Color bleed, as discussed in the context of architectural visualization renders, is not the product of colored lights in a scene as per our previous exercise. Rather, it is a phenomenon caused by the interaction of physically accurate lights, V-Ray's Global Illumination systems, and also physically accurate materials in the scene.

In the real world, color bleed (also known as indirect diffuse illumination) is an effect that occurs as light is bounced from one surface to another. As the light leaves one surface, it takes a little bit of the object's diffuse coloration along with it. This is then mixed with or added to the color of the next surface the light interacts with, and it goes on with the travelling light essentially creating a color reflection or bounce effect.