Hello,
TL;DR: Should I use stationary lighting or dynamic lighting for an object (mesh and lights in a class) that may or may not exist in the level, determined at level load?
I’m building a level in which there are a few small buildings (each defined as a class with its own lighting components) that may or may not be inserted into the level at load time. For performance reasons, I would like to use stationary lighting (these buildings will not have to move once placed), but from what I understand they still use lightmass and need to be precompiled. Lightmass also produces indirect lighting that exists even when the light intensity is set to 0 (“off”).
So as I see it, I have 2 options:
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Use dynamic lighting only. Add objects dynamically at loadtime. They work just fine, but are very expensive.
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Use stationary lighting. Place these objects in the level to precompute lighting, and then at loadtime remove any objects I don’t want. Hope that indirect lighting doesn’t mess up the scene if the lights are not present.
Is it reasonable to use stationary lighting in this situation? Or do I have to bite the bullet and use fully dynamic lighting (likely reducing the number of lights I use)?
Advice is appreciated. Thank you!