2008

Radiosity is a technique to calculate indirect light. Specifically, radiosity

calculates the interreflections of diffuse light among all the surfaces in your

scene. To make this calculation, radiosity takes into account the lighting

you’ve set up, the materials you’ve applied, and environment settings you’ve

made.

The radiosity processing of a scene is distinct from the rendering process. You

can render without radiosity. However, to render with radiosity, you must

always calculate radiosity first.

Once a radiosity solution for a scene has been calculated, it can be used in

multiple renderings, including multiple frames of an animation. If there are

moving objects in the scene, radiosity might need to be recalculated; see

Animation with Radiosity on page 5994 .

For an overview of radiosity and how radiosity works in 3ds Max, see

Radiosity

Solution

on page 5976 .

For suggestions regarding workflow for using radiosity, see

Radiosity

Workflows

on page 5989 .

NOTE Radiosity is also known as global illumination .

IMPORTANT If the dimensions of your scene are not realistic, then radiosity will

not show realistic lighting, either.