When I exactly follow the POVRay (v 3.1) tutorial in the Windows Help
files up to the creation of hfdemo.pov, I end up with an error that it
can't open the tga file that I was supposed to have made from image.pov.
It seems something has been left out of the instructions. (I do have an
image .bmp in my directory, but I can't seem to save it as a .tga.) Can
anyone help?

I am looking through the messages so far, because I think that this MUST
have been asked before, but with 900+ to go, I thought I'd throw myself
on the mercy of the list! S.O.S.!

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On Tue, 15 Dec 1998 11:43:02 -0600, Stephanie Schnoebelen 
	<ssn### [at] leepfrogcom> wrote:
>When I exactly follow the POVRay (v 3.1) tutorial in the Windows Help
>files up to the creation of hfdemo.pov, I end up with an error that it
>can't open the tga file that I was supposed to have made from image.pov.
>It seems something has been left out of the instructions. (I do have an
>image .bmp in my directory, but I can't seem to save it as a .tga.) Can
>anyone help?

Version 3.1 of POV for Windows was changed rather late in the development 
cycle to output BMP files instead of TGA files by default, presumably so
the results could be viewed in the standard Windows Paint application. The
documentation must not reflect this change.  There are two things you can
do.  Either one will do what you want.

(1) You could change the file you're editing to read the .bmp file instead
of the .tga file.  This is a simple matter of doing
height_field { sys "image.bmp" ... } 
instead of
height_field { tga "image.tga" ... } 
(the ... isn't part of the syntax; I put it there to represent the other 
stuff in the height_field statement)

(2) You could change POV to output TGA images by default.  To do this, go to
the "Edit Settings/Render" dialog box (Alt-C, or look for it on the Render
menu) and enter "+FT" in the "Command line options" box.

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Hi Stephanie,

    You need to alter the default output file type. In Windows, the default
is .bmp, which is why you have 'image.bmp'. The tutorial instructs you to
use the +FT switch, which causes POV to output a .tga ( Targa 24-bit ).
    Simply edit \renderer\povray.ini and add +FT to change POV's output file
type, and you'll get .tga's. See Output_File_Options in the help files for
more info.

    I hope this helps you,
    regards,

Andy C.



Stephanie Schnoebelen wrote in message <367### [at] leepfrogcom>...
>When I exactly follow the POVRay (v 3.1) tutorial in the Windows Help
>files up to the creation of hfdemo.pov, I end up with an error that it
>can't open the tga file that I was supposed to have made from image.pov.
>It seems something has been left out of the instructions. (I do have an
>image .bmp in my directory, but I can't seem to save it as a .tga.) Can
>anyone help?
>
>I am looking through the messages so far, because I think that this MUST
>have been asked before, but with 900+ to go, I thought I'd throw myself
>on the mercy of the list! S.O.S.!
>

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Thank you! I tried both, and the first works well. However, changing the
height_field call as you suggest gives me a 'File type not supported here'
error. I can now do what I was trying to do, but I'm curious about the error.
Could someone explain it to me? I find that I work better if I understand the
'why's behind then 'what's in a new program.Perhaps 'sys' isn't the correct
file-type?

Ron Parker wrote:

> On Tue, 15 Dec 1998 11:43:02 -0600, Stephanie Schnoebelen
>         <ssn### [at] leepfrogcom> wrote:
> >When I exactly follow the POVRay (v 3.1) tutorial in the Windows Help
> >files up to the creation of hfdemo.pov, I end up with an error that it
> >can't open the tga file that I was supposed to have made from image.pov.
> >It seems something has been left out of the instructions. (I do have an
> >image .bmp in my directory, but I can't seem to save it as a .tga.) Can
> >anyone help?
>
> Version 3.1 of POV for Windows was changed rather late in the development
> cycle to output BMP files instead of TGA files by default, presumably so
> the results could be viewed in the standard Windows Paint application. The
> documentation must not reflect this change.  There are two things you can
> do.  Either one will do what you want.
>
> (1) You could change the file you're editing to read the .bmp file instead
> of the .tga file.  This is a simple matter of doing
> height_field { sys "image.bmp" ... }
> instead of
> height_field { tga "image.tga" ... }
> (the ... isn't part of the syntax; I put it there to represent the other
> stuff in the height_field statement)
>
> (2) You could change POV to output TGA images by default.  To do this, go to
> the "Edit Settings/Render" dialog box (Alt-C, or look for it on the Render
> menu) and enter "+FT" in the "Command line options" box.

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