First and foremost, my sincerest apologies if this has been posted 
before, it's kind of late and I haven't looked at the archives or 
searches thoroughly (although if this was answered in a past article, a 
link to the article via the HTTP archive would be nice).

I'm using POV-Ray 3.6 on Windows XP, on a Pentium Celeron just over 
2Ghz.

What I want to do is sort of "burn" objects, namely mutated "plants", by 
sort of surrounding them with (a) flame(s) so it(they) looks like it's
(they're) in the middle of burning.  I have a series of objects in rows 
and columns (created by using while-loops) and I want to make it look 
like the whole lot of them are burning.

I can get the objects themselves to appear on a flat plane:

[snip]
#declare Dirt_Color = texture { pigment { color rgb <0.25, 0.125, 0> } }
#declare Plant_Color = texture { pigment { color rgb <0,0.5,0> } }
#declare Fruit_Color = texture { pigment { color rgb <0,0.5,1> } }

#declare PlantStem = cone { <0,0,0>, 1 <0,23,0>, 0.1 } 
#declare Fruit = torus { 0.8, 0.2 texture {Fruit_Color} }

#declare Plant = merge {
  object {PlantStem}
  object {Fruit scale 2 translate <2,7,0> scale <1,1,1>}
  object {Fruit scale 1.5 translate <2,13,0> scale <-1,1,1>}
  object {Fruit scale 1 translate <1.5,16,0> scale <1,1,1>}
  object {Fruit scale 0.75 translate <1,22,0> scale <-1,1,1>}
  
  sphere { <0,4,0>, 1.5 }
  texture { Plant_Color }
  scale 1/40
}

#declare FieldPlants = union {
#declare X = -3;
#while (X <= 3)
  #declare Z = -3;
  #while (Z <= 7)
    object { Plant rotate <0,(0-90+(rand(TS)*180)),0> translate <X, 0, 
Z> }
    #declare Z = Z + (1/2);
  #end
  #declare X = X+ (1/2);
#end
[end snip]

I've tried using Rune's Particle System [http://runevision.com/] and 
using rows and columns of piles of blobs, to no avail.  I believe that I 
might be using these wrong, or that there is another way to do this that 
I am not thinking of or have not found yet.

I remember also mention of the media system in the tutorial, although I 
can't figure out if this would be useful to me, and how it might be 
useful, if at all.  I can't figure out how to use it, either.

Can anyone give me any advice as to what I might do to achieve the 
affect I want?  Is there anything you suggest I look into?  It needn't 
look extremely realistic, it should just look mostly like flames or 
fire.  Any ideas, suggestions, or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
-Mike C

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