Hi,

For the first time since I'm using POV-ray I would like to make an
animation. I tried to find information about "general techniques" about how
to do it, without success.

I know about the "clock" parameter and up to now I have tried to define
mathematical functions of this parameter for further use in the script. But
I can assume that this is not the easiest way to realise an animation. The
thing rapidely becomes very complexe, since I want to move different
mechanical parts, changing the color and brightness of some heating
elements, and I also want to visualize some moving smoke...!

Some link to "standard animation techniques" with povray or some suggestions
about how to organize the scipt would help me a lot. Thanks in advance.
REYNALD

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Reynald wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> For the first time since I'm using POV-ray I would like to make an
> animation. I tried to find information about "general techniques" about how
> to do it, without success.
> 
> I know about the "clock" parameter and up to now I have tried to define
> mathematical functions of this parameter for further use in the script. But
> I can assume that this is not the easiest way to realise an animation. The
> thing rapidely becomes very complexe, since I want to move different
> mechanical parts, changing the color and brightness of some heating
> elements, and I also want to visualize some moving smoke...!
> 
> Some link to "standard animation techniques" with povray or some suggestions
> about how to organize the scipt would help me a lot. Thanks in advance.
> REYNALD
> 
> 

Some things to get you started:

Moving mechanical parts, like robots, etc., is usually done using 
Inverse Kinematics:

   - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_kinematics

Smoke, water, fire etc. are usually done with either a particle system 
or a fluid dynamics solver system. There are several particle systems 
available for POV-Ray, e.g.

   - Rune's: http://runevision.com/3d/include/particles/
   - Tim Nikias': http://nolights.de/download.html#PartixGen

For animating physically correct models with masses and springs, like 
cloth, etc., use a something like Christoph Hormann's SimPOV, which is 
included in MegaPOV:

   - http://megapov.inetart.net/index.html

If you want to interpolate smoothly from one state to another, e.g. for 
blending from one color to another, you can use POV-Ray's splines:

   - http://povray.org/documentation/view/3.6.1/234/

There are many more include files out there to help you with special 
animation tasks, like:

   - Liquid Surface Simulation: http://nolights.de/download.html#LSSM
   - Clock modifier macros:
     http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434/clockmod.html

But after all, the clock variable is your main way to do animations in POV.

I hope those links get you started, feel free to ask if you got more 
questions. Also note, that there are special newsgroups for animations:

   - povray.animations: For asking questions about animations
   - povray.binary.animations: For posting animations (< 2MB)


HTH,
Florian

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Thanks Florian, I will spend a fiew days to look at these links, read as
much as possible... and try some first animations. The clock modifier macro
looks great!
Reynald

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Reynald wrote:
 > Hi,
 >
 > For the first time since I'm using POV-ray I would like to make an
 > animation. I tried to find information about "general techniques" 
about how
 > to do it, without success.
 >
 > I know about the "clock" parameter and up to now I have tried to
 > define mathematical functions of this parameter for further use in
 > the script. But I can assume that this is not the easiest way to
 > realise an animation. The thing rapidely becomes very complexe,
 > since I want to move different mechanical parts, changing the
 > color and brightness of some heating elements, and I also want
 > to visualize some moving smoke...!
 >

To which Florian Brucker wrote:

 > There are many more include files out there to help you with special
 > animation tasks, like:
 >
 >   - Liquid Surface Simulation: http://nolights.de/download.html#LSSM
 >   - Clock modifier macros:
 >     http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434/clockmod.html
 >
 > But after all, the clock variable is your main way to do animations
 > in POV.

When using ClockMod, I would *HIGHLY* recommend that you:

1) Define your objects within a #macro, that takes parameters for the
    characteristics you can't do outside the 'union' or 'object'
    (such as most texture changes, the angle of the fingers on a hand,
     wrist on an arm, arm on a shoulder, etc.).  For example

        #macro Scissors( ang )
           union {
               object { HalfScissors }
               object { HalfScissors rotate <180,ang,0> }
           }
        #end
    That's off the top of my head and bogus, but the idea is there:
    For a pair of scissors, there is no way to change the angle of
    the two halves after they are joined, and the macro lets this be
    simple.

2) For complex animations, either use #switch+#case statements for
    the camera locations, change of scenes, etc., or separate POV+INI
    files; the latter is probably easier.

3) Use ClockMod within these top-level POV file to implement the math
    formulas for the parameters to your object macros.

I've not see the ClockMod package for a while, but the old examples had 
all the mods embedded in the object itself, and *that* leads to a lot of 
tediousness that can be avoided almost entirely by point #1 above.

Comments?
- RP

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