>> The hole debate here is only about theory. Can you post the source code? Most
>> likely I'm not the one to spot the difficulties but others may be able to do so.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Michael
>
> First of all, the original question was about theory.  Secondly, I'm not asking
> for help fixing code: I'm using a water material (slightly modified) that was
> provided in a previous thread, if that doesn't work right nothing will.
>
> The problem is most likely due to six overlapping light boxes, plus water which
> has been said to be slow under ideal conditions.  The only viable option I can
> think of is to get rid of the point lights entirely and switch to some sort of
> radiant lighting, which is what the question was actually about.
>
> so, to reiterate, does anybody have a good way to make luminous flames without
> point lights?
>
> Regards,
> A.D.B.
>
I'm still not quiet sure that you can solve this riddle only by theory. 
I assume there are additional conditions at work here to slow down the 
rendering of your water that dramatically.

Since I have a somewhat simliar scene in my mind I played around a bit. 
I stole a fire from the IRTC (emissive media), modeled a small scene 
which is somewhat similiar to yours (at least the position of the 
"fires" and the water with respect to the camera should be comparable). 
I added a dimmed yellow light_source to the media to get the water 
transparent. The "fires" are repeated 6 times. The water material is 
yours from your "looking for water" thread but I incorporated clipkas 
comments on the demo scene water - and scaled the normal down. The 
rendering was slowed down by command line options (+bs8 +wt6 +r4). 
Radiosity settings were Radiosity_IndoorHQ from rad_def.inc. Parsing and 
rendering was done in 14m 52s. Without the water: 2m 5s. Machine: Core 
i7@3.4 GHz.

So I must have left out a constraint you have in your scene.

My own scene will be different from yours, but the lighting situation 
and the position of the pool relative to the fires are similiar. The 
media of the fires must be improved of course.

Best regards,
Michael

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