I was trying out bend deformer and have found multiple problems with it:
“angle” parameter is not simply fixed amount of bending but its actually “interpolated” between limits, which makes limits very useless, limits should be completely independent of bend amount. Working with it the way it operates no is like trying to do ik-style animation with fk only, i hope this makes sense.
Also, limits should be world space thing, so if your origin-object stays still and you move main object, it should travel “through” modifier and its limits, atm limits stays within objects original position.
Origin also not wokring as it should. If bend axis is set to X and then you move empty object(set as origin) along same X axis , it will move object like its parented which must not happen.
Now back to first thing i mentioned, limits. I tried my best to search through source code and see how its written but it was bit too complex for me so i used Houdini just to present math-part of it in form of basic example: https://filebin.net/wjyrfsxhd0yi3zfu
I know that a lot of things i said here can sound just like its my opinion or its the way i use to work, but that is really not the case, bend deformer is very counter intuitive atm.
Let me know what you think.
Ivan