I have used Chris Colefax's excellent macros for animation years ago. Now I
thought to use some time with Povray animation. I was quite upset when I found
out that these essential macros are not compatible with 3.7.

----------------------------------
File 'AutoClck.mcr' line 48: Possible Parse Error: All #version and #declares of
 float, vector, and color require semi-colon ';' at end.
File 'AutoClck.mcr' line 60: Parse Error: Expected 'object or directive', +
 found instead
Fatal error in parser: Cannot parse input.
Render failed
-----------------------------------

Please tell me that someone has updated these for 3.7?

Otherwise I need to build some abominable Python script for this. I tried to
read the macros, but there were things I didn't understand...

Anybody? Pretty please?

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> I have used Chris Colefax's excellent macros for animation years ago. Now I
> thought to use some time with Povray animation. I was quite upset when I found
> out that these essential macros are not compatible with 3.7.

Does it make a difference when #version 3.6 is used?

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Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote:

>
> > I have used Chris Colefax's excellent macros for animation years ago. Now I
> > thought to use some time with Povray animation. I was quite upset when I found
> > out that these essential macros are not compatible with 3.7.
>
> Does it make a difference when #version 3.6 is used?

Yes: different error:

------------------------------
File 'AutoClck.mcr' line 48: Parse Error: All #declares of float, vector, and
 color require semi-colon ';' at end if the language version is set to 3.5 or
 higher. Either add the semi-colon or set the language version to 3.1 or lower.
Fatal error in parser: Cannot parse input.
------------------------------

I'm thankful for any help, but it seems that I need that Python abomination
anyway, because I want texture animation too. Admittedly it *could* be done with
Chris Colefax macros also, but let's see what kind of solution is available...

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> I have used Chris Colefax's excellent macros for animation years
> ago. Now I thought to use some time with Povray animation. I was
> quite upset when I found out that these essential macros are not
> compatible with 3.7.

   Seems to me you are the only one out there with some knowledge of
these tools, and almost the only one with enough motivation to fix it...
maybe it's not that hard, and it's just a matter of adding semicolons at
the end of every #declare line. You could try that, and then tell us
what are the errors left.

--
Jaime

Post a reply to this message

> I have used Chris Colefax's excellent macros for animation years ago. Now I
> thought to use some time with Povray animation. I was quite upset when I found
> out that these essential macros are not compatible with 3.7.
>
> ----------------------------------
> File 'AutoClck.mcr' line 48: Possible Parse Error: All #version and #declares of
>  float, vector, and color require semi-colon ';' at end.
> File 'AutoClck.mcr' line 60: Parse Error: Expected 'object or directive', +
>  found instead
> Fatal error in parser: Cannot parse input.
> Render failed
> -----------------------------------
>
> Please tell me that someone has updated these for 3.7?
>
> Otherwise I need to build some abominable Python script for this. I tried to
> read the macros, but there were things I didn't understand...
>
> Anybody? Pretty please?

How are you using it?  I'm not familiar with common usage of the macros, but I
tried a quick implementation with no errors occuring.

Post a reply to this message

Jaime Vives Piqueres <jai### [at] ignoranciaorg> wrote:

> > I have used Chris Colefax's excellent macros for animation years
> > ago. Now I thought to use some time with Povray animation. I was
> > quite upset when I found out that these essential macros are not
> > compatible with 3.7.
>
>    Seems to me you are the only one out there with some knowledge of
> these tools, and almost the only one with enough motivation to fix it...
> maybe it's not that hard, and it's just a matter of adding semicolons at
> the end of every #declare line. You could try that, and then tell us
> what are the errors left.
>
> --
> Jaime

This will help for sure, but may be cumbersome if there are many #declare
statements. If you use only SDL features from version 3.1 (and older and no
features added in later releases) you can simply add "#version 3.1;" as the
first line in your main scene file and don't need to add a semicolon after every
#declare.

Best regards,
Michael

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Perhaps this is a dumb and oh-so-obvious idea, but...would it be 'dangerous' to
simply do a quick search-and-replace of all the #declares (and maybe any
#locals?)

BTW, is this the only active link now to Chris's include file downloads? Had
trouble finding even this one...

http://www.reocities.com/SiliconValley/lakes/1434/

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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Perhaps this is a dumb and oh-so-obvious idea, but...would it be 'dangerous' to
> simply do a quick search-and-replace of all the #declares (and maybe any
> #locals?)

For such an search-and-replace you would need a search-and-replace with the
option to use regular expressions since you will not know the right side of the
declarations. Such as replace "#declare = [any characters to end of line]" by
"#declare = [same characters to end of line];" and in addition you have to
distinguish between declarations of floats, vectors and strings, which needs an
semicolon, and other declarations such as arrays, which needs no semicolon. I
think this will not be easy to implement since you will need context-sensitivity
as well. I know an application with regular expression search and replace (The
Statistical Analysis Software, SAS) but no one with context sensitivity in
addition.

>
> BTW, is this the only active link now to Chris's include file downloads? Had
> trouble finding even this one...
>
> http://www.reocities.com/SiliconValley/lakes/1434/

This may be, I remember to have some difficulties to find them myself one or two
years ago. But finally I found them but never used this one so far. But there
are more broken links within the POV resources (I remember only the loss of
gems.inc and I had some problems to find the Java-version of TomTree by Genady
Obukhov, which is still available at a somewhat mysterious mirror side).

Best regards,
Michael

Post a reply to this message

"MichaelJF" <mi-### [at] t-onlinede> wrote:

>
> For such an search-and-replace you would need a search-and-replace with the
> option to use regular expressions since you will not know the right side of
> the declarations. Such as replace "#declare = [any characters to end of
> line]" by "#declare = [same characters to end of line];"

Sorry, my suggestion was not very clear: Actually, search-and-replace in POV-Ray
can replace *just* "#declare" if you like (safely), without touching the
rest of the code line.

> and in addition you have to distinguish between declarations of floats,
> vectors and strings, which needs an semicolon, and other declarations
> such as arrays, which needs no semicolon.

Yes, I understand now; that would probably take a fair amount of manual work.

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I tried all version macros to 3.1. Also I tried to figure out how to add
necessary semicolons, but that was... challenging. These are things I can't
fathom at all. Probably they are neat ideas to Povray macro coder, but... Well,
if someone can clarify these, good.

For those who have enough interest, there are HTML guides inside those zip files
how to use those macros... They were quite handy, especially using that Auto
Clock Modifier.

But now I have already begin developing my own solution. It's a Python script
which currently does something like this: parse animation configuration,
generate POV files, render them and compile PNG files to MP4 video by using
FFMPEG command line. I have only rudimentary linear extrapolation now. I need
good (preferably simple) curve code for making transitions to keyframes. I'm not
even sure that could I fake smooth movement with cosine curve? I know that
"real" animation systems use splines and such creatures, maybe I need a math
textbook... Also I have skeleton for texture animation.

It will suffice until something better is found...

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