If POV-ray wants users then it needs to attract those users. People can only be held responsible for what they understand. I think almost nobody, myself included, understands why they would want to stop working quickly and easily with Cycles (with rather good results), and take a detour to POV-ray land. What benefits are there?
It’s impossible to tell on the POV-ray site today. Even if the product is free, you still have to sell it.
I’m willing to believe it contains technologies that are useful and possibly even exciting. I’m not going to spend hours trying to figure out what they are and how to use them. Today there are many good options besides POV-ray. 15 or 20 years ago there were not.
First I tried POV was on my A2000, back in the late 80’s, and just thinking of it makes me feel old, but it rocked, although it was real slow, but everything was back then, but since We didn’t know better, We didn’t really care, We just gazed at the nice pictures!
The gallery is pretty good, but it’s nothing that Cycles can’t do and Cycles is probably easier to learn (more tutorial widely available that is) and is integrated with Blender. Saying that the pictures look nice despite their age is fine but there needs to be a bit more. I like supporting Mitsuba because I think it looks better than Cycles and is quite speedy. It just needs more UI and integration love.
POV on the other hand, I have no idea what kind of internal workings would want me to use it. Is it now faster? Are there plans to make it more user friendly as well? The website doesn’t give much information on why people should use it. I’m being critical because I care - I would like to see POV succeed. It would be a shame if it just dies off.
POV is the ultimate unbiased raytracer, not only that, but you can generate procedural textures and objects with it, it is the bomb, but it is also slower at rendering then my GF at making her mind in a shoe store!
- I would like to see POV succeed. It would be a shame if it just dies off.