Reference:Scene Parsing Options
POV-Ray reads in your scene file and processes it to create an internal
model of your scene. The process is called parsing
. As your file
is parsed other files may be read along the way. This section covers options
concerning what to parse, where to find it and what version specific
assumptions it should make while parsing it.
Constant
Declare=IDENTIFIER=FLOAT |
Declares an identifier with a float value |
You can now declare a constant in an INI file, and that constant will be available to the scene. Since INI file statements may also be laced on the command-line, you can therefore also declare on the command-line (though there is no switch for it).
Declare=MyValue=24
This would be the same as a #declare MyValue=24;
in a scene file. The value on the
right-hand side must be a constant float value.
A possible use could be switching off radiosity or photons from command-line:
--in INI-file / on command-line Declare=RAD=0 --in scenefile global_settings { #if (RAD) radiosity { ... } #end }
Input File Name
Input_File_Name= file |
Sets input file name to file |
+I file |
Same as Input_File_Name= file |
Note: There may be no space between +I
and file
.
You will probably always set this option but if you do not the default
input filename is object.pov
. If you do not have an extension
then .pov
is assumed. On case-sensitive operating systems both
.pov
and .POV
are tried. A full path specification
may be used (on MS-DOS systems +Ic:\povray3\mystuff\myfile.pov
is allowed for example). In addition to specifying the input file name this
also establishes the scene name.
The scene name is the input name with drive, path and extension stripped. In
the above example the scene name is myfile
. This name is used to
create a default output file name and it is referenced other places.
Note: As of version 3.5 you can now specify a POV file on the command-line without the use of the +i switch (i.e. it works the same way as specifying an INI file without a switch), the POV file then should be the last on the command-line.
If you use "-" as the input file name the input will be read from standard input. Thus you can pipe a scene created by a program to POV-Ray and render it without having a scene file.
Under MS-DOS you can try this feature by typing.
type ANYSCENE.POV | povray +I-
Include File Name
Include_Header= file |
Sets primary include file name to file |
+HI file |
Same as Include_Header= file |
This option allows you to include a file as the first include file of a scene file. You can for example use this option to always include a specific set of default include files used by all your scenes.
Library Paths
Library_Path= path |
Add path to list of library paths |
+L path |
Same as Library_Path= path |
POV-Ray looks for files in the current directory. If it does not find a file it needs it looks in various other library directories which you specify. POV-Ray does not search your operating system path. It only searches the current directory and directories which you specify with this option. For example the standard include files are usually kept in one special directory. You tell POV-Ray to look there with...
Library_Path=c:\povray3\include
You must not specify any final path separators ("\" or "/") at the end.
Multiple uses of this option switch do not override previous settings. If you specify the exact same path twice it is only counted once. The current directory will be searched first followed by the indicated library directories in the order in which you specified them.
Language Version
Version= n.n |
Set initial language compatibility to version n.n |
+MV n.n |
Same as Version= n.n |
As POV-Ray has evolved from version 1.0 through to today we have made every
effort to maintain some amount of backwards compatibility with earlier
versions. Some old or obsolete features can be handled directly without any
special consideration by the user. Some old or obsolete features can no
longer be handled at all. However some old features can still be
used if you warn POV-Ray that this is an older scene. In the POV-Ray scene
language you can use the #version
directive to switch version
compatibility to different settings. See section The #version Directive
for more details about the language version directive.
Additionally you may use the Version=
n.n option or the
+MV
n.n switch to establish the initial
setting. For example one feature introduced in 2.0 that was incompatible with
any 1.0 scene files is the parsing of float expressions. Setting
Version=1.0
or using +MV1.0
turns off expression parsing
as well as many warning messages so that nearly all 1.0 files will still
work. Naturally the default setting for this option is the current version number.
The version directive and command-line setting no longer provide compatibility with most rendering bugs in versions prior to POV-Ray 3.5. However, compatibility with the scene language is provided for scenes as old as POV-Ray 1.0 just as in all previous versions of POV-Ray. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend you update scenes at least to POV-Ray 3.5 syntax if you plan to use them in future versions of POV-Ray.