Contributed by Hideki Saito.
Radiosity is the technique of producing realistic 3D images. It is based on radiative heat transfer. In real world, colors of objects are not only affected by direct lighting, but it is also affected by lights bounced off from other objects.
For example, if you place white chair in totally blue room, you'll find that white chair appears more blue than white.
Radiosity is a method to simulate this effects, thus producing realistic outputs.
To learn how to use radiosity in Blender, please search for "_how to use radiosity_".
Contributed by Hideki Saito.
After you make model, you can simply select models (generally you need to select more than one objects when using radiosity; I will explain later about it), then press the tool button that resembles "radiation" symbol.
Before going into radiosity mode, make sure you have at least one object that emits light (you can do so by going into material datablock), otherwise, you will get rather uninteresting result, everything will be dark. This light emitting object is like a light, and can be in any shape. (This is why you want more than one objects; light emitting object, and some object) After you've done all this, press radiosity button, then press collect meshs. After you've done this, you will see shaded object. At this time, you can modify parameters to get different kind of result.
After that, you can press "Go" button to start calculation of the radiosity. This takes some time; depending on the complexy of the scene, it may take very long. You can terminate calculation anytime by pressing ESC.
If you like the result shown on the 3D view, you can press "Replace mesh" or "Add new mesh." Those newly created mesh will have appropriate color vertex.
Make sure you free the radiosity data after you are done, or you will not be able to get into other edit modes.
Contributed by B@rt.
To render a still image, either press F12 or go to the Display Buttons Window (F10) and select 'Render'.
To render animations select the button labeled 'Animation'. The images will be stored in the 'Pics' directory that is indicated on the top left of the Display Buttons Window, in the file format that is selected under the Size buttons.
Hint: make sure you have at least one lamp in your scene or it will turn out black.