Abstract: A system and method of determining, and subsequently using in a rendering engine, an illumination map. The illumination map is employed by the rendering engine to avoid having to calculate the contributions of lights in the scene during rendering, thus reducing the rendering time. In one embodiment, the system and method is used to determine the illumination values from the contribution of one or more lights to one or more texture mapped objects. This illumination map can either be stored independently of the texture picture to be mapped or can be combined with the texture picture to obtain an illuminated texture picture for subsequent rendering independent of the light sources. In another embodiment, the present invention is used to determine the illumination values for one or more objects represented by a polygon mesh. This illumination map can be stored independent of the material and color of the object or can be combined with the color and material information and stored in the object definition.