SYNX, Yes, that was a "bad" setup. I actually stopped at the point where I was setting-up the lighting. In that house, in that specific render, all the lights were under one singular control. The last thing I had done was pose the models and remove unseen items. (Shoes, pants, socks, legs... All the stuff under the table.)
When I went back later, to see which scene I grabbed, I realized that I didn't even have the new kitchen or the new textured walls and floor-joints.
There is a big difference between "Artistic lighting" and "Realistic lighting". You can't have both, because "Artistic", is a modification that alters any "Realistic" result. Thus, the term, artistic. Reality is dull and lifeless, from an artistic view. Art, like "better", is 100% subjective.
Daz still has a major issue with two things...
1: There is an ambient light from "nowhere", beyond any true direct control. (As if there were an uneditable atmosphere, which actually defies reality.)
2: There are "ambient lighting controls", for materials, which actually do absolutely nothing, as expected. (An ambient surface should be, essentially, minimally reflecting ALL ambient lighting, if ANY exists, which is truly a soft form of self-illumination so the maximum darkness should never be less than that set value. Eg, at 0 the surface should be 100% black, unlit, with no direct lighting. At 100%, it should be, at the minimum, the brightness of the light-source closest to it, as if it is illuminated from refracted "fog" or "humidity" or "atmosphere". It doesn't work, but it does, but not to values you set. May have worked in 3DeLight, but they seem to have thrown that actual value out the window, favoring a global form of ambient lighting. A value that seems tied to all combined lights and can't be turned off or adjusted.)
Still easy to manipulate though.
When you see "perfect lighting", (artistic matched lighting), it is because the artist has simply setup the lights to match the painted shadows on all the textures and all the textures are correctly aligned to one another. (Like when you look at a stone road and the highlights are on the LEFT, and the lighting is on the RIGHT, it looks out of place. But, move your primary lights to the LEFT, and now it looks "perfect", unless the stone texture is upside-down itself, and the lighting should be on the right, as well as the texture being flipped.)
Many skins have shadows and highlights painted on them, as well as the horrible specular and glossy maps. Making them ONLY look correct, when the lighting matches the exact lighting which was used when they photographed the image of the model. (That is why many models only look good in the sales-page, where the lighting was setup perfectly to that same pose.) Light them from underneath, or all around, where those painted shadows should not be seen, and it just looks "wrong", artistically and in reality.
Not counting the over-sized fake "textures" (normals and bumps), which people use on skins. It is common to use an orange-peel texture to simulate skin-pores, but some use patterns that are too large and the ones that are the correct size, still look like orange-peels, not skin-pores. They also paint things like cleavage, and wrinkles, to simulate skin-folds, which is great for a body part in a specific pose, but there are almost no wrinkles in knuckles on a tense-fist. There is no under-boob "fold" or cleavage on spread or hanging boobs. Also, under-boob is brighter skin, not darker skin, because it gets no sun. They paint under-boob shadows, instead of letting the light paint the actual shadows.
All things you have to take into account, when "setting up a shot", not just for lighting. (Also, for post-work, to add realism... Unshadowing under-boob and unfolding folds that shouldn't be there, as well as adding folds that should, and highlights that should be relocated to match the actual light, instead of the original lighting they used when they photographed or painted the skin.)
There is also the "wet" look of most models. Most photographs are taken with makeup, powders and soft lighting. However, Daz artists like to make everyone glossy, like they are almost varnished. Flesh, even oily flesh, is not that glossy. Wet flesh is, to a point. It is like everyone is covered in wet oily glitter. Great for a glamour-shot, but not for anything realistic. (On the extreme, some completely kill any natural oil reflections and turn them into dull plastic or felt manikins. Actual photo references help there, as well as using multiple light sources, to make correct adjustments.)
