Animating a Flyby with sequential camera targets

[oldmicah]

I've got a scene with a sphere and a cube that are rotating and moving.

Seconds 0-2 Camera flies through the scene with a target tag focus'd on the cube
Seconds 2-4 Camera continues it's movement through the scene but with the target tag now focus'd on the sphere

Think of a steadycam following a woman down the street and into the bank, seeing a brief case handed off, and then following a suspicious character in a trench coat down the hall, all in one take. The camera's 'target' changes from the woman, then to the brief case, and finally to trench coat.

Idea 1: One camera, changing the camera's target tag at 2 seconds from the cube to the sphere. Problem: The target tag does seem to be a key-able parameter in animation. i.e. if I change the tag at time 2 to the sphere and record all keys, the camera only points at the sphere from time 0 to time 4.

Idea 2: Two cameras. Same flight path, but with different targets. Problem 1: sphere and cube have to be perfectly lined up at the switch for the animation to be smooth Problem 2: I can't figure out how to get camera 1 to just render from 0-2 seconds and camera 2 to render from 2-4

Is this possible, or am I missing the obvious?

Thanks!

 

[joel ruiz c]

edit.. Oops I missunderstood the question, I'm playing with your file.

 

[oldmicah]

edit.. Oops I missunderstood the question, I'm playing with your file.

Awesome! Thank you.

 

[joel ruiz c]

I created and animated a folder and set it as target for the camera to look at.

 

[misoversaturated]

The idea with the folder was right,
put folder at cube position and record at frame 0 and 45,
then move folder to sphere position and record frame 75 and 120,
go into f-curve editor, set all tangents to spline and flatten/smooth them,
asign folder as camera target.
The camera will now point at the cube for 1.5 seconds, move its target point to the sphere within 1 second and continue pointing there.
(I was just setting up a file but Joel beat me to it )

 

[joel ruiz c]

You made it pretty with smooth f-curves and all so I did it faster lol ..but yeah, what @misoversaturated said would look a lot better.

Edit, here's with smooth f-curves for a nice transition as he said.