At a practical level, when do you choose one over the other? How static is static? For example, if I have a moving sun and day/night cycle, does that preclude static lighting? I’m guessing it would. What about flickering lights? Can they be static, with a particle effect or post-process of some kind used to produce the flickering at render time?
If the light is moving or needs to cast dynamic shadows then you need to use a dynamic light, if the light is stationary and needs to illuminate dynamic objects or have the color/intensity animated then you use stationary lights
If the lights don’t need to have anything animated and there are no animated meshes, then use static.
Static lights are great for walkthroughs where you want high quality, but they wouldn’t be good at all for a dynamic day/night cycle
Thanks a lot, darthviper, that is exactly what I needed to know. :thumbsup
There’s also stationary lights, which are basically static lights with specular reflections.