2008

The stages of a radiosity solution are Initial Quality, Refine, and then Regathering.
1 Initial Quality
In the Initial Quality stage, the distribution of diffuse lighting in the
scene is calculated by essentially mimicking the behavior of real photons.
Rather than tracing the path of an essentially infinite number of photons,
statistical methods are used to choose a much smaller set of “photon
rays” whose distribution in space is representative of the actual
distribution. As with any statistical sampling process, the greater the
number of rays used in the approximation, the greater the accuracy of
the solution. During the initial quality stage, the overall appearance of
the lighting level of the scene is established. The results can be
interactively displayed in shaded viewports.
5988 | Chapter 18 Rendering