As I was choosing a gradient to use in a picture in GIMP recently I inadvertently right clicked on one and saw that the drop-down menu included the option to save (the gradient) "..as POV-Ray", not having an idea what this meant I saved it anyway, then DuckDuckGo'd "POV-Ray". 'Interesting', I thought, a graphics application of some kind ... I downloaded and installed POV-Ray v3.7 for Windows. I soon realised the program is script-based therefore I would have to learn the ins-and-outs of the syntax used (nightmare, I'm still trying to get my head around Python lol) - anyway I've spotted some tutorials on YT (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZDWcEQrqsc for instance) so I hope to get something done with that soon... (finger's crossed). Can anybody tell me though, how can I use the file I saved (the gradient) in the POV-Ray program, not sure if anyone out there is familiar with it, but for starters I can't find anything so far in the 'POV_Ray Help' about gradients, let alone which format they have to be saved in or what one has to do with the file (maybe point to it within a POV-Ray script somehow (??)).
Anyway, would appreciate any help if anyone has a clue about it, if not I'll just soldier on hope to make something like this person's first animation(!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exL5B7LapUo
Cheers.

GIMP saves the gradient as a POV-Ray colour_map: http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/3.7.0/335/ which is a pigment modifier.

Try the example in the linked page, along with one of the standard scenes.

I'll try and find some time to experiment with it this evening.

Kevin

Thanks for finding that! It makes a lot more sense now, great!

EDIT: Just rendered my first object, using a gradient from GIMP (Basic Magenta White HSVCW):

Copied bits of code from here n there, adapted it and came up with this:


This is how I did it:

That's pretty nice!

Dang, I just watched a very impressive animation video done with POV-Ray!

Thanks! Just a start...



That's amazing, well I'm not quite there yet, only been at it a few hours !

However, managed to render a little GIF (with the help of GIMP.. )

Did you do the morphing in gimp or povray? If you did it in gimp, what plugin did you use?

I used GIMP / 'G'MIC>Layers>Morph layers' for that, using high precision but low smoothness. I only recently discovered it tbh.

You can animate warping in IWARP also. For example i created an ellipse and filled it with a gradient.
Then i opened IWARP warped the oval into a fish shape and saved it as a 25 layer animation. Below is the animated PNG version



For those who cannot see the APNG file here is a GIF version.



You can get the files to add animated png (APNG) export to GIMP-2.8.22 by going here.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=212&hilit=IWARP&start=110#p31336

32 and 64 bit files are available for the Animated PNG setup. (windows only i am afraid)

cool fishes

Can't get the APNG thing to work, I see the option 'PNG/APNG' but trying to save it and nothing happens...


All I can do is squash or expand things, not artistic enough to warp it into an actual image (!)

G'mic's layers morph plugin doesn't really morph, it mostly just cross fades. I have made warping animations with gimp's Iwarp before, but won't post them because they're not politically correct...

I've used a few morphing plugins before where you set the morphing points for the before/after images. It looks more realistic.

Most of the time i use flash for morphing objects. IWarp is great in a pinch though.


You don't have to save as an animated PNG image you can use GIF. BUT try removing the file-png.exe from the program directory /lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins folder and GIMP should recognize either APNG multi layers or PNG single layer images.

OK I'll try that thanks.

Great got that working now, a 720 layer 640x360 animation exported as an APNG is 73MB in this case, 55 MB's more than a GIF made with the same images (optimized) - to be expected as the colour's certainly are better in the APNG... anyway now we've strayed from the original topic of this thread (POV-Ray) by some margin so I'll leave it at that for now.
Cheers

video

Wow! These are all pretty sharp! I do have to say that the auto engine video was amazing!

I've used povray for creating objects I've used in mapping, and to create maps as well. It is extremely powerful, but great and easy for mathematical/scripted/repetitive shapes.


I made this paddlewheel for a top down paddlewheeler map:


Palm trees (I was able to randomize a few dozen in size and leaf orientation so they wouldn't repeat when used):


Asteroids from a videogame:


I've also used POVRay to render height-fields of objects,shapes and entire maps, like this one:


-Rob A>

A couple more for fun - cross eye stereogram renders of a planet from a heightfield:


And the cover art for a dice game package:


-Rob A>

Really good outcomes RobA, lots of potential in the program I can see... have left it gathering dust in the corner of my desktop for now but hope to get back into it again soon.
Cheers