Warp wrote:

>   It just feels that sometimes using "less accurate" rendering methods
> which nevertheless produce a completely acceptable image is more feasible
> than using 12+ hours to render a "physically accurate" picture which to
> the layman doesn't look any different... :P
> 

Sure, and I think we all understand that, and that furthermore, the 
point is always worth mentioning, always one leg of a platform that will 
fail if we don't constantly remind ourselves of it.  But we stabilize 
and reinforce our sanity platform precisely so we can rest on it, use it 
as a base, while we take our flights of fancy.

While reading these 'v4.0' discussions I have been forced to think a 
little about what the appeal of POV-Ray really is for me.  The idea that 
I keep coming back to is one I term, 'THE HUNT'.  I get the idea from a 
text written by the French artist Jean Dubuffet and I think I have 
mentioned it here before.  It is a text I originally read in one of the 
compilations by Herchel Chipp while I was in art school in the 70's. I 
am sorry I cannot provide a reference beyond that. The title was ,I 
think, "L'Impreints". In it Dubuffet takes the reader inside the 
creative process in a way few others have.  The medium he was using was 
a personal variant on printmaking which involved pulling monoprints from 
a surface spread with a film of india ink, not printing ink, and 
perturbed (POV pun intented) with foreign matter such as dust and sand. 
  As he pulls proof after proof he describes the worlds he discovers 
within the ink patterns with the immediacy of the still drying swirls 
and grit.  Early in the essay he says, (in English translation, and to 
the best of my memory,) "It is like a hunt."

And I believe that this is a the root of POV's appeal for me and 
probably for others,...its support for 'THE HUNT'.

POV, an elder statesman of CG, has embodied like its maturing 
colleagues, the basic desparity between the pure goal and the impure 
solution.  Artists drawn to it must navigate this basic contradiction 
philosophically and creatively.  We understand we are working with an 
analogue, but an analogue that comes wickedly, and tantalizingly close 
sometimes, to its subject.

This realization first came to me while reading the discussions 
surrounding syntax.  There was a recognition for the need to change the 
syntax to 'abstract' the syntax from the functionality.  The gain could 
be greater ease of developmen and greater variety of function. The was 
recognition that more robust syntax might leverage everything from model 
making to material attributes through the techniques of object 
orientation. At times personal stylistic preferences did seem to creep 
in. A preoccupation with syntax as an end in itself did seem to creep 
in. There was also a recognition that the current syntax holds 
properties of their own innate appeal, though the appeal is difficult to 
define.  The attempt to define that appeal more clearly for myself lead 
to my greater sense of what the appeal of POV is for me.  The Hunt.  The 
ability to start at eny point and have the chase of ideas intensify. 
What starts as a lighting test ends as a scene of breadth and scope. 
What starts as a grand plan to render a universe ends as a lighting test 
of gemlike beauty. It involves a syntax of ease, flexibility, and 
immediacy.  Improve the syntax, I say, it is innate to the creative 
process. But always support The Hunt.

Now again with the reappeal for rendering quality as a priority we are 
reminded of the primitive urge at the heart of The Hunt.  The perhaps 
irrational, Promethian hope, of making it real.  Early on, one 
individual called for the need to define the purpose of 'v4.0' on a 
general level before indulging in particulars.  Well, I thought, there 
is always someone who wants to define the rules for making the rules for 
making the rules.  But that cautionary cry has come back to haunt. What 
really is at the very heart of this. The POV community has always 
favoured the interwoven strands of purist means as a path to truth and 
cutting-edge technique in the hope of gaining it.

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