In article <web.40afc50027c58a6ad5551b880@news.povray.org>, nomail@nomail 
says...
> OK, I think I spotted the problem. I couldn't understand you. I assumed the
> version of POV-ray I'm using rendered all the pics in one file:
> clockdemo.pov. Instead, my program rendered each picture and automatically
> stored them in a separate FOLDER somewhere else. I found them in the
> POVimages folder (clockdemo, clockdemo00, clockdemo01, etc.). Now what? Oh,
> BTW, there are many other images in that folder besides those from the
> clockdemo. Should I seclude them into a separate folder?
> 
> 

Yes. POV-Ray can't place anything into a single file. There is no version 
that I know of that can or does do so. It is intended only to generate 
each separate 'frame', requiring you to connect them all together in a 
movie.

Don't worry about secluding the images. You could copy them all into a 
separate folder if you want, but it isn't necessary. The one merely 
called 'clockdemo.bmp' may be a problem though. In general if the image 
doesn't have a number, then it is a 'still' image, not part of an 
animation. What likely happened is that you ran clockdemo.pov without 
animation turn on, so POV-Ray generated a single still image from it. 
This image is "identical" to clockdemo00. This will be a problem when you 
run TMPGEnc, since that program looks for 'all' files that start with a 
name + numbers. The result will be:

clockdemo.bmp
clockdemo00.bmp
clockdemo01.bmp
...

In other words, it will incorrectly believe that the one without any 
number is the 'first' frame in the animation, even though it is actually 
a duplicate of clockdemo00.bmp. So, unless you move all the rest of them 
into a separate folder, you will need to delete the one that only shows 
'clockdemo', with no numbers.

Now, when TMPGEnc loads and you pick a movie type is will ask you:

Video File:                    [Browse...] <- click this button
Audio File:                    [Browse...]

Select 'clockdemo00.bmp' from the folder with all the images in it. 
TMPGEnc will automatically shorten it to 'clockdemo.bmp', so when it is 
making the movie, it will first look for 'clockdemo.bmp, then 
'clockdemo00.bmp' and so on, until it runs out of files with that name. 
Basically it is asking you for either a) an existing movie file to import 
or b) the first 'frame' of a series of numbered images to make into one, 
which is what you are trying to do. ;) Don't bother with the audio 
option, it will automatically set that to the same file(s), unless you 
specifically need to use one. Click "next" until you get to a page that 
asks for the "Output File:". The other pages have a bunch of setting that 
only an expert will likely know how to manage. At this point you can 
change where it will place the file or the name it is going to use, just 
make sure it has the right extension (.mpg for normal movies or .m2v + 
.wav) for DVD).

By default it will put the finished movie in the same place as the images 
used to make it, so you can probably leave this alone to and just click 
the "OK" button. It will them tell you that 'clockdemo.mpg does not 
exist' (or something similar) and ask you if it should create it. Click 
OK. It should then pop to a screen that will show frames being loaded and 
put into the file. This screen will also show the Input, Audio and Output 
files it is using. Just sit back and watch it build the file. Once the it 
shows 100%, your movie is finished. ;)

You can also use the Setting button and other options on this page to 
fiddle with how the movie is made, but all this stuff is automatically 
set by the wizard, which is generally good enough, unless you know what 
you are doing. In any case, now all you need to do is open up the new 
clockdemo.mpg file in your favorite player and watch the animation. ;) Is 
is going to be short though, it takes a lot more images to make something 
that runs for any length of time. The pentmap.pov demo (assuming they 
didn't rename it. My own copy of clockdemo is called clockd, so they may 
have renamed some of the files) has 300 images in is and is only 1 minute 
in length. The clockdemo will be 0.4 seconds in length. lol

Clockdemo is only intended to give a basic example of how animation 
works, not a full length animation. In fact, the longest animation of any 
of them is Life.pov at 1 minute, 40 seconds. The rest are on average only 
about 12 seconds in length.

-- 
void main () {

    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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