"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
>
> Once you write your .pov file, which should render without error all
> by itself,
> then you write an .ini file which is like a script that renders your .pov file
> over and over again with an increasing clock variable value.   Then you get a
> bunch of still renders that you convert into a video file with some sort of
> video processing software / command-line utility, and you have your animation.
>
> I'll let you look all of that over and you can try it out / ask more questions.
>

Hi, Aj! Welcome to the crazy world of POV-ray animation. ;-) It is actually
easier to accomplish than what you might think.

In addition to Bald Eagle's good comments, here's a quick explanation of what is
meant by the 'ini.file'.

In Windows, there is an included file called 'quickres.ini.' It holds a lot of
pre-written render resolutions for you. But it's also the place where I put all
of my animation commands-- like Start_Frame, Final_Frame, etc. There, you would
simply write
           Final_Frame=100  (no spaces)

This will automatically turn on the animation mechanism, ready and waiting.

And in your scene file, you would use the 'clock' keyword to create movement (or
'frame_number' if you want to actuate your animation that way instead.) Like,

object{ // optional
    sphere{<0,0,0>, 1 texture{...} translate 12*clock*x}
      }

Then hit the usual 'Run' command button, and POV-ray will automatically create
100 animation-frame renders, with the sphere moving 12 units in the +x
direction. That's your animation! -- ready to be assembled in your external
video-processing app.

For the many useful animation commands for doing things, take a look in v3.7's
included(?) 'help' file at the section called
          2.3.9 Making Animations

or just look up 'clock' or 'Final_Frame'. That should put you in the right place
in the documentation.

(I happen to be running a newer 3.8 version of POV-ray, so my help file may not
be exactly the same as yours.)

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