Switching scenes during animation render?

I am in preplanning of an animation project, and a certain kind of “scene” bothers me. It is the kind where the camera switches between two places over and over, such as when someone describes people doing something elsewhere, and the visuals constantly switch between those describing it in one place and those doing it in another place. Basically I was thinking of having two scenes in the file, putting them side by side in the editor, and having the active camera jump constantly between scenes. I just jave no idea how to make it work in practice. Does anyone kmow how to do it??

Edit: Like this!

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You’ll need to do this in editing… Render out one scene at a time and splice them together using the video editor.

Good luck!

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Have you looked at camera markers? You can use them to switch between cameras.

Hope that helps.

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https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/animation/markers.html

Bottom of manpage bind camera to marker…

There HAS to be a better way, seriously :frowning:

Been tryimg, but I can’t make them switch between actual scenes…

Currently not at a computer, so cant help much.

But…

Markers switch between cameras, so you could have 2 3d models or scenes…maybe far enough away so lighting not an issue, then camera in scene 1 , bind to marker, frame 0 camera 2 in scene 2, bind to a marker frame 24…

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The camera usage you’re trying to implement can benefit from Camera to Marker.

But you have to make two spaces in one scene and animate it.

Creating multiple scenes in a project is not the same space (controlled separately)

To switch scenes completely, you’ll need to write a Python script or just render both

I’m surprised this thread went this long over basic functionality that has been in the software for nearly two decades…even longer in the VSE than the compositor.
It’s as simple as setting up either two separate scenes or even using two mutually exclusive view layers in Blender and switching between the two via a mix node in the compositor. You blend the two scenes into a mix node and when you wish to switch between the two: you hover over the factor field of the mix node with it set to 1.00 and press “I” to insert a key frame. then you advance 1 frame in the scene via the arrow key on the keyboard, set the factor field of the mix node to 0.0, hover over it again and depress the “I” key once more. Viola, you just switched between scenes via the nodes compositor. Eezy Peezy.

IDK if 16 hours are that long…


Anyway : for this example in the real world like in the mentioned link… the two scenes would be filmed separately to just have more posibilities when mixinf (cutting) them as wanted…

This said: someone might just want to build the two different “scene-sets” in one actual “render”-scene and then just use two cameras and the usual camera switch trick maybe like so:

This also does have the advantage that all render settings are common in those two "scene"-sets… To even modularize this the static parts of the *sets" can also be linked via a sperate blend file…

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I strongly(!) recommend that you do not try to “switch during a single render.” That is simply “not how real movies are done!”

Here’s what I do, and it works:

(1) Create a “base scene” in a render-file, then “link” additional scenes to it in the same file. Each one of these clearly-named scenes represents a single “camera shot,” along with the file-output parameters (filename and directory) that are specific to it.

(2) Initially using a “quick and dirty” render option (Workbench), I “shoot film.” Lots of it. “With reckless abandon,” if necessary. Each frame is “stamped” with relevant information. (The shots, sets, dummy objects, and everything are carefully set to physical scale. File-linking and so forth are also set up as they eventually will be, even if most of it hasn’t been “designed” yet.)

(3) Next, go to “any video editor” – Blender’s own, open-source, or commercial – to begin to “cut the film together.” This approach has been referred to as: “Edit, then(!) shoot.” You can get amazingly far. You can afford to experiment. “The power of human imagination” is a wonderful thing. :slight_smile:

(4) Now, shot-by-shot, begin to replace the stand-in footage with “real stuff.” (Make new copies of the blend-files and keep the stand-ins for reference. They should always match exactly.)

You’ll actually spend a lot of time in “stage 3,” but the critical observation that it is cheap. You can explore many different options for the pacing of the general show, and you can actually “very fine-tune” individual shots. All with “stand-ins and fast renders.”

This lets you, when it comes to “actual rendering,” be very precise as to exactly what you need to render … and to model, texture, and so on. If you already know in advance that a particular thing won’t appear, you don’t waste time building it. (Just like the “paper-thin towns” of all those Spaghetti Westerns …)

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Sometimes in production, one attempts to do a particular thing and wonders why the steps are convoluted, inconvenient, extremely limited or nearly impossible.

It’s not uncommon that the reason is: because it’s not normally done this way, and not recommendeded.

This is one of those times.

Certainly there are hacks, that will technically get you across the finish line - such as the compositor suggestion above. But a hack such as that is a Hail Mary, that will limit post/editing in every way.

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I completely agree. Render two separate scenes and cut them together in VSE.
I have shown a lot of folks how to do this sort of thing but I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them eventually come to the conclusion that it’s not worth the trouble. It can be useful at times but I generally only find it useful in order to trick (HACK) the software into doing things that it can’t do otherwise. You hit the nail on the head.