this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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Also, baked lighting has another cost - nothing that is baked can be dynamic, and it has to be done during development, so it takes up dev resources.
Raytraced stuff happens immediately without tricks. All you need is the geometry and the materials to be accurate, and it should look right, no questions asked.
Once we get to a point where raytracing can be assumed even for low end systems, the problem where systems can't run certain games could become a thing of the past. I mean, if manufacturers weren't constantly bombarding us with planned & perceived obsolescence.
in the case where you have vehicles with explorable interiors (like the ships in Star Citizen), lighting has to be dynamic because lighting conditions change just as a result of flying around normally. The position of the sun in whichever of the two (current) star systems you're in relative to your ship, and the atmosphere which may or may not be present outside, the position of cargo and objects/materials that will be receiving light and causing it to diffuse onto surrounding surfaces in a cabin also requires at least some kind of reference or it just feels BAD.
But the recent citizencon engine presentation showed some AMAZING new short cuts that give just enough visual fidelity without tanking the framerate that it scratches some kind of itch DEEP within the predictive modeling of the human mind... when light acts more like it's supposed to, it's fucking magical.