I have tried repair as well as re-installing, to no avail.
  Help!
  Please send answer to me at rob### [at] localnetcom

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"Robert Baer" <rob### [at] localnetcom> wrote in message 
news:web.4ae174746f2864cb65fa833c0@news.povray.org...
>  I have tried repair as well as re-installing, to no avail.
>  Help!

a clearer description of your problem might be useful ....

Post a reply to this message

>   I have tried repair as well as re-installing, to no avail.
>   Help!
>   Please send answer to me at rob### [at] localnetcom
> 
> 
Did the nanimation used to work, but stopped working?

Do you get any error message?

When the attampted animation fails, can you continue to work, or does 
POV-Ray freeze?

About 2 and 3 years ago, I got a freeze problem with animations that 
went away by itself after some time. Also, in my case as in yours, 
reinstalling, or uninstalling, purging the registry from anything POV 
related then reinstalling in another folder did NOT solve my problem.
In both of my cases, the problem corrected itself after about 2 or 3 months.


Alain

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"Jim Holsenback" <jho### [at] povrayorg> wrote:
> "Robert Baer" <rob### [at] localnetcom> wrote in message
> news:web.4ae174746f2864cb65fa833c0@news.povray.org...
> >  I have tried repair as well as re-installing, to no avail.
> >  Help!
>
> a clearer description of your problem might be useful ....

Notes i took:
/* POV Ray complains about the contents of #include "BAER.ini" which contains
 clock = 1
 Initial_Frame = 1
 Final_Frame = 20
  AND *NONE* of the above lines are accepted!

   POV Ray complains about this:  #declare clock_on=true;
   additional animation variables
#declare X=clock_delta;       // clock step between frames
#declare X=initial_clock;     // clock value of first rendered frame (+KIn.n)
#declare X=final_clock;       // clock value of last rendered frame (+KFn.n)
#declare X=initial_frame;     // initial frame number (+KFIn).
#declare X=final_frame;       // final frame number (+KFIn).
#declare X=clock_on;          // true if scene is rendered as an animation
   above is of ZERO help for animation
   Note: under 'Options', 'Use Render Animation' and 'Use Extensions' are
checked..
         BUT animation is OFF. *ALL* animation samples have this problem!
#declare K = 3; // of ZERO help, use of '+K' is worse.
*/

  There is no "freezing" everything else seems to work OK.
  *No error messages.
  BTW, under the Options drop-down,  i checked Render Priority to HIGH, and
checked "Use Render Animation.
  I went further to create a BATCH file to invoke which starts the POV Ray
program using the +K1 parameter - NO help!
  There are a few other things (copied from the Help document) which also do not
work, but animation is critical.

Post a reply to this message

Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:

> >   I have tried repair as well as re-installing, to no avail.
> >   Help!
> >   Please send answer to me at rob### [at] localnetcom
> >
> >
> Did the nanimation used to work, but stopped working?
>
> Do you get any error message?
>
> When the attampted animation fails, can you continue to work, or does
> POV-Ray freeze?
>
> About 2 and 3 years ago, I got a freeze problem with animations that
> went away by itself after some time. Also, in my case as in yours,
> reinstalling, or uninstalling, purging the registry from anything POV
> related then reinstalling in another folder did NOT solve my problem.
> In both of my cases, the problem corrected itself after about 2 or 3 months.
>
>
> Alain

  Please see my "detailed" answer to Jim Holsenback for further info.
  Is there any way to "nudge" POV Ray to "correct itself"?

  Shoot, i have an older version (3.1g) which i installed in a different OS
(Win98SE) and it !failed! the same way...and that version is supposed to work in
Win3.11 (which i also have and use on rare occasion).
  Seems to me that there is something fundamentally wrong that has not been
fixed since then (?10-20 years ago?) and has not been addressed.
  A weird wrong perhaps, else there would be a lot of clamor "why do you have an
animation feature that refuses to work?".
  In this case, it seems clear that the OS per se is not the problem (unless it
is realllly subtle) and certainly the CPU brand.

  How many others have seen this problem?
  Is it worthy of a bug report, and how can one document it to be reproduceable?
  Shoot, if it could be documented that finely, then a viable installation
method could be posted somewhere - even programmed as a part of the installation
package.

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"Robert Baer" <rob### [at] localnetcom> wrote:
....
> Notes i took:
> /* POV Ray complains about the contents of #include "BAER.ini" which contains
>  clock = 1
>  Initial_Frame = 1
>  Final_Frame = 20
>   AND *NONE* of the above lines are accepted!
....
From "3.2.2.1 include files and the #include directive" of the help file:
#include "filename.inc"

I don't think you can include a .ini file this way.

Start the rendering process from the .ini file, and point to your pov file from
there.
Example:

Width = 640
Height = 480
Antialias = Off
Initial_Frame = 0
Final_Frame = 20
Input_File_Name = Myscene.pov

Post a reply to this message

"Robert Baer" <rob### [at] localnetcom> wrote:

> Notes i took:
> /* POV Ray complains about the contents of #include "BAER.ini" which contains
>  clock = 1
>  Initial_Frame = 1
>  Final_Frame = 20
>   AND *NONE* of the above lines are accepted!



Your .ini file should reference your scene file, not the other way around. Valid
...ini file contents are not valid Scene Description Language.   The default
clock goes from 0 to 1.   If your .ini file says to use "clock=1" then I'm
pretty sure you'll get the equivalent 20 final frames. However since it looks
like you're trying to #include your .ini file, I wouldn't expect you to be
getting anything but errors.

Try this:
Make a new "MyTest.ini" with the following contents, substituting your scene
file for "MyScene.pov" Run MyTest.ini in POV-Ray and see what happens:

; ***********************************
Antialias=On
Width=800
Height=600

Jitter=Off
Sampling_Method=2
Antialias_Threshold=0.3
Antialias_Depth=1

Input_File_Name="MyScene.pov"

Initial_Frame=1
Final_Frame=20
Initial_Clock=0
Final_Clock=1

;For testing parts of an animation:
;Subset_Start_Frame=5
;Subset_End_Frame=5

;Make sure this is on if your animation loops:
Cyclic_Animation=off

; ***********************************

Post a reply to this message

"Charles C" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> If your .ini file says to use "clock=1" then I'm
> pretty sure you'll get the equivalent 20 final frames.

I take that back.  This is not the case.  I was trying to think how an absolute
declaration of the clock value would jibe with the initial and final frame
values.  It turns out it gets ignored.   "clock=whatever" is only for still
images.

Post a reply to this message

At one time there was a animation problem with the 
Windows x64 distribution of POV 3.62. You may
need to install the x32 bit distribution, or uninstall and
reinstall a current x64 distribution.

(1)If you haven't done animation with POV before, I
would suggest that you start out by using the POV
command line, instead of creating an .ini file. In
the Windows version editor the commands go in 
the entry box to the right of the resolutions.
A typical animation command line call is "+KFF10" 
for ten frames starting at frame 001. The scene
file should be error free, it's best to check that,
if you are unsure, just render it as a still, it should
render normally. It can all be done from the editor.

(2)Or from the Windows command line, or a batch
file, first you would add the POV bin directory
to the path, change to your scene file directory,
and then render the animation...
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +W640 +H480 +KFF10 /EXIT
for ten frames.

(3)Or, if you wish to use .ini files as well then it would be
pvengine64 myscene.ini
and the scene will render with the settings in
the ini file. (Note: Windows Vista and beyond doesn't
play well with the .ini extention, it may decide that
it is a system file, and prevent you from editing it,
or silently undo editing changes to the file, depending
on what directory it is in). 

(4)It also is possible, but not recomended, to repeatedly
call POV to render individual frames of an animation from
some external script by setting the clock value. So for
example a batch file...
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene01.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.0 /EXIT
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene02.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.1 /EXIT
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene03.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.2 /EXIT
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene04.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.3 /EXIT
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene05.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.4 /EXIT
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene06.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.5 /EXIT
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene07.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.6 /EXIT
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene08.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.7 /EXIT
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene09.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.8 /EXIT
pvengine64 +Imyscene.pov +Omyscene10.tga +W640 +H480 +K0.9 /EXIT
would be ten frames.

Post a reply to this message

> "Jim Holsenback" <jho### [at] povrayorg> wrote:
>> "Robert Baer" <rob### [at] localnetcom> wrote in message
>> news:web.4ae174746f2864cb65fa833c0@news.povray.org...
>>>  I have tried repair as well as re-installing, to no avail.
>>>  Help!
>> a clearer description of your problem might be useful ....
> 
> Notes i took:
> /* POV Ray complains about the contents of #include "BAER.ini" which contains
You NEVER include an ini file. You call your scene from the ini file.
>  clock = 1
>  Initial_Frame = 1
>  Final_Frame = 20
>   AND *NONE* of the above lines are accepted!
> 
>    POV Ray complains about this:  #declare clock_on=true;
>    additional animation variables
#declare is NOT valid in an ini file, and never was.
> #declare X=clock_delta;       // clock step between frames
Why set this. It's computed automaticaly based on initial_clock, 
final_clock, initial_frame and final_frame.
May have been used in versions older than version 3.0.
> #declare X=initial_clock;     // clock value of first rendered frame (+KIn.n)
> #declare X=final_clock;       // clock value of last rendered frame (+KFn.n)
> #declare X=initial_frame;     // initial frame number (+KFIn).
> #declare X=final_frame;       // final frame number (+KFIn).
> #declare X=clock_on;          // true if scene is rendered as an animation
>    above is of ZERO help for animation
>    Note: under 'Options', 'Use Render Animation' and 'Use Extensions' are
> checked..
>          BUT animation is OFF. *ALL* animation samples have this problem!
> #declare K = 3; // of ZERO help, use of '+K' is worse.
> */
> 
>   There is no "freezing" everything else seems to work OK.
>   *No error messages.
>   BTW, under the Options drop-down,  i checked Render Priority to HIGH, and
> checked "Use Render Animation.
>   I went further to create a BATCH file to invoke which starts the POV Ray
> program using the +K1 parameter - NO help!
>   There are a few other things (copied from the Help document) which also do not
> work, but animation is critical.
> 
> 
> 
In an ini file, all comments lines start by ";"
There are no multiple lines comments.
If it was legal ini syntaxe, as each #declare use the same variable, 
only the last would have any effect, as each would overrwite the 
variable set by the previous #declare.

Try this:
On the command line, put "+kff 20" to start a 20 frame animation with 
the clock going from 0 to 1.

Here is a sample ini file for an animation. Copied verbatim from one of 
the sample scenes that you can find in the animations folder:

; Persistence Of Vision raytracer sample file.
Antialias=Off

Antialias_Threshold=0.2
Antialias_Depth=3
Input_File_Name=ambient.pov

Initial_Frame=1
Final_Frame=26
Initial_Clock=0
Final_Clock=1

Pause_when_Done=off

Cyclic_Animation=off  ;;insures it reaches 1.0



Alain
As you can see, there are NO "#declare" anywhere.


Alain

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