Soft shadows, true ambience (which I assume is radiosity) blurs etc are all in the new render engine, but yes, they are equivalent to Volumetrics in render time! - having said that, with the Mac platform, specifically OSX on g4, render times should be greatly improved over the competition. Now that I have seen the 'other' features mentioned above, there is no question, its definately worth it! - and net rendering guys!! - gotta be useful!

Adam Benton | www.kromekat.com