Difference Between Static and Dynamic Lighting, Why Bake Lighting

Lighting all objects dynamically and drawing shadows from all sources dynamically creates a life-like and beautiful image in an offline renderer, but in real time it is impractical. Moreover, it is not always necessary. For example, there are scenes where light sources do not move or turn off at all, and objects in them are static — why draw lighting for them every frame? You can and should save on everything that does not change. For this purpose UNIGINE has the following modes for light sources:

• Dynamic Lighting is a customizable solution that provides real-time lighting calculation. This advanced method provides very realistic lighting as it allows dynamic objects to be illuminated. The light sources themselves can be moved or changed in real time (e.g. turned on and off).
• Static (pre-calculated) lighting is an effective and useful solution for lighting relatively static scenes. It is also called baked lighting. It allows you to discard the most of lighting calculations, performing only simple texture checks during rendering. However, this method provides just a rough simulation of lighting for moving objects entering the scene, and sometimes lacks physical fidelity, which can be noticeable to the eye.

The good news is that these two modes can be combined. By using static lighting, you can achieve higher quality without sacrificing performance.