I seem to be making simple mistakes today.  Here's one I'm sure should
not be so difficult:

I have a simple scene - one camera, one light, one sphere.  In my
corresponding .ini file, I have the following line:

Post_Frame_Command=test.bat

My silly little brain seems to envision that when Povray is finished
rendering this particular frame, it will happily run test.bat (located
in the same directory).

Test.bat is nothing exciting - I replaced my actual batch file with
something like this:

dir

I can run test.bat myself, and I've checked to make sure Povray is
allowed to start other programs, etc.  Yet when I run my scene, it
renders fine, and then Povray seems to hang...  I eventually have to
kill it by hand.  It gets mostly through printing the frame's stats in
the status window, but that's all.

How am I misusing (and misunderstanding) the post_frame_command?

This is on WinXP, if it really makes any difference.  I'm assuming
it's my fault, though, not my OS.

- How

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in news:ijthj0tohdj1ldlqus8gilon0kkamhd2t7@4ax.com How Camp wrote:

> Post_Frame_Command=test.bat
> 
> 

Not sure but try:

Post_Frame_Command=cmd /c test.bat


Ingo

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On 3 Sep 2004 20:14:55 -0400, ingo <ing### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

>
>Not sure but try:
>
>Post_Frame_Command=cmd /c test.bat
>

Thanks for the idea.  No luck, though.  Povray just seems to hang.
Any other solutions?

- How

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"How Camp" <kro### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message 
news:cc6kj0le1jahuumefvpoltatfg9num5fgr@4ax.com...
> On 3 Sep 2004 20:14:55 -0400, ingo <ing### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>>
>>Not sure but try:
>>
>>Post_Frame_Command=cmd /c test.bat
>>
>
> Thanks for the idea.  No luck, though.  Povray just seems to hang.
> Any other solutions?

I'm not doing much POVing these days but I think you might need to use 
quotation marks around the file name. Did you try a complete path to it yet?

Yoiks! this happened two weeks ago, I see now. Sorry for the delayed reply. 
:)

Bob H.

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On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 18:07:56 -0500, "Hughes, B."
<bob### [at] charternet> wrote:

>I'm not doing much POVing these days but I think you might need to use 
>quotation marks around the file name. Did you try a complete path to it yet?

Hmm, tried both, no no avail.

>Yoiks! this happened two weeks ago, I see now. Sorry for the delayed reply. 

Heh, that's alright.  I rather figured this thread was deceased, so I
appreciate your response.

Interestingly enough, it appears that the exact same .ini file *does*
work using 3.5, but fails with 3.6.

Here are the exact files I used:

-----
test.pov
-----

camera {
  location  <0.0, 0.5, -4.0>
  direction 1.5*z
  right     x*image_width/image_height
  look_at   <0.0, 0.0,  0.0>
}

light_source {
  <-30, 30, -30>
  color rgb <1, 1, 1>
}

sphere {
  0.0, 1
  texture {
    pigment {
      color rgb 1
    }
  }
}


-----
recursion.ini
-----

[640x240, No AA]
Width=640
Height=240
Antialias=Off

[640x240, AA 0.3]
Width=640
Height=240
Antialias=On
Antialias_Threshold=0.3

[640x240, Recursive]
Width=640
Height=240
Antialias=Off
Post_Frame_Command=test.bat


-----
test.bat
-----

dir


-----

Once again, I've made sure that 'starting external files' is allowed,
and there are no read/write restrictions.

Now that I'm relatively certain this isn't me screwing up the syntax,
what else could be going doing wrong?

Anyone care to confirm, or am I just way out-to-lunch?

- How

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Checking on this here, using a testcmd.ini I already had, I'm seeing POV go 
unresponsive.

I sure thought this feature was fixed up okay, since I remember being able 
to use it correctly in 3.6 before. Only thing I remember being discussed was 
the usage of quotes or not. Seems the various versions of Windows handled it 
differently; now I'm using XP HE SP2, if that makes any difference. 
Unfortunately, I didn't check on this after the last release of POV-Ray so I 
don't know if it changed something.

With any luck something will be figured out by someone. Guess I'll be trying 
other things to see what happens in the meantime, but I've already tried 
each  Pre and Post, Frame and Scene, Command=cmd.exe /c dir   (or /k) with 
and without quotes around the string. There's a 'POV-Ray is creating another 
process' message and then it stops responding, every time.

BTW, I can't check using version 3.5 yet. I didn't think it could run a file 
without starting the command processor (cmd.exe or command.com) but you seem 
to say it'll run the file test.bat, alone, without it. My cmd.exe appears to 
have been updated by SP2, dated 8/4/2004 and showing a slightly larger file 
size than the previous one.

Bob H.

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On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:42:46 -0500, "Hughes, B."
<bob### [at] charternet> wrote:

>BTW, I can't check using version 3.5 yet. I didn't think it could run a file 
>without starting the command processor (cmd.exe or command.com) but you seem 
>to say it'll run the file test.bat, alone, without it. My cmd.exe appears to 
>have been updated by SP2, dated 8/4/2004 and showing a slightly larger file 
>size than the previous one.

Right, I can run test.bat directly.  The machine I'm currently sitting
at has SP1, but I'll check at home (with SP2) this evening, if
possible.

Thanks for looking into this, Bob.

- How

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How Camp <kro### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I have a simple scene - one camera, one light, one sphere.  In my
> corresponding .ini file, I have the following line:
>
> Post_Frame_Command=test.bat
>
> My silly little brain seems to envision that when Povray is finished
> rendering this particular frame, it will happily run test.bat (located
> in the same directory).
>
> Test.bat is nothing exciting - I replaced my actual batch file with
> something like this:
>
> dir
>
> I can run test.bat myself, and I've checked to make sure Povray is
> allowed to start other programs, etc.  Yet when I run my scene, it
> renders fine, and then Povray seems to hang...  I eventually have to
> kill it by hand.  It gets mostly through printing the frame's stats in
> the status window, but that's all.
>
> How am I misusing (and misunderstanding) the post_frame_command?
>
> This is on WinXP, if it really makes any difference.  I'm assuming
> it's my fault, though, not my OS.
>
> - How

This brought back memories. Firstly I think you need to include the path
e.g. Post_Frame_Command=c:test.bat

Secondly do not use Post_Frame_Return=? Or it does not work.

Make sure that your permissions are set;

Disable starting other programmes not selected

Stephen

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On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:38:54 EDT, "Stephen"
<mca### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

>This brought back memories. Firstly I think you need to include the path
>e.g. Post_Frame_Command=c:test.bat

Tried, both with and without.  Povray 3.5 works fine (with and without
the full path), but 3.6 does not.

>Secondly do not use Post_Frame_Return=? Or it does not work.

I haven't tried Post_Frame_Return, but it really won't do me any good,
regardless.  Do you mean it hangs Povray in the same manner?

>Make sure that your permissions are set;

>Disable starting other programmes not selected

Again, I've checked these several times, and this is not the issue.
It just seems like Post_Frame_Return is broken in 3.6...?

- How

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How Camp <kro### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

> Tried, both with and without.  Povray 3.5 works fine (with and without
> the full path), but 3.6 does not.

This INI file worked for me using Ver 3.6. I downloaded it today at work.

Final_Clock=1
Final_Frame=2
Post_Frame_Command=c:test.bat
Post_Frame_Return=I
Input_File_Name=test.pov


>
> >Secondly do not use Post_Frame_Return=? Or it does not work.
>
> I haven't tried Post_Frame_Return, but it really won't do me any good,
> regardless.  Do you mean it hangs Povray in the same manner?

Well Post_Frame_Return works now, all it seamed to do was stop the batch
file running. PovRay still rendered.

> >Make sure that your permissions are set;

> >Disable starting other programmes not selected
>
> Again, I've checked these several times, and this is not the issue.

I bet you did :-}

> It just seems like Post_Frame_Return is broken in 3.6...?
>
> - How


Stephen

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