Lock axis while rotating along path

Question

I'm trying to keep the z axis (Poles) of the sphere at a certain angle while the sphere travels along it's path.

I can't see an option to animate transform in a local orientation. It always animates in a world space.

I tried playing with different eulers and restraints. Limit rotations won't work and i have tried checking and unchecking the follow path option.

I have even tried the "copy rotation" restraint off an empty by transferring to local space. It seems to go all over the shop when I try this.

I am out of idea's, so any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

So I started over. Turns out actions have to be performed in a specific order: editing values afterwards does not seem to work well.

The issue I ran into must have been because I applied follow path before I animated the rotation.

• Use ZYX Euler on object you want to apply the rotation too
• Select local transformation
• Animate object rotation first in local transformation
• Apply follow path

Answer 2

You can use Copy Rotation constraint as well. If you set the target to an object outside the hierarchy of the objects you have animated it will control the rotation of the object that is following a path. If the target's rotation is influenced by the animations you may get unexpected results as you have already observed.

Another way would be to have some object dedicated to following the path(like an empty). If another objects are parented to the empty they will inherit whatever transforms it has, however will be able to have their own transforms as well. You could then animate their own rotation relative to the empty so they would have the inherited transforms and whatever transforms you use on top of that.

It really depends on what effect you are trying to achieve.