Lazarus Plath wrote:

> I've made a program that creates POV scenes and I'd like to make animations.
> I can't really use the clock to modify my model so I generate an include
> file for each frame and create animations like this:
>
> # if (clock = 1)
> #include frame01.inc
> #end
>
> #if (clock = 2)
> #include frame02.inc
> #end
> etc....

You can probably simplify this with a string concatenation:

#declare thisfile = concat("frame"+str(clock,2,2) + ".inc)
#include thisfile

Of course you if you use MegaPov you can use the framenumber keyword as well.
If you explain some of the details about the project we can help you streamline
the animation process. The clock keyword is actually pretty powerful and
flexible.

> The problem is that I want to completely automate the process; generate all
> the files, open the animation file, then render; but I've been unable to
> specify the clock and frame variables. I have to open the render settings
> window and manually set the values under the animation tab. Is there a way
> to set this up in the file (the initial_clock, final_clock, initial_frame,
> final_frame variables)? In the documentation I read about INI files where
> you can specify these things, but I've been unable to get POV to recognize
> the INI. How do I use an INI?

In the Render Settings dialog box, on the scene tab there is a check mark for
Read INI . If your main text file is "foo.pov" then it will look for "foo.ini"

You can also open an ini file and there is a switch for a source file and when
you render the INI file, it grabs the source. I haven't played with that too
much however.


> Also, is there anyway to have POV automatically render? I havnt seen
> anything about applescript. In my program I press a button and the scene
> file is created and opened in POV automatically, then I have to go to all
> the trouble of pressing command-R ;) Any way to skip that last step?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. POV-Ray does not automatically Render on
the Mac.

Josh English
eng### [at] spiritonecom

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