Reynald wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> For the first time since I'm using POV-ray I would like to make an
> animation. I tried to find information about "general techniques" about how
> to do it, without success.
> 
> I know about the "clock" parameter and up to now I have tried to define
> mathematical functions of this parameter for further use in the script. But
> I can assume that this is not the easiest way to realise an animation. The
> thing rapidely becomes very complexe, since I want to move different
> mechanical parts, changing the color and brightness of some heating
> elements, and I also want to visualize some moving smoke...!
> 
> Some link to "standard animation techniques" with povray or some suggestions
> about how to organize the scipt would help me a lot. Thanks in advance.
> REYNALD
> 
> 

Some things to get you started:

Moving mechanical parts, like robots, etc., is usually done using 
Inverse Kinematics:

   - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_kinematics

Smoke, water, fire etc. are usually done with either a particle system 
or a fluid dynamics solver system. There are several particle systems 
available for POV-Ray, e.g.

   - Rune's: http://runevision.com/3d/include/particles/
   - Tim Nikias': http://nolights.de/download.html#PartixGen

For animating physically correct models with masses and springs, like 
cloth, etc., use a something like Christoph Hormann's SimPOV, which is 
included in MegaPOV:

   - http://megapov.inetart.net/index.html

If you want to interpolate smoothly from one state to another, e.g. for 
blending from one color to another, you can use POV-Ray's splines:

   - http://povray.org/documentation/view/3.6.1/234/

There are many more include files out there to help you with special 
animation tasks, like:

   - Liquid Surface Simulation: http://nolights.de/download.html#LSSM
   - Clock modifier macros:
     http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434/clockmod.html

But after all, the clock variable is your main way to do animations in POV.

I hope those links get you started, feel free to ask if you got more 
questions. Also note, that there are special newsgroups for animations:

   - povray.animations: For asking questions about animations
   - povray.binary.animations: For posting animations (< 2MB)


HTH,
Florian

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