I have started a major PovRay project, the object of which is to make a series
of animated images describing a novel transport system.

These animations will include some human figures, see:
http://www.john-greenwood.co.uk/PovRay/Crowd/

but in these animations only the hardware of the transport system will move
smoothly. The human figures will simply jump from one static pose to another.

The hardware will move according to simple equations of motion, so in principle
this should be straight forward to write them in PovRay, but a front end, where
parameters can be controlled along a timeline, would be better.

Is Moray the answer? It does not seem to be discussed much in the last few
years.

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On 20/04/2014 11:06 AM, John Greenwood wrote:
> I have started a major PovRay project, the object of which is to make a series
> of animated images describing a novel transport system.
>
> These animations will include some human figures, see:
> http://www.john-greenwood.co.uk/PovRay/Crowd/
>
> but in these animations only the hardware of the transport system will move
> smoothly. The human figures will simply jump from one static pose to another.
>
> The hardware will move according to simple equations of motion, so in principle
> this should be straight forward to write them in PovRay, but a front end, where
> parameters can be controlled along a timeline, would be better.
>
> Is Moray the answer? It does not seem to be discussed much in the last few
> years.

Interesting project by the sound of it.

 From what I remember of Moray's animation system, it would be able to 
help. I've not used it much but it was similar to Bishop3d's and I have 
used that quite a bit.
Moray is free but unsupported. You will need to recreate your scene in 
Moray, though.
Bishop3d is not free (USD40) and unsupported. It does have an import 
function. Where it can parse a subset of PovRay objects and you can 
visualise them in 3D space.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

I solemnly promise to kick the next angle, I see.

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documentation here:

http://www.imagicproductions.com/doc/100_TOC.htm

I wrote it with the intention of being able to combine existing POV code to
produce animations. It can create simply CSG objects, characters based upon a
skeletal structure, actions that move the character over time and a director
module that brings it all together for the animation.

I am currently playing around with using Alive! to animate blobman. I created an
include file that ties the variables in blobman to the skeleton joint variables
in Alive! and then created action files in Alive! Take a look if you want and if
you have any questions, let me know.

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"trp" <trp### [at] imagicproductionscom> wrote:

> documentation here:
>
> http://www.imagicproductions.com/doc/100_TOC.htm
>
> I wrote it with the intention of being able to combine existing POV code to
> produce animations. It can create simply CSG objects, characters based upon a
> skeletal structure, actions that move the character over time and a director
> module that brings it all together for the animation.
>
> I am currently playing around with using Alive! to animate blobman. I created an
> include file that ties the variables in blobman to the skeleton joint variables
> in Alive! and then created action files in Alive! Take a look if you want and if
> you have any questions, let me know.

Looks interesting. I have downloaded it and tried to get it running but get the
message: Cannot find POV Version 3.6 entry in register.

I am using Version 3.7, do I need to download the earlier version? Might this
get my computer muddled?

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> message: Cannot find POV Version 3.6 entry in register.
>
> I am using Version 3.7, do I need to download the earlier version? Might this
> get my computer muddled?


No. Don't load 3.6. Go into the preferences and change the location of the
PVENGINE files manually. I haven't updated it to read the new registry settings
yet. Save the settings and restart it. It will still give the warning. But,
should run.

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"trp" <trp### [at] imagicproductionscom> wrote:
> > message: Cannot find POV Version 3.6 entry in register.
> >
> > I am using Version 3.7, do I need to download the earlier version? Might this
> > get my computer muddled?
>
>
> No. Don't load 3.6. Go into the preferences and change the location of the
> PVENGINE files manually. I haven't updated it to read the new registry settings
> yet. Save the settings and restart it. It will still give the warning. But,
> should run.

I tried that without immediate success. Will have another go in a few days time.

Thanks for the prompt reply.

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"trp" <trp### [at] imagicproductionscom> wrote:

> documentation here:
>
> http://www.imagicproductions.com/doc/100_TOC.htm
>

This looks like an interesting program (as does John's 'Crowd' idea.) I'm busy
reading the well-thought-out documentation for both. Nice work, guys!

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I got to thinking, if you are going to use Alive! for your project, I really
need to document animating objects not created in Alive!. It can be done with
simple objects that you just want to move around or characters that walk, bend
and flex.


1. Create an include file for the object. Below is a stripped down version of
what I used for Blobman as Laura Croft.

#ifdef(Head_R)
     #declare BM_Head_Rot=Head_R;  // Set to Alive! action angle
#else
     #declare BM_Head_Rot=<0,0,0>;  // Set to Blobman defaut
#end
#include "bmpeople.inc"
#include "croft.cdf"
Blob_Man(Female,70)
object {BlobMan
        scale Croft_SCAL
 rotate Croft_ROT1
 rotate Croft_ROT2
 rotate Croft_ROT3
 translate Croft_TRAN
 }

Essentially you are creating an object (BlobMan) that is transformed by the five

you are simply moving an object like a sphere.



After changing the name insert the include file from above. Alive! now will
display the character and create files to manipulate it with the Croft_SCAL,
Croft_ROT1, Croft_ROT2, Croft_ROT3 and Croft_TRAN variables. You can see how the


If you want Alive! to auto size the character to the window and display a

the Sphere to a box. Make that box approximately the size of a bounding box

cover the character.

You can now use the character in the Actor module to create actions that will
move the character around in the animation.




length of the bone. It also has a 3D vector Head_R with x, y, z variables for
motion of the joint. You can see above that my include file linked the Blobman
BM_Head_Rot variable to my Head_R variable in Alive!.  That way I can create
actions in Alive! that move the Blobman head. Any variable in your character can

you have variables in your character.



Sorry to take up newsgroup space with info that should be in the documentation.

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