Whew. Like I said I don't have time to answer in detail. You threw in a ton more things, responding to things I never said.

You mentioned my (our) not understanding what radiosity is. That would be my point to you. You have repeatedly now talked about radiosity in a way that demonstrates you have confused its meaning with the term Global Illumination, or GI. Radiosity is a specific algorithm that attempts to solve the GI problem. There are dozens of others. No state of the art rendering engine uses radiosity, but all of them have a solution to the need for GI, some have many.

Start with that premise and rework your presentation. Or don't, but then we can't talk. I can't have a conversation with somebody who makes up or changes the meanings of words. Since much of your posts seem to be attempting to define these words for people, perhaps you should start with just linking to the definitions that already exist.

Like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosity_(3D_computer_graphics)

And I would enhance that by quoting this excerpt:

Quote - Confusion about terminologyRadiosity was perhaps the first rendering algorithm in widespread use which accounted for diffuse indirect lighting. Earlier rendering algorithms, such as Whitted-style ray tracing were capable of computing effects such as reflections, refractions, and shadows, but despite being highly global phenomena, these effects were not commonly referred to as "global illumination." As a consequence, the term "global illumination" became confused with "diffuse interreflection," and "Radiosity" became confused with "global illumination" in popular parlance. However, the three are distinct concepts.

The radiosity method in the current computer graphics context derives from (and is fundamentally the same as) the radiosity method in heat transfer. In this context radiosity is the total radiative flux (both reflected and re-radiated) leaving a surface, also sometimes known as radiant exitance. Calculation of Radiosity rather than surface temperatures is a key aspect of the radiosity method that permits linear matrix methods to be applied to the problem.

I underlined and bolded the key point I was making - radiosity was the first widely known GI algorithm. It is not the way things are done today. When I said it was discredited, I did not say that GI was discredited, which is the point you seemed to be responding to. If I meant to say that GI was discredited, I would have said so. I meant that radiosity (the algorithm) is not the best way to get realism today.

I'm hesitant to talk about those other techniques because they're not relevant to Poser. But Google the phrase "unbiased renderer".

---

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)