Another possible solution would be to install and use MegaPOV, which does have a
commandline switch or .ini-file option that does what you are looking for - only
it's called Frame_Step :-)

Have a nice weekend
Karl

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ChrisB -  I think I understand the methodology.


That opens up some possibilities.




Thank you for the responses.  Lots of things to research.  Probably explore all

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"Inquisitor" <dec### [at] sybasecom> wrote in message 
news:web.4a548ef4b78569e182abe670@news.povray.org...
> Sorry about the delay. I've been on vacation.
>
> ChrisB -  I think I understand the methodology.
>
> Darren New - Hmmm. wasn't aware you could drive POV Ray from a command 
> line.
> That opens up some possibilities.
>
> Karl Anders - Haven't heard much about this program.  I'm assuming there's
> plenty on it. on this forum.  Need to do some research on this too.
>
> Thank you for the responses.  Lots of things to research.  Probably 
> explore all
> three approaches. just for s&g and for ease of use and future needs.
>

Another thing you may wish to look at to see whether it helps is SMPOV 
(http://www.it-berater.org/smpov.htm), which is designed to front-end 
MegaPOV to perform distributed processing. I've never used it myself, but it 
claims to be able to 'distribute animations in pieces to PC's via MegaPOV's 
"frame_step"-feature '.

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------------------------ Begin of  ANIMATION.INI ---------------------------
Input_File_Name=Batch.pov

Initial_Frame = 0
Final_Frame   = 100
Initial_Clock = 0
Final_Clock   = 100
------------------------ End of  ANIMATION.INI ---------------------------


equal 0, Initial_Clock must equal 0 and Final_Frame must equal Final_Clock.


batch is one instance of POV-Ray running the full ini file.  Typically, if

POV-Ray per CPU core that you have available on your system.  You lucky ones

separate directories.

------------------------ Begin of  BATCH.POV ---------------------------
// Notes:
// (1) Number of digits needed for Final_Frame.  2 if 10-99, 3 if 100-999...
#declare digitCnt = 3;
// (2) File naming assumes that total lengh of film is 9999 seconds or less.
// (3) Seconds between frames for final product.
#declare minStep = 1 / 15;

// (4) Initial time to start "Job"
#declare timeStart = 0 * minStep;           // <------ Change This!
// (5) Seconds between frames for this ini file "Job".
#declare timeStep = 15 * minStep;           // <------ Change This!

// Don't mess with.
#declare time = timeStart + clock * timeStep;

#fopen file "Rename.bat" append
#write (file,
    concat("'  Frame ", str(clock, 5, 0), " is at ", str(time, 5, 5), "
seconds\n")
    concat("rename Batch", str(clock, -digitCnt, 0), ".bmp ")
    concat("Frame", str(int(time), -4, 0), "-",
        str(mod(time / minStep, 1 / minStep), -2, 0), ".bmp\n"))
#fclose file


------------------------ End of  BATCH.POV ---------------------------



#declare digitCnt = 32;


them to 1000 and over change to 4.



#declare minStep = 1 / 15;





#declare timeStart = 0 * minStep;
#declare timeStep = 30 * minStep;

Change every instance of "clock" in your pov scene file to "time" and you're
good to go.  Each batch will create 100 bitmaps (in this example) and a batch
file (Rename.bat) that will rename the POV-Ray images to a naming convention
based on the actual seconds of the frame.  That way the images can all be
dropped in a common folder and will order by their time in the film and thus
make life easier when combining into the video.

Good luck.

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I wanted to pass on the results...

Here's the YouTube of a low resolutiong version using the technique above.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TujngLy_QK4

Its 480x270 by 15 f/s.

I'm currently generating a high res version

1280x720x15 f/s... It should be out in... say... a month or two.

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"Inquisitor" <dec### [at] sybasecom> wrote in message 
news:web.4a7c9f26b78569e182abe670@news.povray.org...
>I wanted to pass on the results...
>
> Here's the YouTube of a low resolutiong version using the technique above.
>
>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TujngLy_QK4
>
> Its 480x270 by 15 f/s.
>
> I'm currently generating a high res version
>
> 1280x720x15 f/s... It should be out in... say... a month or two.
>

It's looking very good indeed and very good to see what you're up to :-).

Although you've not asked for feedback, I've made a few notes in case you're 
still at a stage where you can implement improvements:

There are jumps in the ocean surface pattern about every 10 seconds. There's 
one at about 2min that's quite apparent (play from 1m 58s).

The boat is nice, but I think that making the hull slightly reflective would 
make a huge improvement (though it would lengthen render times). The sails 
look too solid to my eyes. I'd suggest making them slightly transparent and 
playing around with the diffuse settings, although this once again will 
impact your render times.

When the boat starts to turn at 2m 28s, it seems like it needs half a second 
to a second of transition.  Again at 3m 33s the stop is just too 
instantanious and clean (even for someone who's a dab hand on the throttle).

IMO the camera stop at 2m 51 s is too abrupt and the transition to night at 
about 2m 58 doesn't ring true. The shadows on the lights imply that the Sun 
is still very high in the sky. You could maybe move the main light down to 
make the shadows track more. Moving the clouds across the sky and the water 
texture more rapidly during this transition would give a feeling that the 
footage has been sped up. I'd suggest keeping the camera dead still at this 
stage as this sort of shot is typically done with a fixed camera with a 
delay timer.

Regards,
Chris B.

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> I wanted to pass on the results...
> 
> Here's the YouTube of a low resolutiong version using the technique above.
> 
>     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TujngLy_QK4
> 
> Its 480x270 by 15 f/s.
> 
> I'm currently generating a high res version
> 
> 1280x720x15 f/s... It should be out in... say... a month or two.
> 
> 
> 

Interesting side by side masts setup. Never saw something like that on a 
real ship. I tought of something similar myself, but with parallel 
masts, not masts meetint at the top.


Alain

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ChrisB,

Oh, I more than welcome input.  I had thought the thread had gone stale and I


much and just set the two parameters in the pov file.  I have them churning on
several machines and just combine the images (after running the rename.bat
file) and they fall into place as pretty as you please.  I think having the
file names reflecting the actual second-subsecond frame makes it near bullet
proof.


have stopped the hi-res until I correct it.  The ocean comes from Gilles Tran
and he references Marc Jacquier and Christoph Horman for the water aspect.
Basically, he uses a height_field to create a square and then he creates the
SeaSurface based on many of these height_fields properly mirrored to each other
so the transitions line up.  For a video to make the wave action I move this
whole field by my wave velocity and the time.  I move it for one wave length
and then back it up.  The major wave is correctly being moved back, but all the


ocean.  It looks good, but unfortunately, the generation for a 720p goes from

solution brewing.


1920x1200 stills show that to advantage.  However, there have been some racing




debate that one.


off the helicopter onto the pier and froze at the base of the pier. Yeah, I need
to give a little better acceleration/decelerations at those points.

Sun to moon light transition.  Yeah, a little hokey.  Did you catch the sun

cinematography excellence, and I like the transition while moving.  The

most people have with this image is the vigorous sailing into a lone tropical
island and relaxing by the moon light.


it looks like the surface is crawling.  I use a random number generator to
generate the rings in the boards (can see the boards in the hi-res still on the




spray (splashing)?




to see 15 frames a second.  Before I was usually going from 1 every ten seconds






 Alain,
            Yes, the parallel masts are the more common case (obviously after

study on a boat design forum and have prompted them to see if anyone has




continue, I plan on going through the entire design and building process on the
thread.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/z40-roadster-its-sailboat-not-car-28624.html

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"Inquisitor" <dec### [at] sybasecom> wrote in message 
news:web.4a800ba0b78569e182abe670@news.povray.org...
>
> Reflective - funny you mention that.  Actually it is pretty reflective and 
> the
> 1920x1200 stills show that to advantage.  However, there have been some 
> racing
> yachts lately using a chrome Mylar film (mirror) on the hulls and I'm
> experimenting with that.

Hmmm. I'm not sure that adding stealth to the hull of a private yacht is 
necessarily a very wise 'improvement'. I think flourescent Green with bright 
Orange stripes might give you a higher survival rating on the open ocean 
:-)


> Sun to moon light transition.  Yeah, a little hokey.  Did you catch the 
> sun
> switch off at 3:19. kind of abrupt.

No I hadn't noticed till you pointed it out. The camera is very close into 
the yacht at that point in time and there are lots of artificial lights 
around, so my brain just accepted that a light shining on the roof suddenly 
went out.


> Wood grain - I have a problem with the wood grain.  At 2:50 looking at the 
> pier,
> it looks like the surface is crawling.

I think this is down to having very fine, but well defined lines (a big 
color difference) viewed from a changing camera position. There is a name 
for this, but I can't for the life of me think of it. If this is the reason 
there are some things you can do with anti-aliasing and jitter to reduce 
such effects, but these have quite detrimental render-time overheads. 
Alternatively, at this resolution you can't really see the wood-grain effect 
anyway, so you might consider using a far simpler pattern for the animated 
renders.


> Wake and Spray - Fortunately, my boat design is soooo good that it doesn't 
> even
> leave a wake.. NOT.  Have you seen any good topics on generating a wake or
> spray (splashing)?

Eriban posted a thread entitled 'Rock The Boat (Final)' on 10th July this 
year on povray.binaries.images. The Wake is discussed in that thread and 
there's a reference to the source in povray.binaries.scene-files. I didn't 
try it myself, so I don't know how well it would animate and I don't know 
how easy it might be to combine with your heightfield techniques.

Regards,
Chris B.

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Wanted to pass along one of the reasons for this high horsepower computer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPeldE2RExs

Remember to press the HD button and let it start reloading, then press the full
screen.

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