mickmca wrote: "Regarding how "off base" Ornlu's comment about simulating global illumination, this irony: An article in a holiday special from Computer Arts describes how to make light domes in Lightwave as a way to "simulate global illumination." Sounds pretty simulated to me...." I am not at all surprised that "Computer Arts" makes the same error as Ornlu and the RendoRag. The magazine is a lightweight from a populist stable. Many of the people who write for Future Publications rotate through the titles. Cars one month, gardening the next. I'm aware that I lack enough credibility with some here to permit them to take my word for it, so here's a page on global illumination by someone who isn't lacking: http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/images/global.html As you'll see, it has nothing to do with the illumination that might be provided by a globe, and everything to do with what I said it did. Global illumination cannot even be approximated by use of a dome light (area light or array of pinpoints) let alone simulated. Global illumination is any combination of raytrace and radiosity render processes that together must account for all light interaction that would occur in a real scene. Any simulation of it must also simulate all those interactions. This cannot be done with just a light dome. You might as well say that a standard Bryce render with just the sun and normal ambient materials is a simulation of global illumination.