Hello all,

Has anybody been successful rendering Johnny Yip's "The Last Guardian" (2004
POVCOMP winner)?  He provides the source code and all the necessaries:
http://www.povcomp.com/entries/161.php

I'm getting errors like:
Parse Error: Identifier expected, incomplete function call or spline call found
instead.
Zero length rope found in m_get_rope_transform

His README indicates it's a simple 2 step render.  I'm new to POV-Ray so
hopefully I'm just missing something.  Any tips would be appreciated.  (Note:
I'm using ver 3.6.1 on Linux.)

Thanks.
- Cruxic

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Cruxic a écrit :
> Has anybody been successful rendering Johnny Yip's "The Last Guardian" (2004
> POVCOMP winner)?  He provides the source code and all the necessaries:
> http://www.povcomp.com/entries/161.php
> 
> I'm getting errors like:
> Parse Error: Identifier expected, incomplete function call or spline call found
> instead.
> Zero length rope found in m_get_rope_transform

Indeed, I have the same errors. It does render when you set 
show_coral_plantation to 0 though...

I think the error that really throws the render off is this one:

File: coral.inc  Line: 1206
File Context (5 lines):
          // Attach it
          m_puffy_coral_attach_branch(0, base_stem_spl,
Parse Error: Identifier expected, incomplete function call or spline 
call found instead.

The rest seem to be just harmless warnings.

I'm afraid I don't really know how to fix it...

-- 
Vincent

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Thanks for trying, Vincent.  Can anybody else figure it out?  Perhaps Mr. Yip is
still out there...

Vincent Le Chevalier <gal### [at] libertyALLsurfSPAMfr> wrote:
>
> I'm afraid I don't really know how to fix it...
>
> --
> Vincent

Post a reply to this message

> Thanks for trying, Vincent.  Can anybody else figure it out?  Perhaps Mr. 
> Yip is
> still out there...

1. Render base_terrain_v2.pov with the command line
+W1280 +H1024 +FN +A0.3 +R3
This will create a PNG for the height_field.

2. Move base_terrain_v2.png to where you want it, (688k)

3. Modify terrain.inc to refer the height_field path...
(Line 216 - 223), only the png portion really matters,
but make sure to move terrain_file into the #ifdef
so it doesn't raise an error. Like this...

#declare base_terrain = height_field {
   #ifdef (USE_PNG_HF)
      png "full file path\base_terrain_v2.png"
   #else
      sys terrain_file
   #end

4. Render povcomp.pov with the command line
+W960 +H1280 +FN +A0.4 +R3 +WL0 Declare=USE_HIGHRES_HF=1 
Declare=USE_PNG_HF=1
This should render the final image.
Eventually.
It's really, really slow.

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Tim Attwood a écrit :
> [snip]
> This should render the final image.
> Eventually.
> It's really, really slow.
> 

Well yeah that's pretty much equivalent to what is written in README.txt:

> Instruction on how to render the image
> 
> 1. Run "terrain.ini" to generate the heightfield bitmap.
> 2. Create a new folder call "hf" under the same folder as the rest of the source
>  files
> 3. Move "base_terrain_hd_v2.png" into "hf" (generated from terrain.ini)
> 4. Run povcomp.ini

But it does not work either (same error exactly)... On which OS did you try?

If indeed the image renders on Windows, we'll have to wonder what part 
works slightly differently on Linux...

-- 
Vincent

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Tim Attwood escribió:
>       png "full file path\base_terrain_v2.png"

Well, *that* won't work, because \b is a backspace character.

Always use forward slashes.

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>>       png "full file path\base_terrain_v2.png"
>
> Well, *that* won't work, because \b is a backspace character.
>
> Always use forward slashes.

No, it works fine.
It's easy to paste the path out of explorer in WindowsXP,
but it's back-slashes instead of forward-slashes.
The reason that this works is "full file path\base_terrain_v2.png"
is a string literal, not a string variable, the back-slash isn't interpreted
as an escape character in a literal.
If it makes you feel better to use forward slashes, that's fine too.

I'm not aware of any reason that this scene wouldn't render under
a Linux version of POV, though it does have many warnings which
are being suppressed by +WL0 in the command line.
I have 1 GB memory, maybe you have less? Sometimes POV
doesn't handle virtual memory as well as it should.

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Maybe Linux is freaking out about the division by zero
warnings?

** revisions to remove warnings
** in file "galleon.inc"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
** replace lines 141 - 145 with
               [0.0 color col]
               [0.1 color col]
               [0.5 color col2]
               [0.9 color col]
               [1.0 color col}
** explanation: RGB expects vector literal, color doesn't
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
** replace line 1855 with
      #if (h_num=0) #local k=999999999; #else #local k = 1/h_num; #end
** explanation: remove division by zero error
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
** replace lines 2114 - 2135 with
         // The lower cross beam for stern is broken... notice that the 
distance of
         // this beam below the platform is controlled by "overlap.x*2.5"
         #local TEMP_REVISION = cylinder {<0,0,cross_pole_l/2>,
            <0,0,-cross_pole_l/2>, 
base_pole_r*beam_crosspole_radius_factor};
         // main cross beam
         #if (show_decay > 0)
            #local TEMP_REVISION = union {
               object {TEMP_REVISION}
               object {m_dripping_cylinder(base_pole_r*
                  beam_crosspole_radius_factor*beam_deposit_level,
                  cross_pole_l)
                  rotate 90*y}};
         #end
         // Original plan is to cut the stern cross pole, Cut the center 
beam as well
         #if (special != bm_is_bow_beam)
            #local TEMP_REVISION = difference {
               object{TEMP_REVISION}
               object{galleon_cut_cross_beam
                  translate 
<-0.02,0,-(1-bm_stern_cross_beam_z)*(cross_pole_l/2)>}};
         #end
         object{TEMP_REVISION translate 
<base_cross_pole_x,base_cross_pole_y,0>}
         #undef TEMP_REVISION
** explanation: don't create a single object CSG
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
** replace line 2823 with
   #local TEMP_REVISION =
** replace line 2885 with
      };    // difference
** replace line 2892 with
      #if (hull = hrm_is_top_hull) #local TEMP_REVISION = 
union{object{TEMP_REVISION}
** replace line 2898 with
         }};
** replace line 2900 with
         #if (show_decay > 0) #local TEMP_REVISION = 
union{object{TEMP_REVISION}
** replace line 2906 with
            }};
** replace line 2911 with
      object {TEMP_REVISION texture { t_galleon_hull_rail }
** explanation: don't create a single object CSG
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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That's it, Tim!  Step #3 is the important one.  Apparently the following works
on Windows but not Linux:

#declare base_terrain = height_field {
  #ifdef (USE_PNG_HF)
    png
  #else
    sys
  #end
  terrain_file
  ...
}

As Tim found, it must be in the form:

#declare base_terrain = height_field {
  #ifdef (USE_PNG_HF)
    png terrain_file
  #else
    sys terrain_file
  #end
  ...
}

So if you merely make the above tweak to terrain.ini you can render it as per
the author's readme file.  You will still get warnings but this time it will
progress past them.

So what clued you on to this, Tim?  I didn't see any complaints in the pov
output (but perhaps I missed it).

Does this warrant a bug report?


"Tim Attwood" <tim### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
>
> 3. Modify terrain.inc to refer the height_field path...
> (Line 216 - 223), only the png portion really matters,
> but make sure to move terrain_file into the #ifdef
> so it doesn't raise an error. Like this...
>
> #declare base_terrain = height_field {
>    #ifdef (USE_PNG_HF)
>       png "full file path\base_terrain_v2.png"
>    #else
>       sys terrain_file
>    #end
>

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Cruxic a écrit :
> That's it, Tim!  Step #3 is the important one.  Apparently the following works
> on Windows but not Linux:
> 
> #declare base_terrain = height_field {
>   #ifdef (USE_PNG_HF)
>     png
>   #else
>     sys
>   #end
>   terrain_file
>   ...
> }
> 
> As Tim found, it must be in the form:
> 
> #declare base_terrain = height_field {
>   #ifdef (USE_PNG_HF)
>     png terrain_file
>   #else
>     sys terrain_file
>   #end
>   ...
> }
> 
> So if you merely make the above tweak to terrain.ini you can render it as per
> the author's readme file.  You will still get warnings but this time it will
> progress past them.
> 

Well that's very strange, because on a simple test scene having png and 
the name of the file on different lines seems to work... There is 
probably something more evil at work behind the scene ;-)

Anyway, hats off to Tim for figuring it out!

-- 
Vincent

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