I've been wondering; can't really experiment yet, but do normal maps, bump maps, parallax maps, or any sort of map that fakes depth affect how radiosity is rendered?

Yes. Normal, bump and displacement maps do their job in a radiosity scene just like they do in a raytraced scene.

Glad to hear that. It's way faster to create a height map, convert it into a normal map, and use that texture for a wall than actually taking the time to make it. Though sometimes, it's kind of nessissary.

There was one thing also that I wondered. There are some physical properties of some forms of matter that actually suck light from objects. Something like a reverse light. The only good example I can think of at the moment is a black hole. But say you wanted a wall light up, and you wanted it not to allow as much bounce as the other surfaces in a scene. Is there a property that will alow this to happen?

-------------\-------/--
--------------\-----/---
---------------\---/-----
Surface>------\/------ Reflective Bounce

-------------\----------
--------------\---------
---------------\--------
Surface>------\____ Incident (Tangental) Bounce

-------------\----------
--------------\--------
---------------\-------
Surface>------\----- No Bounce

Sorry for the ASCII art. I don't know how to upload pictures. But this shows kind of what I'm asking.

I belive you would just lower the radiance level to 0

Yeah... Black holes... Well, you like to ask a lot of rhetorical questions. I see this forum as a place to help A:M users with their practical lighting problems. If you actually have an application with an actual scene and an actual issue with some actual rendering then I will gladly answer.

Not so much rehtorical as hypothetical. I've been trying to find a way to get the atmosphere of a planet from orbital viewpoints to show somewhat of a volume with radiosity, but it never works correctly. Ambience on the atmosphere gives too much light.

Also, I've been trying to make some photos look like actual photos by putting a patch infront of the camera so that when light is reflected onto that surface, it creates kind of a lens flare affect, and you wouldn't want objects like black holes reflecting any light back to the camera patch.

I'm going to have to look at the source. Does anyone know how I can create my own plug-in?