POV-Ray : Documentation : 3.3 Command-Line Options
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3.2.7.13 For Those Who use an Image Output Directory   3.3.1 Special Command-Line Options

3.3 Command-Line Options

Options are what previous versions of POV-Ray used to refer to as command-line options. The term is no longer accurate for POV-Ray since version 3.5, because the command line is only one way of passing options to the program. There are now four ways you can pass an option to POV-Ray:

  1. You can store it in the POVRAY.INI file in the POV-Ray's "RENDERER" directory. This is a special INI file. Whenever you start up POV-Ray for Windows, the program looks for a file called RENDERER\POVRAY.INI in the POV-Ray's "home" directory. This means POV-Ray for Windows always starts up with the settings defined in POVRAY.INI. If you want to make changes to the way POV-Ray works by default, you should make them in POVRAY.INI. The Tools menu contains an entry to edit the master POVRAY.INI.
  2. You can store it in a POVRAY.INI file in the current directory. POV-Ray looks for a POVRAY.INI file in the current directory whenever it starts rendering, but after it has read any POVRAY.INI file in the POV-Ray's "RENDERER" directory. Options in an INI file in the current directory override options in any copy of POVRAY.INI in the POV-Ray's "home" directory.
  3. You can store it in an INI file created for a particular scene. If you drop a specific INI file into the POV-Ray window, any options set in it will override corresponding options in previously activated INI files (including POVRAY.INI). Any options not included in the INI file will be unchanged, that is to say, they will remain as the master POVRAY.INI set them.
  4. You can enter it on the command line (see Command Line Dialog or the Toolbar Command Line). Any command-line option overrides corresponding options in either POVRAY.INI or any other INI file loaded during the current session. POV-Ray for Windows interprets the command line from left to right, so that any option (or INI file) on the command line overrides a corresponding option (or another INI file) to its left on the command line.

Section Contents

3.2.7.13 For Those Who use an Image Output Directory   3.3.1 Special Command-Line Options


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