Firefly has the same core engine as Pixels 3D, Dale_B. Stewer pointed me towards some of the more interesting features of it and then I sorta dug from there. Firefly is pretty surprising, overall. The catch is tha tyou have to learn to use the material room to pull out al those fancy tricks, lol. And, as Some of us are learning at RDNA, you can dedicate some pretty endless threads to that single purpose all by itself, lol. As for exposing more of the renderer -- that's a certainty, long term. It was actually pretty smart to release only a couple of the functions, and to make folks work for them at first -- it will mean that by the time they are released, folks will have a good strong familiarity with the material room settings. Of course, now we're talking changing them, lol As for MS & Longhorn, well, delayed again isn't bad news anywhere except in boardrooms. The one after that, with it's proposed 3D worldspace, though? Can you say eeek? I dun wanna learn to use my computer again....

thou and I, my friend, can, in the most flunkey world, make, each of us, one non-flunkey, one hero, if we like: that will be two heroes to begin with. (Carlyle)