Standard Omni vs. Photometric (which is better)

[ITryMyBest]

I was just wondering and wanted to know different viewpoints and perspectives on this topic: Standard lights vs. photometric.

 

in this new age of finalRender, brazil, vray, and all these different renderers, i was wondering, for interior scenes, do you use standard max lights or do you use photometric lights for your interior renders. i don't know if i am actually asking this right.

 

basically, i see many interior scenes that have wonderful lighting - GI, SSS, everything. do you use standard max omni lights or photometric lights for illumination and why?

[rivoli]

a couple of reasons to use photometric lights instead of standard light may be: with photometric you can use actual light distribution models, that is IES data, and if you want to use radiosity you have to put photometric lights in your scene, that is radiosity won't work with standard light.

anyway, max built in renderer can't actually calculate GI (nor sub surface scattering), if the images you're referring to are made with a third party renderer (as you said, brazil, vray, fr, mr and so on) then brazil, vray or mr lights are also used.

[abicalho]

max built in renderer can't actually calculate GI

 

Yes it can, with either Radiosity or Light Tracer. It can't compute Caustics or SSS, but it computes indirect lighting in both processes.

[rivoli]

true, my bad.