Baked Lighting vs Ray Tracing
Developers should use baked lighting when creating scenes with static geometry and lighting, such as indoor environments, pre-rendered backgrounds, or games where performance is critical and real-time lighting calculations are too expensive meets developers should learn ray tracing for applications requiring high-fidelity graphics, such as video games, visual effects in films, architectural visualization, and scientific simulations. Here's our take.
Baked Lighting
Developers should use baked lighting when creating scenes with static geometry and lighting, such as indoor environments, pre-rendered backgrounds, or games where performance is critical and real-time lighting calculations are too expensive
Baked Lighting
Nice PickDevelopers should use baked lighting when creating scenes with static geometry and lighting, such as indoor environments, pre-rendered backgrounds, or games where performance is critical and real-time lighting calculations are too expensive
Pros
- +It is ideal for achieving realistic global illumination, soft shadows, and ambient occlusion without the computational overhead of dynamic lighting, making it suitable for mobile games, VR applications, or projects targeting lower-end hardware
- +Related to: global-illumination, lightmaps
Cons
- -Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case
Ray Tracing
Developers should learn ray tracing for applications requiring high-fidelity graphics, such as video games, visual effects in films, architectural visualization, and scientific simulations
Pros
- +It is essential when aiming for realistic lighting, shadows, and material interactions, especially with the advent of real-time ray tracing in modern GPUs
- +Related to: computer-graphics, shader-programming
Cons
- -Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case
The Verdict
Use Baked Lighting if: You want it is ideal for achieving realistic global illumination, soft shadows, and ambient occlusion without the computational overhead of dynamic lighting, making it suitable for mobile games, vr applications, or projects targeting lower-end hardware and can live with specific tradeoffs depend on your use case.
Use Ray Tracing if: You prioritize it is essential when aiming for realistic lighting, shadows, and material interactions, especially with the advent of real-time ray tracing in modern gpus over what Baked Lighting offers.
Developers should use baked lighting when creating scenes with static geometry and lighting, such as indoor environments, pre-rendered backgrounds, or games where performance is critical and real-time lighting calculations are too expensive
Disagree with our pick? nice@nicepick.dev