I can give you a bit more general background. Vector graphics are in some ways better than bitmaps, just as bitmaps are in some ways better than vectors. Instead of storing an image as a blob of various colours, it is made up of a collection of mathematical points, lines, and curves. A bitmap can be displayed immediately (just copy over the blob into the display memory), while a vector image must be rendered on-the-fly into something the display hardware understands---or, in other words, a bitmap. (Confused already?
)
The on-the-fly rendering takes a toll in terms of CPU processing power: vector graphics are not for slow computers. However, this is offset by one huge advantage: no loss of resolution upon magnification to whatever scale. You have probably noticed that if you blow up a bitmap to 4 or 5 times its original size, the grainyness becomes apparent; this is not the case with vector graphics.
Another disadvantage of vector graphics is that they don't mix with complex textures very well. Textures are usually bitmaps, and bitmaps, as indicated, don't scale very well. There is ways around it: you can either take a huge texture and scale it
down whenever required, or you can try and think up a mathematical formula akin to a fractal to describe it instead.
Vector graphics can be animated: Flash is the most important example of this. What you're seeing is a highly optimised vector graphics rendering engine at work. You can also immediately tell it is a vector graphic image because the display is quite cartoonish. However, with time and patience you can create quite stunning displays just using formulas: take a look
here for example. Now those are ray-traced, so not 'genuine' vectors, but the concept (mathematical formulas) is the same. It wouldn't be at all hard to combine the two.
