On Jul 31, 2011, at 1:33 AM, Jasper van de Gronde wrote:
Neither :) Both have their strengths and weaknesses. In general diffusion curves as currently defined have more of a tendency "to do the right thing" and are WAY easier to handle. On the other hand, mesh gradients (especially tensor product patches) give more control. Now, there are some ideas floating around to enhance diffusion curves to the point where there might be little benefit to using meshes, but even so, given practical considerations and the wide spread use of meshes it will no doubt be useful to support meshes as well.
Also, keep in mind that diffusion curves are relatively new and there are still some issues in rendering them (it should be possible, but so far no renderer has been made, that I'm aware of, that is both fast and accurate). Also, while they often "do the right thing" there are some definite issues with non-color boundaries (the current solution is definitely not optimal) and they can have the tendency to over-smooth certain images.
Also keep in mind visual issues.
In all the examples I have seen, diffusion curves have had a distinct, if sometimes subtle, unique look to them. Something akin to looking at a watercolor and being able to say "the artists used watercolors to do this painting".
I've not seen the same for general gradient meshes.