Vantage, raytracing and path tracing

[chroma]

Hi. I am eager to learn more about how Vantage works in the terms of path tracing, which I understand gives a more wholesome realism than the method used by vray gpu. Is Vantage cheating with the rendering, and how? I read an article written by some dudes at Disney, where they say that their current render uses path tracing for both simplicity and for max reality. I understand that Vantage doesn't use it. What are your thoughts about path tracing?

[vladimir.nedev]

Both V-Ray GPU and Vantage use path tracing, not sure where you got the idea that they don't.

Is Vantage cheating with the rendering, and how?

You can see all the cheating in the render options:
- the max GI/reflection depth
- the disabled (by default) shading graphs for secondary (i.e. GI/glossy reflection) rays
- the clamping of the max ray intensity

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[chroma]

Thanks for clarifying. Much appreciated. I am sure that I read it somewhere, but that said, I do have the impression that these terms are too often being misinterpreted all places around the web. For myself, I am not too well aware of the in depth technical differences here at this point, but knowing that Vantage actually is a path tracer makes it easier to read up on and understand the tool I'm using.