A system and method are directed to determining light illumination in a graphical environment. One or more light sources are illuminating a surface. The surface is divided into one or more cells. The orientation of each cell is determined and saved in an orientation field. A multidimensional light map value is derived and associated with the surface. The multidimensional light map value defines the combined illumination of the one or more light sources on the surface, and may optionally be a vector. At least one cell to be drawn is determined. For each cell to be drawn, an illumination value associated with that cell to be drawn is determined. The illumination value is based on the orientation field and the multidimensional light map value. The illumination value may be the dot product of the orientation field and the multidimensional light map value.