Dave Mann <dcm### [at] i-americanet> wrote:
: Does this mean no Disco Mirror Balls? No bouncing lasers off mirrors? No
: scattering light of broken mirror shards?

: Have I missed something very simple, or is the sad truth that light really
: can't be reflected off of reflective surfaces?

  You should read some documentation about raytracing, what you can do with
it and what you can't. Raytracing is not a perfect technique to model the
real world. I don't know if there is any.
  For example, with raytracing it's extremely difficult, if not impossible
to model area lights (area lights in povray are not true area lights as you
can read from the docs), reflective and refractive caustics, etc.
  You should think about how raytracing works and try to understand why
it's almost impossible to model caustics with it.
  There are other techniques to model area lights and caustics, for example
radiosity and photon mapping, but I don't know if they are very appliable
to a raytracing engine (ok, radiosity is, but I don't know about the
photon mapping).

-- 
main(i){char*_="BdsyFBThhHFBThhHFRz]NFTITQF|DJIFHQhhF";while(i=
*_++)for(;i>1;printf("%s",i-70?i&1?"[]":" ":(i=0,"\n")),i/=2);} /*- Warp. -*/

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