Pov-Ray horribly outdated? PSHAW! If it were 'horribly outdated' then there wouldn't be more then a quarter-million users would there? And yet, there is... Hmm... In fact, I have heard estimates that run MUCH higher. A quarter-million only covers those that have requested notification of custom updates (usually advanced users).
Your list covers the commercial market well. Too bad most of the programs you mentioned are FAR beyond the means of your average hobbyist.
Pointing out my spheres image as old-hat, for instance, is redundant. Ray tracers all use checker board and spheres as the 'standard' test model. The image I posted also portrays caustic effect, photon dispersion (the 'bouncing light') and radiosity. In fact, there are a lot of people that think Pov's radiosity is much more accurate than Arnold's. It just so happened that I was testing several new functions of Pov when the 'tard' reared his ugly head, so I posted something I had been testing. Something you turned a blind eye to, and that evidently escaped you, is the fact that the surface normals in that very scene interact with the light source. That doesn't happen in ANY of the packages you named, nor will it in any package that uses bitmaps for surface textures.
I am aware of all of the modelers you named (own most of them save Maya), yet I don't recommend any of them. They are all excellent, but they are not for the uninitiated; and they are expensive. In any hobby I have ever been in, it is better to get any interested parties in without incurring huge costs. After they have the bug they can decide what suits their fancy.
Those other packages will only make you feel lost (if you are a beginner) without taking a class in their operation. TrueSpace does it all just as well (in fact better in a lot of cases) then any of them and it is more intuitive to operate.
I used Rhino. I still test it everytime they come out with a new version. Yet, I use TrueSpace. I have 3D Studio, and Ligtwave, as well as a few other modellers. I use TrueSpace. I can make an aircraft in minutes with TrueSpace. I have sat down with absolute beginners and shown them just a few simple steps. BOOM, they're modeling just like that! You can't do that with any other modeler.
You can, alternatively, try a program called Moray. Moray interfaces directly into Pov-Ray. Not only that, the news server for Pov-Ray includes a forum for Moray. It has a time based trial period in which you can use it for free, but it does have a registration fee (modest). I don't use it, as I can usually manipulate Pov-Ray primitives 'by hand' and it doesn't support mesh data (triangles/polygons). However, there are a lot of uses for Moray just the same. The developer of Moray is moving in the nurbs direction right now (I haven't checked, so they may already be utilized).
The latest version of Pov-Ray supports 'sphere sweeps,' which allows you to take a predefined sphere (scaled if need be) and sweep it along a curve in order to create complex shapes. I have used this technique to makes wings and fuselage cross-sections. Spheres (in Pov-Ray) render much fast than mathmatical constructs, and appear MUCH smoother than triangle, or polygon data. This is just one example of more then a million techniques you can get out of Pov-Ray, that are not available in any commercial package. Pov-Ray is limited ONLY by the mind of the person using it. If you are creative, there is no limit to what you can accomplish.
Slow? I have scenes that take days to render, that is true. However, I almost never render diamonds with all of their requisite caustic effects. NONE of the commercial products you named offer this ability. You can ONLY fake them. Pov-Ray calculates the true physical properties of all underlying variables in order to calculate the effects of lights' interaction with such objects (given that you have defined them properly). I would expect that to bring any system to its knees. That is precisely why Pov-Ray is used to test new computer designs. It is, in fact, an excellent program to benchmark a systems' ability to crunch numbers.
PLUS! Nearly every object out there is avalible for use in Pov-Ray! Visit the IRTC (Internet Ray Tracing Competition) site sometime! Every entrant submits their rendering with the source! You can use the source data in order to learn their technique. However, most users of Pov-Ray are more then happy to allow anyone the use of their objects with only the stipulation that you cite their efforts! In other words, there are thousands of sites out there with Pov-Ray object code available for download. Too, the Pov-Ray news server has two forums for source data. This is where it gets interesting.
Most of the better objects out there do not include triangle data at all. For instance, the models for the U.S.S. Enterprise (A-D) are all avaliable. none of them include one line of triangle/mesh/polygon data. Instead, these models are defined mathematically. Not only do they render much more smoothly then any triangle model ever designed, but they don't require a huge amount of disk space. This makes them unavailable to any other rendering system out there.
Still, you don't have to understand in depth mathematics in order to use Pov-Ray. I know people all over the world that have never learned anything more then basic algebra use Pov. I use trigonometry everytime, myself, but they make calculators that will do that (and fee ones for download too). I also reduce most of my triangle models to mathematical data when they are complete (a subject I could write a book on). You don't need to go to this length, though.
Anyway, check out all of your options before giving up on any of them. Just because I found some modellers clumsy and complicated doesn't mean you will. Still, I take exception to anyone pointing at Pov-Ray and calling it outdated. This software will still be around when all the others are long forgotten.
