To whom it may concern,

I'm having a frustrating problem with the AutoClck.mcr file.
I'm attempting to do a little character animation and want to use
the macros to animate the character's mouth, eyes, etc.

The file works fine by itself, and the AutoClck file does
fine when rendering the test animations Chris provides in the
package. However, when I use the macro file to animate my
character, it gives me an error on line 60 of the mcr file...

object or directive expected but + found instead.

I've tried to reach Mr. Colefax via email, but Geocities
keeps spitting my messages back...I hope either he sees
this or perhaps someone who can help.
I'm stumped. The files are attached.

Regards,

Wayne Gordon

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Attachments:
Download 'raymouth.pov.txt' (4 KB) Download 'us-ascii' (3 KB)

Hmmm....

The POV file attached fine, but the INC file was just
added to the end. Sorry, Netscape gets weird sometimes.
Anyway, the second file should be called RayTracer.inc
and is called by the POV file to create the posed character head.
He's got a nice name, that Ray. No?

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I retrieved it okay here (OE5), just now took a look at it.  Rendered with
no problem, excepting for several scales needing to be reset from 0 to 1 and
a couple "no pigment" warnings.
Ray looks somewhat like he's getting ray-stunned.

Bob

"Wayne Gordon" <way### [at] flashnet> wrote in message
news:386A69A8.D96C5695@flash.net...
> Hmmm....
>
> The POV file attached fine, but the INC file was just
> added to the end. Sorry, Netscape gets weird sometimes.
> Anyway, the second file should be called RayTracer.inc
> and is called by the POV file to create the posed character head.
> He's got a nice name, that Ray. No?
>
>
>

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Once again I've managed to miss the boat... I thought the file was set up to
check the "+" error before, I see now what you mean.  There's obviously a
missing part of the script.

Bob

"omniVERSE" <inv### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
news:386a7a91@news.povray.org...
> I retrieved it okay here (OE5), just now took a look at it.  Rendered with
> no problem, excepting for several scales needing to be reset from 0 to 1
and
> a couple "no pigment" warnings.
> Ray looks somewhat like he's getting ray-stunned.
>
> Bob
>
> "Wayne Gordon" <way### [at] flashnet> wrote in message
> news:386A69A8.D96C5695@flash.net...
> > Hmmm....
> >
> > The POV file attached fine, but the INC file was just
> > added to the end. Sorry, Netscape gets weird sometimes.
> > Anyway, the second file should be called RayTracer.inc
> > and is called by the POV file to create the posed character head.
> > He's got a nice name, that Ray. No?
> >
> >
> >
>
>

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I say "obviously" but no one might know for sure except C.C. himself of
course.  I just need to pack it all in and get some sleep, too rich for my
blood anyway.
But... : ) if you comment out both the ' _CM_first_value' and '+ _CM_ivalue'
in the macro file and also leave those 3 declares in you say to comment out
in your raymouth.pov then it makes it to the "o" and gets past "a".
Oh yeah, sleep. Goodnight.

Bob

"omniVERSE" <inv### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
news:386a7c1b@news.povray.org...
> Once again I've managed to miss the boat... I thought the file was set up
to
> check the "+" error before, I see now what you mean.  There's obviously a
> missing part of the script.
>

Post a reply to this message

omniVERSE wrote:

> Once again I've managed to miss the boat... I thought the file was set up to
> check the "+" error before, I see now what you mean.  There's obviously a
> missing part of the script.
>
> Bob
>

Well, I've now made it work by putting the From, To, and Using calls
within the RayTracer.inc file statements....
I think I was using the macros incorrectly and need to #declare something like
upper_mouth_start = <a,b,c>, lower_mouth_start = etc., etc. and then use
those variables thusly : From (0, upper_mouth_start) To....etc.
Guess I shoulda reread the docs again, huh? I was pulling my hair out
over this last night till 2 a.m
What do you mean "ray-stunned"? I was going
for that idiot-savant look of Wallice from "Wallice and Grommet" fame.
Too much idiot, not enough savant? ;-)

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Wayne Gordon <way### [at] flashnet> wrote:
> I'm having a frustrating problem with the AutoClck.mcr file.
> I'm attempting to do a little character animation and want to use
> the macros to animate the character's mouth, eyes, etc.
>
> The file works fine by itself, and the AutoClck file does
> fine when rendering the test animations Chris provides in the
> package. However, when I use the macro file to animate my
> character, it gives me an error on line 60 of the mcr file...
>
> object or directive expected but + found instead.
>
> I've tried to reach Mr. Colefax via email, but Geocities
> keeps spitting my messages back...I hope either he sees
> this or perhaps someone who can help.
> I'm stumped. The files are attached.

Due to the behaviour of POV-Ray macros you cannot use the syntax you've
tried, ie. #declare [variable] = From (...) To (...) To (...).  To get
around this I've included the Declare_From (), Declare_To (), etc. macros,
eg:

   #declare lid_angle = <55, 0, 0>;
   Declare_From (lid_angle, .25)
   Using ( "J", 1, 1, "")
   Declare_To (lid_angle, .75, <15, 0, 0>)

Since writing the macros, however, I discovered it is possible to use the
original macros (with less typing involved!) simply be enclosing the
declared statement in brackets, ie.

   #declare lid_angle = (
   From (.25, <55, 0, 0>)
   Using ( "J", 1, 1, "")
   To (.75, <15, 0, 0>)
   );

Changing your statements to include the brackets should let you use
everything as planned...

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Chris Colefax wrote:

> Wayne Gordon <way### [at] flashnet> wrote:
> > I'm having a frustrating problem with the AutoClck.mcr file.
>

[snip]

> Since writing the macros, however, I discovered it is possible to use the
> original macros (with less typing involved!) simply be enclosing the
> declared statement in brackets, ie.
>
>    #declare lid_angle = (
>    From (.25, <55, 0, 0>)
>    Using ( "J", 1, 1, "")
>    To (.75, <15, 0, 0>)
>    );
>
> Changing your statements to include the brackets should let you use
> everything as planned...

Hey, sounds like a plan. Thank you.

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"Wayne Gordon" <way### [at] flashnet> wrote in message
news:386A8477.E2259394@flash.net...
>
> What do you mean "ray-stunned"? I was going
> for that idiot-savant look of Wallice from "Wallice and Grommet" fame.
> Too much idiot, not enough savant? ;-)
>

Hmm, now that you mention it....
I also got to wondering what order was doing to the macro but I couldn't
decipher anything immediately, had me going in circles.  Your talking Ray
character seems a fine bit of pov scripting.  Sure hope you get the
animation put up someplace to see.

Bob

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It's working just fine with the fix Chris suggested yesterday of
putiing in more parentheses around the #declare statements.
I've made a 30 framer going from the resting phoneme to
"a" and then to "e". As well, the lower teeth weren't set up
to move in the files I posted yesterday. I need to fiddle with
the use of the different "Using" functions to get more
realistic mouth movements between phonemes. Then
to add automation of the eye movement, some brows,
and better texturing. I've kept everything simple so far
as the main thrust is the ability of the character to talk,
so if that cratered, I wouldn't have wasted the time detailing
a failed character. I was kinda hoping that that I could get
him to say "Happy new Year!" (with sound, of course)
before the world ends in about 30 hours or so. LOL
This project was inspired by Victor Navone's "Alien
Song" animation made with Hash Animation Master.
Ultimately, I'd like to have a fully animatible character
from head to toe....
We'll see.


omniVERSE wrote:

> "Wayne Gordon" <way### [at] flashnet> wrote in message
> news:386A8477.E2259394@flash.net...
> >
> > What do you mean "ray-stunned"? I was going
> > for that idiot-savant look of Wallice from "Wallice and Grommet" fame.
> > Too much idiot, not enough savant? ;-)
> >
>
> Hmm, now that you mention it....
> I also got to wondering what order was doing to the macro but I couldn't
> decipher anything immediately, had me going in circles.  Your talking Ray
> character seems a fine bit of pov scripting.  Sure hope you get the
> animation put up someplace to see.
>
> Bob

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