I am glad we're in the mood for reiterating, I've wanted to pound some sense into a few of Poser's different lighting techniques for some time, and especially now that HDRI actually exists in Poser.  I never stray away from Infinite lights myself, but mainly because Spot lights are the only other set I understand, and I never feel like recreating Stage/Theater, so I never use them...

Needing a Sky Dome to(at least at this degree) create Vue/Bryce worthy raytraced reflection; in Poser, with this figure of mine, was an original theory of mine, but I did'nt create the Sky Dome.PZ3 this attached image was rendered from, nor do I pretend to understand how it's illumination works.  Bushi explained to me that a Skydome was just a plain sphere, with inverted normals.  I'd exhausted several avenues before he'd explained it to me, so it did'nt take much for me to ask him for a copy of the .pz3 he'd used to post a pick, in a Poser Sky Dome thread of mine.  Thankfully, he obliged. 

Bushi set the only light in the scene to be a Point Light at 0, 0, 0.  The weird part, I do'nt understand, is; why, when I put the camera behind my figure, he's illuminated just as well as from the front, from the rear(Without my having moved the light?)  I'm still using P6, so there's no HDRI.  IBL for that light is set off, and the Material Room setting for this light doesn't show anything special. 

When I switch IBL for that light back on, I think I'm getting a brighter render, and am looking forward to doing some test renders later tonight.  I think the, full, intensity of the light may be a small wash in the render, but I'm anxious to turn it down a little to see if I get better contrast.

I also tried to run the P6 IBL Wacro on the light, but it failed?

I've definitely got HDRI, IBL, and Light Gels mixed up:

O.K, so let's play Fact or Fiction.  With Poser 7's new HDRI technology I'll be able to light my scene with just a texture, and no actual (Infinite otherwise) lights?  HDRI will work by merging light from every possible direction toward the 0, 0, 0 coordinates of the scene, like a Sky Dome?  If so, then the converging illumination does spell Global Illumination, and, if I wanted a much smoother cleaner light, I could just use a %50 Grey or White texture to feed HDRI(No shadow.)

In the past; I've stuck my background picture into the diffuse color of a sole, Infinite, lights at 0, 0, 0, through image map nodes.  This did work as Gel, and added the shadows/noise I was expecting to find on my figure.  What would be the difference between that and what IBL would have done for that light?  Could IBL have illuminated from the rear, also, maybe?

:rolleyes: