Are lights mandatory?

[n_maasdijk]

Hello everyone!

It might sound like a stupid question, but if you have a scene with a good HDRI wich gives you all the shading you want, is it still mandatory to use extra light's for it to turn out to be a good render? 

Because the few time's i have tried to integrate a light and HDRI in the same scene it was just completely over-lit. So if it does not help to get a better looking render/ material view it would secure me a few hours of troubleshooting.

Would love to hear what you guys think!

-Nick

[wernienst · Accepted solution]

Generally an HDRI is sufficient. You may adjust the Global Exposure setting to get the render brightness you wish. You may also add an Arnold Skydome light and assign that HDRI file as texture. Thus you can balance scene illumination and background. By adding extra lights you may emphasize areas or objects in your scene. It also depends whether it is an outdoor or indoor scene.

[n_maasdijk]

Thanks!
I now solely use the HDRI as lighting within the envoirment map and render the background as an alpha channel. But now that i know that its not mandatory for higher quality results it has saved me many hours troubleshooting.