Gilles Tran wrote:
>  (a) going beyond the limits by using 3rd party resources (i.e. using a 3rd
> party car model)
>  (b) going beyond the limits while still refusing to use 3rd party resources
> (i.e. modelling a car with CSG, knowing that the car will be little blocky
> or toy-like)
>  (c) staying within the limits and refusing to use 3rd party resouces (no
> having realistic cars in one's images)

Good choises. I myself usually prefer C of these (photographing is for 
reality, raytracing goes beoynd reality's limits), but sometimes B 
(which usually really does get icky results). The situation I'm using a 
3rd-party resources is usually to, hmm, "get model" from someone elses 
code (open source, naturally), eg. example scenes that come with 
POV-Ray, the ones found freely at internet etc.

What comes to cheating while using ready-made meshes, scenes etc, it 
depends on the situation. It's always used as an easier or faster way to 
get trough something (otherwise there wouldn't be any sense), but IMO 
it's not cheating unless possibly for the owner of the 
mesh/scene/whatever_used_here. Meaning that, if I have an open-source 
scene or macro or texture or whatever at my homepage and a text "use if 
you like", it's not cheating. But if you'll for eg get a copied version 
of paying (I mean the ones that are out to be sold) mesh/scene/whatever 
(eg from p2p etc), that's cheating. Not to the looker of the image, but 
to the maker of the scene. It's the license that makes the difference 
here - for me.

Hope someones understood :).

-- 
-Aero

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