9fans archive / 2001 / 02 / 454 /    prev next

From: td@pix... (Tom Duff)
Subject: Re:[9fans] povray on p9
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 09:36:39 -0800

I try to keep quiet when povray is
mentioned, but someone invoked my name.

Anyway, George Michaelson said:
> don't go past radiance without a look.
> its not povray but its very good.

This, as bwk used to say, is vacuous.

Povray is an abomination -- the perfect
rejoinder to The Cathedral And The Bazaar.
Radiance is a work of art.  Neither can
handle scenes of any complexity, and neither
is fast enough for serious animation.  (Before
someone says, "Oh yeah, look at this,"
let me say that the sort of complexity we're
interested in involves geometry files in the
gigabyte range accompanied by texture maps of
similar size, and shaded by hundreds of custom-
programmed shaders, averaging about a thousand
lines long.)

-- 
Tom Duff.  Nature loves to hide itself.