Ah that's what I was thinking. It's a valuable tool...otherwise you'd be modeling until your hands bleed trying to get all the detail in there. I've modeled environments before and it's frustrating as hell trying to go from a blank grid to a populated scene and keeping it from looking artificial.
I used to tool around with HDRI too. Cool stuff and I do still use HDR images as environment maps, but tend to not light scenes with them anymore unless it's an outdoor shot.
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