I think it is more likely that photon mapping will tend towards using millions of photons per scene to maximize accuracy than to rely on inherently noisy solutions like MCRT. We''ll probably also start seeing programmable B*DF support in third or fourth generation raytracing hardware. Personally, I think the prospect of programmable B*DFs and perhaps even wavelength-based rendering (instead of RGB channelling) will take rendering to some very, very exciting places. As uutee mentioned, competition will really drive this forward.
Also, for one more mention:
quote:Original post by ApochPiQ
The trick is, as I alluded to earlier, that RT hardware will be feasible over the PCI bus - which means the RT system won''t need inherent rasterizer compatibility. Anyone with a spare PCI port can play with it. Granted, this will be a tiny bit slower than raytracing straight to video memory, but the point is that compatibility exists, and this will help people adopt the product in the short term, because they don''t have to lose their brand new GeForce card to play with raytracing.
The idea of developing a dedicated video card with raytracing support just isn''t feasible right now. RTRT will come on a separate card at first, and perhaps later come on a dual rasterizer/raytracer video card; but while rasterizers still control so much of the graphics world, RT hardware simply won''t fill our AGP slots.
ArtVPS has been around for quite a while, but as has been said, they aren''t geared for realtime solutions. IMHO anyone who takes the trouble to focus on the games industry will hold a major trump card in terms of marketability; generalized solutions like ArtVPS and OpenRT have potential, but in the long run, raytracing will make its money in games - so a proper focus on gaming and good support for developers (free SDK anyone?) will be a major selling point.