Josh English wrote...

> 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

This is very cool! I've been using POV for about a week now and didn't know
you can do things like this.

> Of course you if you use MegaPov you can use the framenumber keyword as well.

I've just downloaded MegaPOV and havn't had a chance to look at it.

> 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 program I've created uses splines and other methods of moving and
distorting objects. I know there is basically a complete math interpreter so
I could conceivably put all this in the POV file, but I find it easier to
create a different model for each 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"

Perfect. I just checked the Read INI file check box and have been fiddling
around with things. Now it's reading the .ini I make, there's some more
things I need to setup, but its working now.

> 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.

I'll have to look into this, I think it may be better.

> 
>> 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.

The program I'm working on is an extension of a 2D program I've made, where
I did all the rendering in the program itself. When I decided to try some 3D
stuff I started making a raytracer and made a simple little thing. But when
I saw how simple it was to generate a POV file and how much better it
rendered I'm setting it up so I do all the modeling in my program then
render in POV. In my program I have a menu item "Auto POV" (command-A) which
creates my scene file and automatically opens it in POV. Then I press
command-R to render. Go back to my program, change some stuff then
command-A, command-R. I'd like to just have a button I can click that will
create the scene open it and render.

David, (a previous poster) says there's an applescript command 'print' that
with cause a render, but I dont see that in POV's applescript dictionary (I
dont see anything in its dictionary). Maybe thats for MegaPOV, I need to
look into Mega, sounds like it does alot more.

> Josh English
> eng### [at] spiritonecom
>

Thanks very much

-laz

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