Leaderboard

Thanks for the comments, I learnt a lot!

I have a three point lighting setup HDR I made in Blender and I've been using to great effect for a few years now. I find that an HDR image that's filled in every area makes most renders very evenly lit, which is not my personal preference. I like dramatic lighting and find that a black HDR with a couple of bright spots looks more to my taste. The HDR file is below if you want to try it in your Redshift dome. I always start every scene with this hdr. Rotate it until you find the right look. (and turn down saturation in image settings of light panel). Sometimes I may add a couple of supplemental area lights for some backlight to punch up some SSS, but this image is always my base lighting. 1497384127_threepoint0001.hdr

You can use those for inspiration but that's all. I think you first should know how to use real hdri lighting in a dome light with global illumination as well as standard Redshift lights. Then if you want to learn cinematic style lighting I would study real world cinematic lighting, I'm sure there is no shortage of stuff on YouTube, and then try to incorporate those ideas in your 3d.

'HDRI on a dome light' is about the laziest and least art directable way of lighting anything, but there's no denying its usefulness as a starting point because it allows you to generate a whole world of reflections and lighting irrespective of what else is (or isn't) in the scene. But the artists producing really good work will rarely be relying on that alone - they will also have a lot of skill and experience in setting up photographic style lights and cameras, reflectors and shadow casters, daylight systems and the more art directable / physical ways of lighting things. That is not to say that sometimes the ideal lighting won't be very simple, but you should definitely learn all the light types in your renderer of choice, and how to set them up realistically so that you have maximum flexibility with your approach. CBR