Maxwell Render | Official public forum

So, in the past I've always been told that it's much more efficient and less noise prone to render SSS using HDR images, but I ran across this post from Mihai the other day:

"... SSS is not very efficient when using HDR environment lighting, it will be much faster with a regular emitter..."

Is this something new in V3 or has this always been the case? Just want to clarify because, like I mentioned, everything I was ever told on this forum was saying HDR was the way to go for SSS. Thanks!

everything I was ever told on this forum was saying HDR was the way to go for SSS

I don't recall at least me personally saying that. HDR can be more efficient for general lighting, yes, but for SSS this is true when the lighting in the HDR is more even and it doesn't just contain a small, very strong light source, while the rest is black for example. In this case using it for SSS will not be so efficient.

Thanks for clarifying Mihai. I don't know if it was you specifically had that...it was quite a while ago in the 2.X days, before the SSS system was revamped. Not a big deal either way, I just wanted to make sure I'm using the best method!