Switching between cameras during an animation

Support Compositing and Post Processing
1

Hi,

I’m new to Blender (I’ve come from C4D), and I have a question that no doubt has a really simple solution.

I’ve got a scene that’s a model that isn’t animated whatsoever on a green background (so I can key it out in AE), and I have multiple cameras set up and panning around it/zooming into it etc. Can I set it so it will render each camera’s animation without having to set one of them to active, waiting for that to render, then setting the next one to active, rendering that and so on?

If I can, would I be able to achieve that by having camera 1 animate from frames 0-90, then camera 2 from frames 91-150 for example?

Thanks.

2

You can use multiple cameras. Add markers to the timeline and use those to switch between the cameras
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8acK_aa4jQ

3

Sure. Set up the scene with its own vse timeline and add anscene strip. This is set by default to the active camera. But you can change that property. Press n key to access strip properties on the side panel. Duplicate the scene strip as many times as there are cameras and.place them end to end. Dont forget to extend the scene duration to accommodate the additional strips.

4

That’s perfect, thanks.

As I said, I knew there’d be a simple solution.

5

All that being said, I think that there are definite advantages to placing the cameras then, through the useful mechanism of “linked scenes” (with different active-camera, frame range, output directory and so on), “shoot film, and lots of it.”

Use the “OpenGL Preview” mode at first, with “stamps” including the camera-name and frame number. Shoot to individual files per frame. This gives you shots that will exactly match their final versions, but which can be generated very quickly.

Then, go “final edit” this footage. You’re almost certain to want to be able to tweak the shots slightly as you do. The pacing and flow of the project can be affected enormously by very slight tweaks. Or, you might decide along the way that you need a different shot. At this point it is exactly like editing a live-action film.

But, then, you will have a list of the cameras you actually used, and the frame-number(s) from each one. So, you go back and final-render precisely those frames; no more, no less.

As you then preview the completed film, the OpenGL frames are replaced one-by-one with finished shots which match the previews exactly. And, the film is done.