Reddit reviews Digital Lighting and Rendering

Vray is not the solution to get a good render.
Vray is a tool you need to learn to get a nice render.

Learning how to light a scene is independent to the render engine you use and is definitely what you should aim for.

Classic but solid one is the book from Jeremy Birn : Digital Lighting and rendering (a guy from Pixar)

If you read this carefully, you'll learn the different type of lights needed to light a set, then how to use them in a 3d package. This book is not related to any specific software. If you understand how lighting works, you can have good result whatever the render engine is.
If you only rely on the automated GI, caustics and whatever fancy effects to light a scene, you'll never have good results.


A good online resource would be itchy's tutorial, that covers similar things as the book above, probably less in detail but cheaper.

This requires to read a lot, to test a lot but is worth the time invested.

Good luck