Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> These are light effects not photo effects.  You do not need a photograph
> to perceive shadows, reflections and global illumination.
>
> Meanwhile, these and other phenomena as recorded by a camera are still
> only a partial "realism"  A photo is just a particular recording of
> reality, a partial slice if you will.

Quite. Real 'photorealism' should address the imperfections of the camera
such as barrel distortion, chromatic aberration, over/under exposure, lens
flare, colour bleeding, motion blur, field of view and even the location of
the photographer. I am reminded of Tek's incredible IRTC entry last year
with the fire on the beach.

But there's plenty of amazing things one can do with a raytracer that aren't
possible with a camera. If I could take a picture of it, I don't need to
ray-trace it :-)

Bill

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