'aligned' & looking at camera

[jedcarter]

This is probably a really easy one - I'm trying to figure out how to get grid objects (planes) oriented so that they always face the camera, but with the four edges of the planes remaining parallel to the edges of the camera's viewport. They'll end up appearing to be 2D cards, more or less. I've figured out a few ways of getting them aligned to face the camera, but none of them meet that last requirement since the cards always rotate to look at the camera. I'm probably overlooking something very basic here, but any help is appreciated.

 

Thank you!

[Guest tar]

parent the card in the Network Editor

[jedcarter]

Thanks for your response Marty - I didn't put enough detail in my question! I have a copy SOP that's taking a grid object and copying it to some points & am moving the camera through the points. My goal is to keep all those grid objects facing the camera and to keep the edges of those grid objects parallel to the edges of the viewport. 

So far I've got a primitive object set on the copied cards so they look at the camera, and that works fine, but I'm trying to figure out how to keep their tops & sides square to the viewport. 

[Guest tar]

Sounds like a job for particles and sprites.

[anim]

if you want the edges to be parallel, then they need to have the same orientation as camera and not directly look at it (so sprites or lookat would not work)

here is example file:

ts_parallel_lookat.hip

 

Edited May 17, 2016 by anim

[jedcarter]

Thank you, anim! That makes sense - I was way out in the weeds with how I was trying to do it. Embarrassingly enough (for me) just copying the rotation channels from the camera to the copy SOP seems to work too, but I like your vex solution much better for what I'm doing.