Camera Changer Tutorial Here-->

Camera Changer tutorial!

Hi… This is my first tutorial (I think) so don’t expext it to be perfect :wink:

NB. Some of the pictures may not be correct since i fixed the tutorial. So the place where you name the cams, call them “1,20” and “21,100” istead of “1.20” and “20,100”

Okay, here we go:

There are many ways to change cameras, I think that there are a lot of plug-ins for blender. But we will only use the blender build in:)

I am going to teach you two methods, The first is the build-in that The Orange
Team made for blender, and the other one is my own way to do it. I haven’t played so much with the build in method (Orange) So maybe there is more to say about it than I explain here.

  1. First we (as allways) start Blender, but we don’t delete the default cube, because we want an object to look at. Select the camera and duplicate it (Shift-D) and place it, so it points at the cube from another place. http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/5861/camarach16qh.th.jpg

Let’s say we want the camera to change at frame 20. Select the first Camera . This camera should start at frame 1 and end in frame 20. so call it “1,20” like it is showed in the picture

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/1423/camarach28qk.th.jpg

Then select the other camera, and call it "21,100
" Beacuse this cam should start at frame 21, and end at frame 100.

When this is done, split the screen in two. In one of the windows, click the http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/6482/knap14yk.jpg button and change it so it looks like this: http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7465/knap22pb.jpg
Good! Okay, now press the “Scripts” button, drive the mouse over the “Animation” button, And Then, click “Camera changer”! like here:http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/5330/window0fj.th.jpg
Somthing has happened, but you can’t see it. If blender tell’s you somthing, It can be because you forgot to name one of the cameras. But anyway go to frame 1 Select Camera 1 (the one we named “1,20”) and press numpad0. now you should see it trough the camera. And when you press Alt-A (and you did this tutorial right) the cameras should switch at frame 20.

Nice uh?

Okay. Now it is time for my own method. I use this because it is easier and better(my oppinion :D). press “Erase all” so we have a clean window :slight_smile:

Now, we still want the camera to change at frame 20. so at frame 19, press “i” and select “loc, Rot, Size” as showed in the picture:
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/383/subwindow14vc.th.jpg

Go to frame 20, and grab (G) and rotate ® the camera so it is placed where you want it to be and then again press “i” button on your keyboard and select “Loc, Rot, Size”… now you done!! easy huh??
:smiley:

Hope you like it :slight_smile:

Hi Silverframe, and thanks for the tut! Running 2.41 here and not seeing changes with Alt-A in the first method. If I manually go beyond frame hundred, and then use the arrow buttons to rewind, it works. Can’t figure out what stops it playing in forward. Anyway your second method gave me a good laugh :smiley:

Hi patdog. I’m glad you liked it. :smiley:

But I am not sure what you ment,
But I also got a problem with it, so maybe it is the same, My problem is, when I hit Alt-A from cam 2 (“20,100”) there are no camera changing, But if I (in frame 1) select camera 1 (“1,20”) and hit 0 so I look trough the camera, It works… :smiley:

ps. I did’t mean Alt-O But numpad 0
But Thats changed now

OKay. a little update,

I fixed the tutorial, since i found out that, the there is no need to call the camera’s “1,20” And “20,100” But just “1” and “20”… and then the camera’s change correct, so To patdog: Try my tut over again, I made a mistake before, (and there may be more). Forget what I said before. I understand your question now! So try my tutorial again. :smiley:

But I am not sure what you ment,

If I make sure my frame count is above 100, and then use the keyboard Left arrow to scroll back through the frames, the camera and view changes perfectly. If I try use the Right arrow to scroll forward through the frames, no change is visible. No change visible in ALT-A or test render.

XP I confess, if that makes a difference.

I don’t know… But I found aout that you don’t have to name the camera’s end frame, Just name it (with a comma seperatet list) of all there start frame’s. Here is a blend:

http://www.sammyg.us/upload/data/Camerachange.blend

see it. :smiley: hope it helps! :slight_smile:

Nice tutorial.

One small item: in point #1, the current version of Blender uses a default Cube (instead of Plane).

I think you were on the right track earlier.

The problem is that you are using the same frame (20) for 2 different cameras.

ie:

Camera1 : 1,20
Camera2 : 21,100

The way you had it set up at first, at Frame 20, which camera will render that frame?

Also, perhaps you could add a screen shot of the script buttons window, showing that when you run the CameraChanger script, it adds a ScriptLink to camera.py . (Press the little icon that looks like a newspaper).

You could modify your second method also to use influence IPO curves to control how the camera moves between 2 points or Emptys for an instananeous swap or some variation inbetween.

Finally, just curious how/if this camera switching would work with motion blur?

:smiley: Thanks JarellSmith. I will try it out, but The other test file (download-able above) works correct.

The way you had it set up at first, at Frame 20, which camera will render that frame?

camera 1. (“1,20” / “20”)

here is a pic:

And I am very very very sure that i works with motion blur.

That’s very cool and I wish I would have known about it long ago. It would have been useful to me then. Now, I have added a new requirement onto the stack. I was curious if the “Orange” method would also meet my new requirement. I would like to change resolution when I switch to the camera as well. I suspect I will have to stick with my script but I thought I’d ask anyways.

Okay, we’ll some confusion has been cleared = the target frame after the comma, was in the first posting 20 & 100 for first and second camera. In a 100 frame animation that would not give frame 100 a real chance to shine on the big screen.

I think also some unneccesary confusion comes with naming the camera’s with numbers. For example I called camera 1 Onion, and camera 2 I called Egg = that works too and lets us concentrate on the numbers that make a difference, that being OB:

The set up so far…
CA: Onion OB: 1,20
CA: Egg OB: 2, 60
Then script, and we’re up and running.

The problem I noted with the arrows keys is rather interesting in that some reverse mirroring happens. Forward [Right arrow key] and Onion rules from frame 0 > 60. Rewind [Left arrow key] and Onion rules from frame 20 > 0. [Silverframe in your .blend that does 0 > 70 & 20>0] Sure someone thought that might be handy :-? :stuck_out_tongue:

Cool patdog :smiley: Smart idea :slight_smile:

Im’ sure you know just as much as me now, about this method, because I had nearly just found out of it, when I posted this tut :wink: