Octane Daylight vs HDRI for Interiors

[Banti]

So most of my scenes are interior scenes and i usually light them with either Daylight or an HDRI (i am using DAZ where i cannot combine those two).
Now i was wondering if an HDRI or Octane Daylight (especially the new type) does a better job with lighting interiors. Is there a consensus on what is to be preferred? Are there advantages on using
one or the other?

[whersmy]

Octane daylight seems to render much faster, compared to a high res HDRI. Though there is less control on shadows.

I`ll try and make an example of both and post them here.

[SSmolak]

In the new builds you can control Sun Intensity so you have control over shadows too.

[Banti]

Yeah i did play around with the sun intensity before, works good in my opinion. Shadows have always looked very nice to me. The reason i initially posted this was because i am trying to light an interior scene (with characters in it) with only daylight/hdri.

What usually did in interiors, is have an emitting plane right under the ceiling additionally to the environment. But having this emitter tends to make the overall lighting and the characters look too flat and unnatural. But when i have smaller emitters i need to make them so bright that it looks weird on the characters skin and hair (unnaturally bright spots). So i am currently experimenting with having only one environment to light the room. If anyone has other tipps regarding interiors, they are very much appreciated