by Didik Wijaya

In real life movie, sometimes the director uses many cameras to shoot just single scene. Using several cameras, he can capture from many point of view at once. In 3ds max you can also use multiple camera to capture animation. Instead of rendering from one camera at a time, you can automate multiple camera switching and render all views at once. This tutorial will show you how to create multiple camera switching and output to single video file.

1. First, we need a scene. You can use your own scene, or download Space Battle scene here. In this file there's spaceship chasing scene. The chaser also fire some laser gun.

If you curious, here's how I create this scene:
a. Asteroid is created using Particle Flow. Read Space Scene: Asteroid Belt tutorial here to kknow how to create asteroid and starry space background.
b. Spaceship animation is created using Path Constraint. There's a tutorial explaining about Path Constraint: A6M3 WW2 Plane Animation
c. Laser shot is created using Particle Flow. Find out how to create gun shot in Desert Chase tutorial

In this scene, I created three cameras.

2. To render many cameras at once I use Video Post. Open Video Post (Rendering>Video Post).

In Video Post window, click Add Scene Event button. In opened window choose Camera01 as chosen view. Repeat this step twice until all cameras selected. That means you have 3 rows of camera in Video Post.

3. Use Zoom to show all bar (from frame 0-125). Click Edit Range Bar button. Click and drag small white rectangle in bar to move. The bar shows which camera should be active in certain frames. Arrange the bars until you get something similar to image below.

When finished, click Add Image Output Event button. In opened window, click Files button and choose filename, folder and video format.

4. At last, click Execute button to render. In opened window choose Range. In this example, use from frame 0-125. Choose output size and click Render button.

5. Here's example of rendered animation.

I added laser effect. Click here to learn how to create Glowing Laser Shot Effect

Any question or comments regarding this tutorial should be sent to:
Didik Wijaya, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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