I am playing with the GIDome lights by GKDantas to see how they work.  I am having a weird problem.  Following the tutorial, I enter the backdrop color, then put one of the presets into the background.  It renders, but the eyes are black (see top picture).  Then I use a spot light for some specular light, at 35%, and get the second image.  By the time I get the eyes to look ok I have the spot at 85%, and the skin is overdriven.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

The problçem is the intensity of the HDRI... with some of my presets you need to use more then 200% to get a good result in the eyes, or try a more light preset. Other idea is to rotate the HDRI in the Background option (Flip option).

Thanks, Marcelo, I'll play around with it some more.  I like the effect so far.

Klebnor

Just a note to remember to turn down the ambient light in the scene. It washes out subtle shadows.

Yes, good point Sueposer... I always use 5%, but if you dont use the Ambient Occlusion you can turn it to zero.
Ambient light is good only to fake radiosity, you let it about 10% and the shadows will be more light, but you really dont need it.

Ambient is 3% in the above examples.  I turned it way down assuming it would defeat the purpose of IBL.  If it were left at 20% the first image could not be so dark.  I actually worried that turning it way down might have been the problem with the eyes, but it has minor effect.  An indirect or spotlight catches the eyes much more strongly.

Klebnor

HDRI is a good way to light a scene but it will not generate good projected shadows...so in many scenes you will end up with a spot or other light.

even if C6pro has a variable like "occlusion radius'" or "occlusion distance", that wouldn't  ameliorate the shadow problem above IMVHO.

The eye texture from poser models is often a problem in Carrara ( i.e. too dark). If you add a small amount of glow to the eye texture it usually help a lot. Another thing to remember when playing with global illumination is to check the "light trough transparency" (for eyelash) for both the raytracing pass and global illumination pass.