>I'm new to POVRAY.  I have the 3.1 documentation which is a big help.
>But is there a doc somewhere that defines the syntax, each of the fields
>& parms for the POVRAY 'language'?


POV help files do provide the syntax for the scene language. I didn't
quite realise it at first either but if you look under something like
'camera' you'll get this:

The camera definition describes the position, projection type and
properties of the camera viewing the scene. Its syntax is:

CAMERA:

camera{ [CAMERA_ITEMS...] }

CAMERA_ITEM:

CAMERA_TYPE | CAMERA_VECTOR | CAMERA_MODIFIER | CAMERA_IDENTIFIER

CAMERA_TYPE:

perspective | orthographic | fisheye | ultra_wide_angle | 
omnimax | panoramic | cylinder CylinderType

CAMERA_VECTOR:

location <Location> | right <Right> | up <Up> | direction <Direction> | 
sky <Sky>

CAMERA_MODIFIER:

angle Degrees | look_at <Look_At> | 
blur_samples Num_of_Samples | aperture Size | focal_point <Point> | 
confidence Blur_Confidence | varience Blur_Varience | 
NORMAL | 
TRANSFORMATION

----So you end up with something like:
camera{
       fisheye   //this is your camera type
       location<0,1,-10> //camera vector
       look_at<0,0,0>  //camera modifier
}
The Camera_Identifier would be used in place of all the other
Camera_Items.
You would #declare a camera and it's items so you can change cameras
more
easily say in an animation.
#declare MyCamera = camera{
                           camera_type
                           camera_vector
                           camera_modifier
                    }
And then use it like this:
camera{
       MyCamera
}


The syntax is interesting with things like rotate and translate. Try
making
a simple scene and then switch the order of rotate and translate.
Rotation
occurs based on wherever you originally constructed your object. If you
put translate before rotate your object is first translated to it's new
postion and the rotated around the place it came from. But this might be 
exactly what you want it to do...

Hope this helps a bit.
PS. since your new you might want to check out the 
povray.announce.frequently_asked_questions newsgroup  you can't post or
reply there but there's a storehouse of good tips and tutorial links in
there.

And welcome to the POV community!

Phil
-- 
...coffee?...yes please! extra sugar,extra cream...Thank you.

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