Recommended lights setup

[pavol_pastork]

Hi all,
I am looking for some recommended setup to make my interior renders looks more realistic. I struggle with light colors, intensity and color temp of render.
I create mostly interior scenes and my current workflow/setup of light is:
- Sunlight set to PRG ClearSky mapped to Domelight.
- Using of Vray spotlights with increased Shadow radius and intensity set to Lumens.
- Using of Dir Light for LED strips.

With that lights I have som issues with its intensity. When I set interior lights intensity and color temp. as it is in real world, the default sunlight looks too bright.
So I often pull down sun intensity to 0.3 to look better, without overexposing. Or disable it completely and use only sky illumination, but I am missing the atmosphere of sun shadows.

In Vantage I am using bacground image with increased intensity.

So my questions are:
1. How to properly setup lights intensity for more natural look?
2. Is it possible to set intensity of lights or somehow for creating more HDR image look? (I´ve been using png renders straight from Vantage)
3. If is not possible to make HDR look without Post-process, how to manage lights intensity and color temp?

I will be happy for any answer or suggestions.

P.s. Here are my last renders - one with just sun light inside dome light, another with hdr map inside domelight (icreased its intensity to 15)

[Luma3d]

Why not just use an hdri to light your scene and add interior lights as needed. Hot areas can be controlled in Vantage by using Filmic controls or highlight burn slider.

[pavol_pastork]

Luma3d I always use Filmic tonemapping in Vantage with default values. but I think I am missing something in my workflow