Hi, I haven't used povray for years, for almost 10 years actually.

Now I wanted to render my old pictures, but with latest povray (3.6 for
windows), povray fails to find some basic include files, like "fov.inc"?

These aren't even included with bundle?

What should I do? Is tehre more uncompatibility than this (during times I
used povray heavily, it was in version 2.1).

Any suggestions? I really have lot of scenes that I want to re-render to
bigger resolution than was possible those old 486-times :)


-Juke

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"Juke" <juk### [at] nicfi> wrote in message 
news:web.421cf6bcc5ce5f8ff5b8a04a0@news.povray.org...
> Hi, I haven't used povray for years, for almost 10 years actually.

Wow!  ;-)  That's a long break from rendering with POV-Ray.

> Now I wanted to render my old pictures, but with latest povray (3.6 for
> windows), povray fails to find some basic include files, like "fov.inc"?
>
> These aren't even included with bundle?

A new keyword 'angle' changed the way POV would do field of view. Used to be 
that 'direction' was the only way. I'd guess the include file was dropped 
for that reason.
You could search the internet and get the file again, I found it using 
google with just:  fov.inc povray

> What should I do? Is there more uncompatibility than this (during times I
> used povray heavily, it was in version 2.1).

Much has changed, way to much for me to try and list. I couldn't remember 
everything anyhow! Of what I do know:
Semi-colon's used after all float and vector declarations, for example, such 
as in #declare A=1; so that might be a stumbling block for you.
I don't especially don't remember much about version 2.1 because I used 2.2, 
most of all, in the beginning. You wouldn't have been making scene files 
with halo, atmosphere or radiosity back then so that shouldn't be a problem.
'blob' changed at some point there, going from 'component' parts to 'sphere' 
and 'cylinder' parts.
Placement of some keywords might be trouble, but I think the #version 
directive will help there.

> Any suggestions? I really have lot of scenes that I want to re-render to
> bigger resolution than was possible those old 486-times :)

Just be sure to use the directive #version 2 at the start of your old files. 
I can't say if that'll solve every compatibility issue though. Watch the 
message window during and after renders for warnings so you can try and 
correct any.

Welcome back from the farthest reaches of POV time. Maybe others here will 
have more input to add.

Bob Hughes

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"Bob Hughes" <omn### [at] charternet> wrote:
> "Juke" <juk### [at] nicfi> wrote in message
> news:web.421cf6bcc5ce5f8ff5b8a04a0@news.povray.org...
> > Hi, I haven't used povray for years, for almost 10 years actually.
>
> Wow!  ;-)  That's a long break from rendering with POV-Ray.

Yeah, it's really long :) Still I remember most of povray's language
keywords :)

> > Now I wanted to render my old pictures, but with latest povray (3.6 for
> > windows), povray fails to find some basic include files, like "fov.inc"?
> >
> > These aren't even included with bundle?
>
> A new keyword 'angle' changed the way POV would do field of view. Used to be
> that 'direction' was the only way. I'd guess the include file was dropped
> for that reason.
> You could search the internet and get the file again, I found it using
> google with just:  fov.inc povray

Thanks for the tip! I also remember that I should have old povray bundles in
first povray CD-rom :) And I think it's also included in (old) Ray Tracing
Creations book.


> > What should I do? Is there more uncompatibility than this (during times I
> > used povray heavily, it was in version 2.1).
>
> Placement of some keywords might be trouble, but I think the #version
> directive will help there.

Thanks!


> > Any suggestions? I really have lot of scenes that I want to re-render to
> > bigger resolution than was possible those old 486-times :)
>
> Just be sure to use the directive #version 2 at the start of your old files.
> I can't say if that'll solve every compatibility issue though. Watch the
> message window during and after renders for warnings so you can try and
> correct any.
>
> Welcome back from the farthest reaches of POV time. Maybe others here will
> have more input to add.

If nothing else helps, then I could propably try render these images with
old povray binaries :)


Regards,
  Juke

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