I was thinking about ways to implement a lightweight but realistic lighting engine and what I got was a very cheap idea. But I think it'd be pretty good. So I need your opinion: do you think it'd be a good idea? See how it would work below:

1. Because it would be very hard to make a good radiosity like lighting engine from scrap, I decided to use one that is free and can actually be accessed programmatically (I like this word) via Python: Blender Cycles. There is a feature named "bake to texture" which is pretty useful. So the result would be like this for a Cornell Box:
   [attachment=28201:BAKE.png]
   
2. That is great, but only works for static objects. So I thought: why not use lights for dynamic objects? So I made a Python script that puts lights through the bright spots of a scene (considering the surface's color, but at the moment it puts lights everywhere, not only on bright spots: I'm going to implement that later). Only some few would cast shadows, of course
   
3. Then the game uses the light map baked in Cycles for static objects, the most appropriate lights (when you're in a closed room, that'd mean only the lights in that room) for shading dynamic objects and Ambient occlusion would finish the equation.

I don't have results yet, but I'm pretty sure it'd work fine. What is your opinion about this? Is it good? Is it stupid? Am I stupid? Feel free to comment.

You haven't described anything new but if you came up with that on your own, great!

Many engines and games use lightmaps, just google a bit.

You also, basically, described reflective shadow maps (also here).

So yes, it will work but you will have to deal with the limitations. Eg: How will you handle reflections?

You haven't described anything new but if you came up with that on your own, great!

Many engines and games use lightmaps, just google a bit.

You also, basically, described reflective shadow maps (also here).

So yes, it will work but you will have to deal with the limitations. Eg: How will you handle reflections?

Thanks for your answer. Yes, I knew it is nothing new, and many engines do something like that, but I never knew how exactly they done that. I guess now I know. Thanks for that article.

PS: Also, I may combine what I was doing with reflective shadow maps.