In rela life, light comes from many sources, mostly scattered or bounced, not just a simple spot light etc

Normal pictures cannto cpature brightness, only colour, HDR captures true image brightness, so, say the SUn, it will show exaclty HOW bright the sun is.

So, you use that as a spherical image to project light otno the scene, ti also gives rflections :)
me perosnally I don't liek it os much, but I go for stylized renders, not realism.

In this pic:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1211952
I show the sneaky trick I invented: "self HDR" ;)
basically Vue can export an HDR of any scene or sky..
so I made an HDR of the normal Sky, turned atmosphere model to use Environment mapping, loaded the HDR...bingo! ;)

"I'd rather be a Fool who believes in Dragons, Than a King who believes in Nothing!" www.silverblades-suitcase.com
Free tutorials, Vue & Bryce materials, Bryce Skies, models, D&D items, stories.
Tutorials on Poser imports to Vue/Bryce, Postwork, Vue rendering/lighting, etc etc!