<-Feel free to ignore if I sound drunk and in the wrong newsgrooop...->

Just recently, working on an idea I had gotten from a film (The Cube), I noticed
that I was spending a lot of time waiting.  For POVRAY.  The idea goes like
this:-

Room made up of those eggbox florescent lights you get in offices.  10*10 on the
floor, all four walls and the ceiling. If you have three lights-apiece that's
1800 lights!  So I started thinking about using radiosity to light the scene and
setting the "light bars" to ambient RGB 2 etc, etc...

Either way takes a hell of long time to render.

To the point, I hear you say!!!

I have been flicking through the archives and noticed a lot negative feedback
concerning the new age methods that appear in the commercial apps.

1) Ambient occlusion
2) Environment mapping
3+)Separate output layers (reflection, occlusion, depth, object ID, blah, blah,
blah)

Seems the opinion is that POV does all of this at once and that it just doesn't
matter.  Well, tell that to someone who has to wait for 45 minutes just to see
if they have the Ambient setting right on only one object in a scene with 1800
lights!!

My argument:-

1)  Ambient occlusion map would enable me to simply set the color (Amb/Diff) as
full and use AO to deal with the finicky detailing WITHOUT having to employ OTT
radiosity.  (This should be easier to implement than radiosity anyway!)
2)  Environment mapping would allow me to only shoot the bare minimals (IE the
walls) and then render my character (a miserable robot) without having to use
1800 light sources!!!
3)  The rest would really be useful but I don't wanna bug anyone. (8~}

I say don't too caught up with the purist way of thinking.  POV is made by
people -> people tell it what to do -> if you don't want all the "fudges", don't
use them! -> but POV devs - don't shy away from these little gems, please!!!

P.S.  They didn't complain about the photons did they...      ...fudge, fudge,
wink, wink!

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