POVRAY.CZ

About animation in POV-Ray

There's a one important thing to keep in mind: POV-Ray is primarily engine-like and is NOT modeller
even if it has build-in direct text-based modelling functions.
Nice examples of direct written code animation can be found as a result of short code contest.
But it's not a way for beginners. Really not.

Best start point can be simple animation with one movement style (from-to) using POV-Ray system variables ( clock or frame_number ).
Internal POV-Ray cycling can create lot of single frame images with incremental numbering.
I prefer PNG (output Output_File_Type=N) and VirtualDub to open it as an image sequence.
VirtualDub can play animated images and save it into any format with codec you have.
Another good form of simple animation is neverending periodic animation - rotating, color changes, fractals and so on.
Good lessons can be found here. At first you can try this simple code:

#version 3.6;
#include "colors.inc"
camera {
location    direction 1.5*z
right     x*image_width/image_height  look_at  
}
light_source {
color rgb 1 translate
}

// ----------------------------------------

plane { y, -1 pigment { color rgb }}

sphere { 0.0, 1 texture { pigment { radial frequency 8
color_map {
[0.00 color rgb ]
[0.33 color rgb ]
[0.66 color rgb ]
[1.00 color rgb ]
}}
finish{ specular 0.6 } } 
// ANIMATED PARAMETER: y rotate around 
rotate  
}

// INI Settings for animation

[160x100, Anim Preview]
Width=160
Height=100
Antialias=Off
Antialias_Threshold=0.3
Initial_Frame=0
Final_Frame=60 
Initial_Clock=0 
Final_Clock=1
Cyclic_Animation=1
Output_File_Type=N

Result:

Another sample of animation shows children toy train scene periodically animated: