Node First this causes the selection to pick the topmost root node first if it has some hirarchy in the scene pane, this could be a figure or a group or an object (prop) if you grouped/parented something together. Even if you clicked once on some figure part (node) like a limb or the head - watch out for the 'Bounding Box' outline in the viewport and the highlighting in the scene pane to see what gets selected. You can click a second time on this node to finaly select it or you can change the Node Selection Mode setting in the Tool Settings pane to Node so the Universal Tool (and its siblings) will allways pick the selected node instead of the whole figure/group / topmost root node.

Further info on this topic:

• The single most useful feature needed in the next Daz Studio

• How do you switch between orbit and pan in the perspective cam?

Hera

Is there a plan to fix this?

Visuimag

Have had this issue for a while myself (apologies for the necro).

Hera

Is there a plan to fix this error, which has been around for about 2 years now?