Hello!

I need an information about Pov-Ray.

I wish to made an animation in Pov-Ray and modifing some parameters in
real-time passing some value from another application. Is it possible? How
could communicate the two programs?



For example: I want to create a ball that roll left to right when I pass
value 1 and that roll right to left wen I pass 0. (The value comes from an
application that allow network comunication).

Do you have some ideas?

Beta version allow te real-time mode. The problem is: can Pov-Ray
communicate with other programs? In which way?

Thanks

Sim-one

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> I need an information about Pov-Ray.
>
> I wish to made an animation in Pov-Ray and modifing some parameters in
> real-time passing some value from another application. Is it possible? How
> could communicate the two programs?

In general POV takes 1 or more files as input and outputs an
image to a file. On most systems this would be too slow to run in
real time.

> For example: I want to create a ball that roll left to right when I pass
> value 1 and that roll right to left wen I pass 0. (The value comes from an
> application that allow network comunication).
>
> Do you have some ideas?

Pre-render all the frames, load them into memory, then "flip" through the
frames based on if the ball should be rolling left or right.

> Beta version allow te real-time mode. The problem is: can Pov-Ray
> communicate with other programs? In which way?

In Beta 17 there is a real time feature in testing, however this
is for rendering multiple views of the same scene, without re-parsing,
no objects can be moved, just the camera view. The camera is set by
defining multiple cameras in a scene, the output is passed as a message
instead of writing a file.

Beta versions of POV will expire, so don't put too much time into it,
it probably will become more stable and useful before it reaches
actual release, which may or may not be in 3.7

I'm sure others could tell you more about the Beta features...

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"Tim Attwood" <tim### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> > I need an information about Pov-Ray.
> >
> > I wish to made an animation in Pov-Ray and modifing some parameters in
> > real-time passing some value from another application. Is it possible? How
> > could communicate the two programs?
>
> In general POV takes 1 or more files as input and outputs an
> image to a file. On most systems this would be too slow to run in
> real time.
>
> > For example: I want to create a ball that roll left to right when I pass
> > value 1 and that roll right to left wen I pass 0. (The value comes from an
> > application that allow network comunication).
> >
> > Do you have some ideas?
>
> Pre-render all the frames, load them into memory, then "flip" through the
> frames based on if the ball should be rolling left or right.
>
> > Beta version allow te real-time mode. The problem is: can Pov-Ray
> > communicate with other programs? In which way?
>
> In Beta 17 there is a real time feature in testing, however this
> is for rendering multiple views of the same scene, without re-parsing,
> no objects can be moved, just the camera view. The camera is set by
> defining multiple cameras in a scene, the output is passed as a message
> instead of writing a file.
>
> Beta versions of POV will expire, so don't put too much time into it,
> it probably will become more stable and useful before it reaches
> actual release, which may or may not be in 3.7
>
> I'm sure others could tell you more about the Beta features...



Thank you very much

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Tim Attwood wrote:
> In Beta 17 there is a real time feature in testing, however this
> is for rendering multiple views of the same scene, without re-parsing,
> no objects can be moved, just the camera view. The camera is set by
> defining multiple cameras in a scene, the output is passed as a message
> instead of writing a file.

But this still has to do all the render calculations, shadow 
calculations, etc, yes?  So it won't really speed up an animation that 
has many light sources but nothing moving other than the camera?

Just curious...

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Scruffitarianism - Where T-shirt, jeans,
     and a three-day beard are "Sunday Best."

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Darren New wrote:
> But this still has to do all the render calculations, shadow 
> calculations, etc, yes?  So it won't really speed up an animation that 
> has many light sources but nothing moving other than the camera?

It will, because the scene doesn't need to be re-parsed each time, nor dor
that matter does the rendering engine need to start up or shut down for each
frame (it remains running). For a slow animation this wouldn't matter, but
for a fast render it can mean the difference between 5 fps and 50 fps.

-- Chris

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Chris Cason wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> But this still has to do all the render calculations, shadow 
>> calculations, etc, yes?  So it won't really speed up an animation that 
>> has many light sources but nothing moving other than the camera?
> 
> It will, because the scene doesn't need to be re-parsed each time, nor dor
> that matter does the rendering engine need to start up or shut down for each
> frame (it remains running). For a slow animation this wouldn't matter, but
> for a fast render it can mean the difference between 5 fps and 50 fps.

So, to rephrase my question a bit, if it's a 10-second parse and an hour 
render, you won't save noticable time for an animation done with this 
new option, yes?  That's my situation at the moment, due to excessive 
numbers of light sources.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Scruffitarianism - Where T-shirt, jeans,
     and a three-day beard are "Sunday Best."

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