The answer seems to vary from person to person. But the most important and correct answer is the obvious one. Which is, you need to understand how light interacts with our surroundings, material, and textures. What color it gives, takes with it, reflects and how far it goes depending on the light type. So, in general, photography will help teach a lot of this. And it will help teach the artistic eye to see and spot the unique details of light, contrast, shadow and such. It is also important to know composition, textures, materials, PBR and so on.