Hey guys, I am trying to finish up my camera system but so far I am stuck. Everything works appropriately up until now as far as rotating it around the character and zooming in/out and so on, but I am trying to smooth out the zoom. (Not actually zoom, just make the camera closer/farther away from the player) Heres what I have currently...

bool WorldState::mouseMoved(const OIS::MouseEvent &arg)
{
   if(arg.state.buttonDown(OIS::MB_Right))
   {
      // If we are in camera-pivote state, spin/pitch the camera based
      // on relative mouse movement.
      // Get rid of the * -1.0 to invert the mouse movement
      chaseCam->spin(Degree(arg.state.X.rel * 0.14) * -1.0);
      chaseCam->pitch(Degree(arg.state.Y.rel * 0.1) * -1.0);
      return true;
   }

   if(arg.state.Z.rel)
   {
      static Real zDist;

      zDist = (-0.05f * arg.state.Z.rel);
      chaseCam->getCamera()->moveRelative(Vector3(0.0f, 0.0f, zDist));
   }

   return guiCanvas->injectMouseMove(arg.state.X.abs, arg.state.Y.abs);
}

Now the problem is when you use the mousewheel, its kind of jerky as it zooms closer/further from the player. I am trying to find someway to implement something like WoW or any other number of RPGs have, where when you zoom it kind of smooth transitions from like a node to the next node, with the first node being at the character, and the end node being X distance from the player. I have not really found anything from sites/snippets covering this though, so I am hoping you guys can help. I found a demo application from Ogre3D that makes the mouse follow a track, but it seems more oriented for doing an automated camera in like a video or something, so not sure if I should use it in this case (or if it would work at all)