Alexandru Voica has an article up on Gamasutra today on blending ray tracing techniques with conventional geometry/shading systems.

The first half is aimed at debunking beliefs that full-on ray tracing is required to enhance model lighting, or that even partial day tracing is too expensive.

The second half gets into how the conventional raster-based shading can be combined with ray tracing where appropriate to get the benefits of both, particularly accurate reflections.

It did occur to me that some form of this could improve the looks of ships and stations in LT. Enough to make this worthwhile? No idea.

I have always hated the argument that people say that ray tracing is too expensive.

I think we can solve that if we just look at it from a different angle, especially when I see thing like this.

I think anyone who claims that it is too difficult or too hard is not going about it the right way.

We need someone like Josh who can spend the time on this much the same way Romero and Carmack did for 3D and FPS originally. Once we have someone like that, we'll see ray-tracing.

I would be extremely pleased if Graphics Josh were released from his den once Limit Theory v1.0 goes live and told, "go nuts on building a powerful and highly efficient graphics library."

Just imagine what game developers might create with such a tool....