i'm not sure if this is the group for this, but...

i'm wondering where one goes to learn the math that is specific to
programming raytracers.  more specifically, the kinds of techniques used
in povray, as well as those in other packages, like terragen.  now, when
i say math, i don't mean what you learn in math classes.  i've taken all
of the general ed. math through DE and linear alg.  what i mean is,
where do you go and what do you read so you don't reinvent the wheel?

i'm also interested in the way terragen generates its scenes and wonder
if there is any way to mix the techniques (or get similar results.  i
have seen a couple very good cloud scenes in the images groups, but they
seem much more difficult to achieve whereas terragen's clouds rock.  i
realize they use different image creation techniques, but before the
image is made, what is 'under the hood'?  the direction this is going? 
well, i'd like to see full physics effects like 'beats' seen in waves as
they crash on a shore and bounce back, or the diffraction of a wave as
it goes around a bouy.  i'd like to see erosion, particle effects, and
so on.  are these things which would need to be programmed into the
pov?  or is the scene description language robust enough to do all of
this?  or are these types of things that would be best left for a
modeller such as moray to do?

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