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I am using a cycle modifier to animate things moving - imagine an infinite roadway scenario. The roadway is built on top of a Bezier curve (the path).

The road is attached to the Bezier, the Bezier is parented to an empty, and the empty moves via keyframe animation and then has the cycle modifier applied.

The object does OK following the path for a short bit, but then there is a problem with the evaluation time and the constraint in combination with the cycle.

When the cycle resets the path position, the object stays at the previous location on the path (that's good), but that position is now much further away from the camera (that's bad).

I guess what I'm trying to achieve is the following: I'd like the Suzanne head to stay at the same/fixed Y position no matter what, but have its X position track the Bezier path, no matter what is going on.

Here's an example where I'm trying to get started:

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After some fiddling, it looks like a combination of Clamp to and Locked track did the trick:

  1. Use clamp to in order to keep the X position of the Suzanne along the path no matter what, but then you lose the Follow Path feature of staying rotated to face the path direction.

  2. Use another empty axis in front of the Suzanne also with the Clamp to modifier. This axis follows the path at a fixed distance in front of the Suzanne.

  3. Finally, use a Locked Track modifier on Suzanne to track the empty axis that is in front of it, but clamped to the path. Suzanne will turn to face the empty, which is ahead of it, making it look like Suzanne is "following" the path.

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