POV-Ray photon mapping - quick

povray_kotlinscript_sphere_shell006 1

It turns out you can drastically increase the speed of a photon mapping render by turning object reflections off:

sphere {
  <-3.3828278, 1.3612305, 6.065379>, 0.6
  texture{
    pigment {color rgb <1.0, 1.0, 1.0>}
    finish {
      ambient 0.075
      diffuse 0.9
      reflection 0.9
    }
  }
  photons { target reflection off }
}

The square artefact in the scattered media in image above shows the downside of using a box for a media container, I’ll use a sphere in future scenes:

povray_kotlinscript_sphere_shell006 2