Please explain how this would work. Wouldn't you end up with another object
being added to the scene each time through the loop.

Povray has no way to delete or modify an object once it is declared.

Gordon

Lukee wrote in message <3654A085.DEAC2E8C@altavista.net>...
>Maybe I'm missing something, but I feel POVRay would strongly need some
>kind of "render" statement. Let me explain: with version 3.1, POV has
>
>achieved the status of a nearly complete programming language. It has
>
>its own cyles, conditional tests, macros etc. BUT we still have to make
>
>animations by the quite primitive mathod of calling the program
>repeatedly with different arguments: this means re-parsing every time
>
>and no chance of doing a complex animation. I know, now POV can read and
>
>write files, but using them to store temporary variable values seems to
>
>me a bit dumb. What we really need is a siple "render" statement. e.g
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>#declare a_cross = union {
>
>
>
> cylinder { <-1.5,0,0>, <1.5,0,0>, 0.3}
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> cylinder { <0,1.5,0>, <0,-1.5,0>, 0.3}
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>
>
>    }
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>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>#macro DrawCross (rot,trans, colr)
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> object {a_cross
>
> texture {pigment {color rgb colr}}
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> rotate rot translate trans
>
> }
>
>
>
>#end
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>#declare cycles=0;
>
>
>
>#while (cycles<36)
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> DrawCross(<0,cycles*10,0>,<0,0,0>,<0,.8,.2>)
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> #declare cycles=cycles+1;
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>
>
> render <sort of a numbered-filename>//<- THIS IS THE NEW DIRECTIVE!
>
>
>
>#end
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>
>
>
>
>
>
>The above code would render to a different file every time it comes upon
>
>the "render" directive (36 times) from WITHIN the cycle, rather than at
>
>the end of the complete parsing, thus outputting an animation. This way,
>we could avoid working outside the POV program with limited .INI files
>to achieve any kind of animation, at any level of complexity: particle
>systems, mesh distortion/morphing ecc. POV would become the most
>flexible 3D system in the world.
>
>
>
>Am I wrong?
>
>
>
>Could this be implemented via a patch (I don't think I have the skill to
>
>do that)?
>
>
>
>Please tell me your opinion!
>
>
>
>Luca Rivelli <luk### [at] usanet>

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