"I think years ago Staale tried some strange aproach using a double skin arrangement on the figure (a hack on the specular?) but I would like to use conventional maps and DAZ figures... would a compositing of two different lighting set ups of some sort work?" Hmmm. That 'double skin' approach sounds interesting, momodot. As far as compositing two different lighting setups... that sounds plausible in theory, but I suppose it would depend heavily on the postwork/compositing skill of the user. I think it certainly could be a solution in the most narrow circumstance, but the setup you'd likely be required to arrange with the lighting and rendering of both scenes would probably be more work than just doing it in the material room with nodes. You'd also have to take into account that SSS needs to be represented in a particular way on the skin, or you'll just end up with strange skin coloration that could subtract from the realism even more. It would be a tough job, but anything is possible. ;-)

---

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

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