Hi.  I have a POV-Ray book("Ray Tracing Creations") by the Waite group.
It is fairly old now but I was wondering  if I can still use it as a
guideline for POV-Ray 3.1g.  I   just discovered to my delight that
POV-Ray is available for Linux.  I typed in the first example from my
book and tried to render it, and I get the error:
"Bad option syntax or error opening ..INI/.DEF file 'camera{'.   "
  I installed the pre-compiled version in the default directories,
/usr/local/lib/povray31.  By the way I am running RedHat 5.1 kernel
2.2.5
  The first.pov listing looks like this:
    camera {
        location<>
        look_at<>
     }
    object{}
  object{}
object{}
  I left it blank for brevity's sake but you get the idea.  Am I
seriously out of touch here? Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I
also dlded the source and I am going to try compiling it myself to see
if that makes any difference.

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Preacher <nig### [at] hotmailcom> writes:

> [...] I typed in the first example from my
> book and tried to render it, and I get the error:
> "Bad option syntax or error opening ..INI/.DEF file 'camera{'.   "

I bet you types the command-line "povray first.pov" or something like
that.  Well, don't.  You have to type "povray -i first.pov", so that
POV-Ray knows first.pov is a POV scene file and not a parameters file.
I suggest you have a look at "man povray", to know the basic switches
to use when you invoke POV.

Roland.
-- 
Roland Mas

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Roland Mas wrote:

> Preacher <nig### [at] hotmailcom> writes:
>
> > [...] I typed in the first example from my
> > book and tried to render it, and I get the error:
> > "Bad option syntax or error opening ..INI/.DEF file 'camera{'.   "
>
> I bet you types the command-line "povray first.pov" or something like
> that.  Well, don't.  You have to type "povray -i first.pov", so that
> POV-Ray knows first.pov is a POV scene file and not a parameters file.
> I suggest you have a look at "man povray", to know the basic switches
> to use when you invoke POV.
>
> Roland.
> --
> Roland Mas
>


Thanks for the advice.  My bad, I didn't read the man page...  I read
everything but.   thanks again.

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In article <m3n### [at] casimirrezelenstfr> , rol### [at] emailenstfr
(Roland Mas) wrote:

> I bet you types the command-line "povray first.pov" or something like
> that.  Well, don't.  You have to type "povray -i first.pov", so that
> POV-Ray knows first.pov is a POV scene file and not a parameters file.
> I suggest you have a look at "man povray", to know the basic switches
> to use when you invoke POV.

"povray -i first.pov" works, but is not documented. For future compatibility
you may want to get used to (the documented) "povray -ifirst.pov".


    Thorsten

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