VariableSwitch Node in a Multishot Context

The VariableSwitch node allows you to switch between different inputs, shots, or scopes using Variables.

How to set up switching

After adding a VariableSwitch node to your node graph, choose which Variable is going to be used for switching the node. The Variables to choose from are displayed in the dropdown.

Note: This dropdown is derived from the ones set on the Variables tab in Project Settings. If your Variable doesn’t appear, you’ll need to add it there first.

In the patterns section, you’ll see a pattern knob appearing for each input that the node has: if the switch node has 5 inputs, there will be 5 pattern knobs.
Type Variable names into these patterns to define the inputs that are active on the node. The Variables should match the ones you have defined in the Variables tab in Project Settings — see Using Variables in a Multishot Context for more information.

You can then switch the Variable in use in Project Settings or in the Variable Panel.

Changing the ‘current shot’ Variable in the Project Settings to a different value (‘s00010’, ’s00020’, ‘s00030’, ‘s00040’, ‘s00050’) will change the inputs in the VariableSwitch.

If there are multiple VariableSwitch nodes with the same patterns, all of them will be affected. If a variable doesn’t match the input in the pattern then input 0 will be used.

Adding multiple patterns per input

You can also add multiple Variables per pattern input - this enables a split and join style workflow where multiple scopes can have the same treatment. In the case of a multishot workflow, you can have treatments that apply to a group of shots in one input and another group of shots in the other.

In the example below you can see how shots ‘s00010’, ’s00020’, ‘s00030’ and ‘s00050’ have one treatment while ’s00040’ needed a different one.

Tip: See our Multishot Tutorial to learn more about how Graph Scope Variables, VariableGroup, and VariableSwitch nodes work together in practice.