POV-Ray : Documentation : 1.4.3.1 How do I turn animation on?
  POV-Ray 3.6 Documentation Online View  
1.4.3 Language related things   1.4.3.2 Can POV-Ray use multiple processors?

1.4.3.1 How do I turn animation on?

"How do I turn animation on? I have used the clock-variable in my scene, but POV-Ray still only calculates one frame."

The easiest way is to just specify the appropriate command line parameter on the command line or in the command line field in the rendering settings menu (in the Windows version). For example, if you want to create 20 frames, type this: +kff20

This will create 20 frames with the clock variable going from 0 to 1. The other command line parameters are found in the POV-Ray documentation.

Ken Tyler has also another good solution for this:

In the directory that you installed POV-Ray into you will find a subdirectory called scenes and another inside that called animate. You will find several example files showing you how to write your scene to use the clock variable. You will still need to activate POV-Ray's animation feature by using an .ini file with the correct info or with command line switches. I personaly like to use the ini file method. If you try this open the master povray.ini file from the tools menu and add the following lines:

;clock=1
;Initial_Frame=1
;Final_Frame=20
;Cyclic_Animation = on
;Subset_Start_Frame=6
;Subset_End_Frame=9

Save the file and close it. When you need to use the animation feature simply go in and edit the povray.ini file and uncomment out the functions you want to use. At a minimum you will need to use the initial_frame and final_frame option to make it work. Once you have stopped rendering your series of frames be sure to comment out the clock variables in the ini file. After you have rendered a series of individual frames you will still need to compile them into the animation format that you wish to use such as AVI or MPEG. See our links collection on our website for programs that can help you do this. POV-Ray has no internal ability to do this for you except on the Macintosh platform of the program.

The Mac version normally does not use .ini files and lacks any command line, but uses a completely graphical interface instead. To activate animation, choose the render settings item from the Edit menu (right under "Preferences", it will be titled "FILENAME Settings", where FILENAME is the name of your file), click on the Animation tab, and enter the needed information in the text boxes.

1.4.3 Language related things   1.4.3.2 Can POV-Ray use multiple processors?


Copyright 2003-2021 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.