[rowe]

I'm no longer animating for FIRST (they don't let college kids compete) but I've found that using advanced lighting can make rendering the animation take way too long. In the past, I've resorted to placing several omni lights with very low intensity values and shadows off. That seemed like a pretty good alternative to advanced lighting. Good luck on using radiosity. I'll agree that advanced lighting makes the render look that much more photorealistic. I hope it works out for you.