Switching between two cameras?

[ChillWill Graphix]

I don't have any experience with this, but I just read (this morning) that you can use up to 100 cameras in Layout. That right there should indicate that you can do what you are attempting to do. I'm not sure how you would switch, though. I was going to suggest that you just keyframe your existing camera to the new location, but then I saw that you had it parented to the plane. Sorry that I couldn't be of more help, but you should be able to do what you described. Good Luck!!!


Later - Mike

[BazC]

I'm no animator and new to Lightwave to boot but my guess would be select the new camera and add a keyframe? - Baz

[ham8]

Well when you say switch to a second camera, you are refering to a single animation run yes?

You can place and add cameras to your hearts content, but it's the render control where you decide what frame of the animation is going to be from what camera...

In short, add your cameras where you want them, keyframe them as suggested above, and give them names that make some sense.

When you go to render, do a render pass of the frames from the first camera, then render the next set of frames starting at the frame you intend for the different camera (make sure you select it before you render), etc.

Your final product will be the frames you want from the specific cameras during the animation.

Did that make sense? :p

[ercax]

1- Go to Utilities/Master Plugins
2- Select Camera selector.
3- Double click to bring up the interface.
4- Select the camera you want to be active in layout and click add in plugin window
5- Go to the frame that you want to switch the cameras
6- Select the camera you want to switch to and click add in plugin window
7- If done render, else goto 5 :)

edit: fixed a bug with the program:D (really)

[DMack]

Does this plugin work when you are doing previews? And can you overlap action (ie camera one does frames 1-100, then camera two does frames 90-200)?

[Qexit]

Does this plugin work when you are doing previews?

Yes. There is very little in the way of documentation available about usage but it is covered briefly on the second page of Chapter 16: Camera Basics in the LW8 Reference Manual. Not sure which page that is in the HTML version (I don't have my LW PC powered up right now) but it is page 521 in the printed manual issued by Newtek Europe, might be different in the US three ring binder version.

And can you overlap action (ie camera one does frames 1-100, then camera two does frames 90-200)?

No. If you want to do overlaps, you need to set up separate scenes since CameraSelector can only switch between cameras at a specific frame.

A couple of things to watch out for when using it. If you are using motion blur, then you may find you have to rerender the change over frame(s) due to the way LW creates the blur. You get a sort of double image. Try it and see :) Also, if you are using Sasquatch or SasLite then again you may need to rerender the change over frame. Have fun :)

[jademcquade]

Thanx for the help guys.

Set up a few cameras in my scene and rendered the scene in different parts. I then took the rendered parts into Adobe Premiere and rendered the whole clip together. Looks good.

Cheers to all.

[Dennik]

You are looking for a plugin called camera director (http://www.andynicholas.com/thezone/content/download/camdirector/CamDirector.zip) made by Andy Nicholas. (http://www.andynicholas.com/thezone/index.php?area=thezone)
I hope that helps

[Qexit]

You are looking for a plugin called camera director (http://www.andynicholas.com/thezone/content/download/camdirector/CamDirector.zip) made by Andy Nicholas. (http://www.andynicholas.com/thezone/index.php?area=thezone)
I hope that helpsNo longer required since Newtek included the CameraSelector Master Plugin with LW8.X...unless you are still only running LW7.5 of course :)

[Dennik]

Hey Kevin, yeah, in my entire career i only had one use for that plugin, and that was few years back (before 8.0) Most of the times, compositing does the trick just as well.

[blaqDeaph]

You can do it in LW using plugins, but if it's a big show, I recommend that you render out different passes of the animation (or the segment +- 50 or so frames), and comp them together in Premiere. This gives you better control over the transitions (if you're going to use them).

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