Camera Switcher Tool:

The Camera Switcher Tool allows a user to quickly set up a cinematic camera scene through the use of a spreadsheet and a realtime expression.
A master camera is snapped to predetermined positions on playback by reading the spreadsheet and determining cut frames, the snap-to camera, and the interest aims.
Each of the individual cameras are connected to hand-held curves that can be dialed up or down through the UI.

Main Controls:

• Button "Import Cameras" will import the predetermined camera file into the current scene.
• Button "Create Target Locators" will create target locators and constrain them to a joint on the body. These are what the individual cameras aim at.
• Button "Save UI Values" will write the UI values to a CameraSwitcher node to be saved with the scene. This node is read on the launch of the Camera Switcher UI.
• Button "Add Entry" will add a new camera cut.
• Button "Delete Entry" will delete the selected (checkBox) camera entry.
• Button "Look Through Toggle" will toggle between and look through the perspective and the master camera.
• Button "Bake Look Through Camera" will bake the master camera and remove the snap-to cameras.
• CheckBox "Dampen" activates the global dampening system for all the cameras. This gives individual cameras a lag when following (aiming) at the interest locators.
• FloatSlider "Past/Future" sets the Master Cam lag (a frame cache node) to favor looking in the past, or the future.
• Button "K" will keyframe the dampening amount by the slider value.
• IntField "By" determines the amount of frames the frameCache node will look into the past and future.

• CheckBox next to "Time" is used for selecting a cut for deletion.
• IntField "Time" is used to set the frame at which the master camera will snap to the position of the target camera.
• Button "<-" is used to set the "Time:" intField to the current value of the TimeSlider.
• Button "G" is used to go to the time set in the "Time:" intField.
• OptionMenu "Camera" is used to select the camera that the master camera will snap to at the time in the spreadsheet.
• Button "S" will select the snap-to camera shape, for easy keying of the focal length channel.
• OptionMenu "Interest" is the locator the snap-to camera will be aim constrained to.
• FloatField "Hand-Held" is used to numerically set the value of the multiply divide node connected to the hand-held curve channels on the snap-to cameras.
• FloatSlider "Hand-Held" is used to set the value of the multiply divide node connected to the hand-held curve channels on the snap-to cameras.
• CheckBox "Tracking" will aim the snap-to camera at the "interest" for the duration of the cut. If unchecked, the camera will start aimed at the interest, but will not follow.
• FloatField "Focal Length" numerically sets the focal length on the snap-to camera.
• FloatSlider "Focal Length" sets the focal length on the snap-to camera.
• Button "K" will keyframe the focal length to the floatSlider setting.

Resulting Playblast:

It took cinematic director Dori Arazi under 20 minutes to set up this scene. He was very pleased.