Quote - Over the years I've made several attempts to appreciate IBL lighting with little success. From what I can tell, an IBL light simply provides a general cast over the entire scene. This is the same whether you are using a fancy shiny globe based image, a regular (flat) image or no image at all.

So why all the fuss about IMAGE based lighting? Other than a general, scene-wide cast what is the image supposed to do for you?

The image provides subtle changes in light color, which result in more realistic overal (global) lighting, especially if the image in use is high dynamic range. Older versions of Poser (5 and 6) only supported LDR images, but it was still useful, combined with AO, to get realistic lighting with only two light sources in the scene.  Unlike the use of dozens, or hundreds of point or spotlights, IBL is easier to set up, and along with irradience calculations, provides more professional, realistic renders.

The IBL image also provides a way to include complex environmental effects for reflective and refractive materials in the scene, instead of faking those with texture maps or other means.

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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.