> FWIW, I think it would certainly be interesting to have unbaised rendering 
> as an option on POV-Ray. But the amount of work required is, 
> realistically, prohibitive. You'd have to basically rewrite the whole 
> program. And I don't see that happening any time soon...

Not just the rendering method, but things like different reflection and 
lighting models, newer methods of increasing the efficiency of ray tracing 
(I posted a link in the pov4 group), etc.  Given that most people seem to 
think SDL is POV's strongest point, why not improve the SDL to be more 
flexible?

>> You do realise that the big rock in the Cascades demo is an isosurface?
>
> Really? I thought it was just a tellesated triangle mesh based on an 
> isosurface? (Remember, I haven't actually been able to watch the demo 
> yet.)

Well yes, of course, nothing can directly show an isosurface, even POV has 
to sample the function to generate pixels.  But my point was it shows an 
isosurface in realtime, in fine detail (you'll see in the demo when you 
watch it).

> OOC... Clearly Crysis has some pretty serious graphics. But is it *fun* to 
> play?

I only played the demo, and it was in a bit of a rush, seemed pretty similar 
*gameplay* to FarCry, which isn't a bad thing.  Played fine on my nVidia 
7900 card, I think I had low or medium detail and it was above 30fps most of 
the time.  I think you'd need to play a few levels before any new gameplay 
became apparent, just IMO.

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