why is everyone so hot about gi all of a sudden? its not like you will be rendering anything other than a still in it. it's no big deal really, you can always do gi in lightscape... it can create a global illumination map in the first frame and for the rest of the animation it renders as normal (i understand this only works if no props move in the scene?)
you can alway fake radiosity on a character and comp it into a radiosity scene done with that...as someone said...you can do this now in maya with those area lights (altho its still slow as smurf, might as well do some funky lighting in rman if you have the chance)