Not sure if we are all talking about the same thing here,
but I normally have a separate ini file for each animation
(of course they all look similar but not the same) and I
just run the ini file instead of the pov file to produce the
animation.  If I had a setup stage I would create a new
ini file with different information and run that instead.

Here is the ini file from my latest bubble animation which
I call (not too surprisingly) "Bubbles11.ini":

    Antialias=on
    ;Quality=0
    Input_File_Name=Bubbles11.pov
    Initial_Frame=1
    Final_Frame=120
    Initial_Clock=0
    Final_Clock=1
    Width=1152
    Height=864
    ;Subset_Start_Frame=16
    ;Subset_End_Frame=120
    Cyclic_Animation=on
    Pause_when_Done=off

I would still like to play with your flocking algorithm
to see what variations on a theme I can come up with
but I will likely re-write it in Java (mostly by way of
learning what it does :-)

Greg M. Johnson <"gregj;-)56590"@aol.c;-)om> wrote in message
news:37bee886@news.povray.org...
> Huh! I was sure that I was using a sort of cave-man's approach, something
> a bit obtuse and unnecessary, by altering POVRAY.INI each time.  I thought
> I saw an example years ago where someone was creating a separate INI file
> for each animation, and so thought I was not using the standard practice.
>
> Is this "secondary INI file" algorithm in the docs?  I suspect not?
>
> Bob Hughes wrote:
>
> > Batch file is the only method that comes to mind for me, to set the
> > povray.ini to the one you need. This is no good though since it
> > requires a change yourself as well anyway. The lack of INI keywords in
> > POV or INC files (or other way around) is a well known limitation, for
> > those that know about it already. Writing out to a povray.ini from the
> > POV file, no, this wouldn't go right from within a scene parsing.
> > There's my "no help", except I would think just selecting a secondary
> > INI manually having all the overriding choices in each would be okay
> > for those not absent-minded (like me... unlike me...whatever).
> >
> > Bob
> >
> > > Spock said:
> > >  I would separate the generation from the
> > > rendering by using two completely different systems
> > > and leave your ini file set up for rendering only.
> > >
> > > Greg M. Johnson <"gregj;-)56590"@aol.c;-)om> wrote in message
> > > news:37beb57a@news.povray.org...
> > > > I know how to animate using the POVRAY.INI file.  The problem is
> > that I
> > > > have one file that I want to ONLY RUN ONCE!!!!! as it generates my
> > INC
> > > > of positions for my animation.  Then I have a file that I want to
> > run
> > > > several times as it ticks through the frames.
> > > >
> > > > Twice this morning, I have forgotten to edit my POVRAY.INI file
> > back to
> > > > make pov only run more than one frame.  Thus, after a long
> > computation,
> > > > it rewrites the whole thing over from scratch!
> > > >
> > > > Q: Is there someway within the file to set up the number of
> > frames?  Do
> > > > I have to edit POVRAY.INI each time?
> > > >
> > > > The docs again on this issue seem to be preaching to the coders.
> > >:-p
> > > > I see  phrases that I'm used to editing in my POVRAY.INI file, but
> > no
> > > > indication of where to type or use the phrases.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
>

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