GI Lighting - when to use what?

[jujubee]

There's so many different parameters - I'm wondering how some of you determine which GI you choose to use. Where's the balance between simplicity and results. What is the magic bullet for some of you more experienced individuals. I've heard from some of you that it 'depends.' Too me, that's an ambiguous answer.

1) In general Direct computation takes a long time. But I gather this gives you the most realistic results. Good for outdoors scenes? Why would I want to use this?

2) IR with secondary IR has been my standard. Good looking results at so-so speeds.0

3) IR with secondary Photon Maps. Good because you can calculate photon distance without insane render times. Also good if you reuse the vrmaps for different angles. But dark corners can be a result.

What would be your best time saving tips???

[timmatron]

Its all about the lightmap! I have been using that for interiors lately and its awesome.

Usually I just use it for second bounce and keep primary as IRmap. Sometimes though when I'm in a big hurry I use lightmap for 1st & 2nd bounce. You lose a lot of detail in shadow, but you do get very smooth & clean results if you use the right filtering settings.

I never did experiment too much with photons, so I usually stay away from those.

[RErender]

I pretty much use IR with lightmaps for everything, nowadays. Direct is for playing around as far as I am concerned.

[Trapezium]

I've always read that Lightmaps were great for interiors but what about exteriors and characters etc.
--Jon

[tammo]

i have tried lightmaps as secondary engine for an interior camera animation.
it worked but the results where bad even after a lot of tweaking with world scale settings, filters.

a good combination for fly through animation is IRmap and direct comp.

i dont use lightmap anymore for stills because the calculation cannot be distributed like the IRmap.

[jujubee]

Thanks for the input. I guess #4 on the list would be lightmaps exept not everyone is running 1.46.

i dont use lightmap anymore for stills because the calculation cannot be distributed like the IRmap.

Huh? No comprendo.