Harold Chattaway wrote:
> 
> All:
> I am new to using POVRAY and have always been EXTREMELY interested in the
> special effects field. I was wondering, are the techniques that are used by
> POVRAY for rendering a scene basically the same as the software that is used
> in the special effects industry? I realize this is probably a broad
> question, theres a lot of proprietary stuff out there. But if anyone could
> at least touch upon this issue, I would be very interested in hearing it!
> 
> Thanks!
> Harold
> http://www.bugcentral.com  Web-Based Bug tracking Service.

There are a lot of simularities. The biggest difference
would be as you pointed out that many of the big boy
operations run their own software systems and will even
write new software as need to create the effects they are
lookng for. The movie Titanic is one such production
that a lot of software was developed for. This is not to
say that with a lot of hard work and imagination many of
the effects can't be reproduced or mimicked using PovRay.
To see the power of PovRay as used for animations check
out the i.r.t.c. animation competition on the Pov home
page. http://povray.org

One of the biggest differences you will probably find
between Povray and the software that the commercial
houses use is the type of rendering system used.
Pov uses raytracing to create 3d images. There are
other systems that use different methods to achieve
similar results but with faster render times. Scanline
rendering is a common commercial rendering method but
I've heard will not in the long run produce as photo
realistic an image as the raytracing method will. Now
i'll get flamed for saying that but it's what I've
heard.

-- 
 Ken Tyler

 tyl### [at] pacbellnet

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