Goto Points

MW_HNL

Working on a "better" (for me at least) Cyclorama I wanted to have reference points.  I had seen this in another package I bought so no claim on the idea.  I call them "GoTo" and they exist simply to be put in strategic places and set to not render, not cast or accept shadows.  Then I accidentally found a "feature" in Hexagon. I was going to make just a sphere in DAZ studio and that worked a treat. Tiny yellow spheres I could place and name.

Now (for instance) When once again I find I have been zooming around with a "fixed camera" I had carefully positioned, forgetting once again to switch back to perspective, there was a way to back up that mistake even if I had exceeded the Undos or for some reason they do not want to Undo. I could have that camera view on the main view, and select the GoTo point set where I had decided the camera wanted to be, and then click on the litte [+] icon and poof the camera went back.  I have taken to only rotating cameras and lights in the Y and X directions and never ever in Z unless I want some fancy tilt on the image.  Much less crazies. Try to use them as much like real physical lights as possible.  So with the GoTo filling the camera frame I can move a tiny bit and rotate the camera and not have to fiddle too much with putting it back.  Also helps with lights.  You can look through the light and then select and click on a GoTo.

Set a number of them in Default locations like the corners of rooms or the middle of rooms and you can find all sorts of uses.  So as a hexagon exercise I made a fancy one with lots of setable surfaces and even an arrow to point in a useful direction. And surfaces can be made various amounts of transparent.  Down to leaving only the arrow if that is what you like and of course that can be pointed in any useful reference direction or just left lined up on the XYZ axis for that reference. I make a Goto group to keep them in.

I think this will save a lot of wear and tear on my scroll finger trying to put things back and a real delight when I can just zap my view backed as far into a specific corner as possible to a promising a place to set lights or begin pointing a camera. Or put it up from the floor and in the center of a Skydome and poof View goes to that place instantly!  Trying to scroll back inside a skydome is a lot of movement if they are huge.  One click to the exact center and ready to pan around is  a joy.

It works because the big view window when looking through a camera or a light is independent of whatever is selected, but it can be instantly moved to a selected object.  Again not my idea, I saw it in a product.  Insted of making lots of cameras I can use just the Fixed one (which I try not to accidentally move after it is located for a specific set of shots and has a GoTo in that same position) and a HandHeld one that I am free to zoom all around with anywhere and of course Perspective view.

Aloha