POV-Ray

...they would be appended to the file names just to be clear.

Just a thought (not even suggesting a solution) or more:

• should it postfix the filename, but before the extension, or prefix the filename in the directory path ?

• if using some escape/special char in output filename, that could break actually working script with fancy names, so would you instead specify a new switch to trigger that behaviour ?

• Date format: might i suggest the iso 8601 format (something like YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS), just drop any timezone (possible issue: the ":" might be a fork... well that's a MAC thing... but Windows also have now hidden data), a basic "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" might be ok. (the order is important: it allow to sort them in the right order using traditional name ordering) (If we can assume that space " " is supported on all povray filesystem, adding some space could be a great helper for readability)

This is better solved using the pre-scene shellout feature to invoke a shell script or batch file that re-names the old output file according to whatever convention you wish.

"should it postfix the filename, but before the extension, or prefix the filename in the directory path"

The former, probably. For example:

"testscene_2010-08-21_13:54:22.png"

Or something similar.

"if using some escape/special char in output filename, that could break actually working script with fancy names, so would you instead specify a new switch to trigger that behaviour ?"

Not sure what exactly you mean, but yes it would be better to turn the feature on/off using an INI option so that people who don't want it can disable it.

"Date format: might i suggest the iso 8601 format"

Good idea.