I’m currently working on my lighting and composition skills. For that, I am building an environment scene with a character and a mountain - all models are assets from Blender Kit -. I wanted to achieve a sense of scale with a great mountain and a small character; the camera lens is 20 mm with some depth of field.
The sky is HDR texture mixed with a nishita texture. I’ve set the sky colour to be slightly warm in order to contrast with the blue shadows, but maybe it’s too subtle? There’s also an area light next to the character to make it pop.
I’ve added jet fighters in the sky to suggest some storytelling in this scene. Maybe there’s a war going on? They’re very blurred, let me know if this is working as intended.
I’ve added some clouds at the base of the mountain to add more depth to the scene, but I’m not convinced they’re working right now. There’s also a subtle volume box covering the whole scene (i’m considering using a plane fog only to improve render time.)
In compositing, I’ve added some glare and lens distortion.
I was thinking of adding trees at the base of the mountain, and maybe some other assets in the foreground.
Please let me know how can I improve this scene. Thanks in advance!
Turn down your depth of field and lens distortion. Right now, your scene looks like a miniature, or a diorama, these effects are great but should be used sparingly for large scenes like this. Here’s a real photo shot on a 20mm lens:
Hi @joseph, thank you so much for your input. I’ve had great improvement only by setting a higher f-stop and dialling down lens effects. The first render was really looking like a miniature, as you said.
added a fog plane right behind the mountain to enhance depth. My intention was not to make the background pinkish, but I’ve liked the effect, it made the mountain pop and eliminated some excessive blue. The fog plane also added some volumetric detail around the jet fighters.
