Game engines like Unreal are incredible, but Blender still has capabilities they lack: unbiased rendering. Real-time engines work via a series of clever tricks

Game engines like Unreal are incredible, but Blender still has capabilities they lack: unbiased rendering. Real-time engines work via a series of clever tricks and hacks. We've spent decades of effort on hiding the seams, but they are there if you know where to look. As an example, take refraction. I can look up Newton's telescope dimensions, model the lenses in Blender, slap a glass material on there, and look down it to see an accurate view. (Minus diffraction and dispersion, and dispersion can be added manually.) Real-time raytracing is an answer to this, but it's not quite there in it's current state. It still takes an order of magnitude or two longer to raytrace a frame than to rasterize it, so it's currently only used sparingly to touch up details. Personally this is one of the areas I'd love to see Blender continue to develop. A spectral rendering option in Cycles would be invaluable when you want to render the Dark Side of the Moon logo.