To raytrace or not to raytrace ... it's a question of time

Raytracing experiments, and testing a new costume in action, and returning to a character who fascinated me and was left behind too fast -- all at the same time. Actually, it's "just" a grab-bag of renders done on the fly to test things out! These are the leather pants that are part of the Lockwood costume for M4. Yesterday you saw the shirt with one of the five great textures that are supplied along with it. To test drive the pants, I thought, why not go back to the Indian model? And while we're there, why not play a little bit more with raytracing. What's the difference between raytraced shadows and the deep shadow map? Well, first there's the visual difference...

All except this one, above, are raytraced. In the medium-tone areas of the shot (skintones) you can really see the difference in image integrity. Raytracing gives a much clearer image ... if you have the time! The second big difference is that it takes a looong time to get a raytraced render. Each of the raytraced images in this post took about ten minutes, whereas the deep shadow mapped render took about twenty seconds!

But if you do have the time, it's more than well worth the wait. These images are very basic: Michael 4 is wearing the Falcon skinmap and the Spartacos hair, and the Lockwood pants, and he's standing in a tiny part of the DM Instances set ... and I rigged one light. Just one. Then, to finish off the "shoot," I added the Lockwood shirt with the brightest and most exotic of the textures:

That's quite the fabric pattern ... and the integrity of the image is terrific. Gotta admit: I love this new videocard, and the extra couple of gigs of RAM make a world of difference!

Jade, 17 June

***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, too slow for this. Seriously, guys, I've got dialup speeds. How are you expected to do anything these days, at 1990 dialup speeds?!!!