Ive played around with the lighting in Blender. Are there any decent tutorials for creating soft subtle lighting as opposed to the harsh, sunny settings I seem to be acheiving at the mo?
mediawiki.blender.org - search for ambient occlusion. Many people complain that it is too slow - and it can be.
I usually have my AO samples at 3 or 4, and click “use distances” with a low distance setting and distance factor set to 2 or 3. Then click Both (to add and subtract light), and you can either use plain (just plain white light energy) or use your sky color/texture settings. I can get some results almost like HDRI using this technique with Blender Interal renderer.