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I don't have a render settings folder ... I thought HDRIs were domes that act as lights?
There's a thread right now about the lack of consistency on that front: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/511341/can-the-store-please-standardize-location-of-content#latest
Personally I cathegorise everything by genre anyway. I put realistic skies and landscapes under "Nature", sci-fi and fantasy backgrounds under "SciFi" and "Fantasy" respectively, and abstract HDRIs under "Lights"... but that's just my own system that works for me. I can see how others might want all HDRIs at the same place instead of dividing them by genre.
I know, right?
I'm ok with reorganizing files for easy relocation as long as it doesn't affect how the product works. But yes, a little more category standardization would make things easier when I tend to buy a lot at a time and having to reorganize every single product takes a lot of valuable time. But it is what it is.
As to my question ... will moving them into one location affect how they work? And what about the free HDRIs that were mentioned earlier in the thread that have to be manually applied ... what do I apply them to? Is there a 'blank' iray dome? Or am I still missing the basic concept, lol?
Mattymanx decribes here where to drop the free HDRIs: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/6921681/#Comment_6921681
I'm pretty sure moving around DUF preset files will not break them as long as the files in runtime/textures/... stay in the same folder.
HDRIs ARE render settings, though, since they go in the Environment slot of the render settings pane, rather than being objects in the scene.
These are skydomes ... aren't they? They don't load like any other skydome?
Nope. They only exist as render settings, which means that you don't have to worry about them blocking any of your scene lights.
All that said, in my experence, HDRIs that you purchase here usually alternate between being in Render Presets (sometimes but rarely in Render Settings -- if you don't have that folder, the PAs you've purchased from haven't used it) or in Light Presets if you're looking in the Content Library. I'd advise looking at the readme file to see where the PA has put them, if you use DIM or manual organization. (Heaven only knows where they go in Smart Content; I don't use it.) That's really the only way to be sure that you know where they were installed. There's no standardization.
One key difference between 3Delight skydomes and Iray HDRI: you won't see them in the workspace when you use them. You'll only see them in the Iray Preview window, or when you render. The same is true of Iray sun/sky settings as well.
Sooo ... What if I want the cloud formations on one view vs another view, if, one, the dome itself is the light and will theoretically rotate as I rotate the dome (that I evidently can't see) to the cloud formation or sun/moon placement I like, and two, not be visible pre-render?
You can't separate clouds from sky on an HDR. It's all one image.You'd have to get a separate clouds product (something like this https://www.daz3d.com/dramatic-iray-global-clouds which looked complicated enough that I haven't bought or tried it -- however, it should also work with sun/sky, which is cloudless and starless) and then use a cloudless sky HDR that you could use, rotating to get the light coming in the way you wanted.
Otherwise, all you can do is use the Iray Preview window or test renders to see what the image looks like. (There is a product called IBL Master in the store that will let you see the HDR in the workspace, but especially if you're only just getting started with Iray, it may be a bit much to work with starting out. It would be best to get familiar with how HDRs work, I think, before trying that. On the upside, sort of, IBL Master does theoretically work with both Iray and 3Delight, although I haven't used it with the latter.)
I think most answers you got so far were refering to the Smart Content tab.
In the Content Library you can find/have/place HDRI "Render Presets" anywhere, as long as it is a Daz Studio directory.
My own ones simply sit next to scene preloads.
In general you can think of it as a built-in sky-sphere that has no physical representation in the scene, but instead is controlled through the Render Settings/Environment Options.
Basicly there is not much difference to the 3DL skyboxes/spheres you are used to.