I tried out that global illumination thing, and it seems pretty cool(and useful). I downloaded some of the probe images from the link that AgentSmith provided, and processed them with the program they link to at the site. unfortunatly, I think I am missing something here, because my .bmp images look like the probe images: like the outside of a sphere with the image projected on it. I attached my rendered image, illustrating what I've done. you will notice the black, distorted areas on the metaballs: I believe that is due to the image I used. I'm not sure how to get the image to be rectangular, like the one AgentS provided.