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Friday, September 04, 2009

Video Tutorial: How to Change Cameras during an Animation in Blender


This video tutorial will show you how to use multiple cameras in your animation, and easily control the camera switching in your animated scene.




Additional Info:
To assign a camera to be active at multiple points during your animation, simply add the necessary frame numbers to the camera's name, separated by commas (no space required).

Example
---------
A camera desired to be the active camera at frames 48 and 1726 should be named as follows:

48,1726

You can have as many assignments per camera as desired, up to the character limit for object names. Note that frame numbers greater than 4 digits should not be formatted with commas (i.e. 1,429 should be named as 1429).


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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks! pretty straight forward and will help plenty in my future animations.

Noob

Anonymous said...

Is there a way to 're-enable' one of the first cameras?

Kernon Dillon said...

Yes, I'm glad you asked that because it prompted me to learn something else about the script!

To assign a camera to multiple points in the timeline of your animation, simply add the necessary frame numbers to the camera's name, separated by commas (no space required).

Example
---------
Camera assigned to be the active camera at frames 48 and 1726. Name the camera as follows:

48,1726

You can have as many assignments per camera as desired, up to the character limit for object names. Note that frame numbers greater than 4 digits should not be formatted with commas (i.e. 1,429 should be named as 1429).

Thanks! I'll update the blog post, too.

Anonymous said...

Very informative. I like these short tuts as well as the long ones. I can fit them into work breaks and learn one more thing about Blender. Only 3,339,229,001 more to go.

Ropsta said...

One thing to add is that should name the camera according to the first and last frame during which it is active.

For example if you want C1 to be active from 1 to 49, and you want C2 to be active for 50 and onyou would make camera C1 (1,49).

This makes it so that the cameras change back and forth if you choose to scrub through the timeline.

Anonymous said...

hey thnks kernon..your tuts are always great!

Anonymous said...

And watch out if you duplicate the 1st camera that the IPO datablock isnt linked (more than one user). The active camera will over write the key frames of the other camera. Drives you nuts.

Anonymous said...

The code in the script is rather agnostic about what it finds in the camera name. It splits the name up by commas, then compares them to the frame number as a string. That means that you can give the camera a friendly name (e.g. "Camera A,50,200") in addition to the frame activation numbers. You could even put in comments on transitions, e.g. "CA,50,Ret from CB,200". There is a limit on the length of camera names (looks like 21 characters), so it's not ideal.

JR

Kernon Dillon said...

Thanks, that's something to keep in mind.

rajko said...

nice, useful, and clear! thanks a lot , this saves my time :)

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