Moonlight is a modeller including its own rendering engine, based on Mesa. This rendering engine (or renderer) is a raytracer with radiosity support (a rare feature),  but also Transparency (Transmission), Refraction (Transmission factor), mirror effects (Reflection), reflects (Specular), color (Diffuse and Emittance), mist effect (Fog), and hard or soft shadows support, with three kinds of lighting (direct or indirect), according to two classic color coding sets (RGB and HSV) and all of this with twelve different rendering algorithms. Oh yes, it's free also...

It is easy to understand, with all these different parameters and the lack of official documentation, that the software has very high capabilities sometimes difficult to set properly. Many attempts and a lot of time was needed in order to gather the information contained in this documentation. These are more a writing of my own experiences and guesses than a theorical explanation of raytracing concepts ; many questions stay without answers. But now, everyone can start to experiment and to share with everyone the results of its own experiences.

The linuxgraphic team has good hope about this.