"Why the hell did they take the trouble of making GI and HDRI then, (knowing that even with Brazil / Vray/ Final Render/ Maxwell), it takes hours and hours to get a good GI render?" Duh, uhm, hmmm... because real GI and HDRI simulate more physically accurate light bounce and greater tonal/dynamic range, which IBL/AO can not achieve? Do I get a cookie? ;-) "AO lets you simulate GI and HDRI to some extent, Lets just say AO is the Poor Man's GI /HDRI :)" I'd rather say IBL is the Poor Man's HDRI. AO is just a soft "shadow" trick. :-)

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.