Hey all,
I’ve recently been doing some tests trying to create realistic outdoor lighting, and am pleased with some of the results. This one I liked enough to finish, so I’m posting it here to get some feedback.
Just a note, I know the grass texture is bad, but making realistic grass wasn’t the point of my tests. 
C&C welcome. 
you sure you have the address right? it isn’t loading for me
grass needs to be real!
chairs need improvements!
house is to plain!
and it needs lanscaping!
Love the focal blurr though!
keep us posted!
[edit]
I’m certainly no expert, but I really like the lighting in this.
I think you have achieved outdoor lighting really well.
Regards
Caleb
The deck looks awesome. Every things else is… well… still better than I can do
Lighting is awesome, though.
Since the purpose of your image was to try out some lighting, thats all I’ll comment on. I like the level, and angle of the light. I also like the contrast between the light and shadow, but the shadows seem to crisp. I’d try mounting 2 or 3 more spotlights equidistance/ angle from the main spot thats casting shadow atm, it should give you a softer, more realistic shadow. Another option, if your using shadow buffer would be to just increase the “soft” level.
great start! maybe throw in a little ao? an area light might also get you softer shadows.
Thaks for the response, guys!
z3r0 d: I don’t know what the problem is. . .
Prince: Yes, the modelling needs improvement, I know.
Marty_D: Not sure if I understand you; are you talking about the side of the deck that is facing to the left? If you look, it is more lit then the other side, just there are a lot of tree leaf shadows on it, so it appears darker.
Caleb72: Thanks!
darthpip: Yes, I know, but I was really only putting time into lighting the scene.
SpindleRift and mzungu: Okay, here’s the deal. I’ve been having a lot of trouble with getting accurate shadows with spotlamps recently, so I decided to try raytracing with a sun lamp instead. I haven’t figured out how to blur shadows with raytracing (besides using an area lamp); that’s why they are sharp.
I’m going to try to re-light the scene with spotlamps; raytracing looks nice, but there just isn’t enough control over the resulting shadows (and it takes a long time).
Also, I forgot to say in my original post, I was attempting at getting a early to mid-morning feel on the lighting.
Again, thanks for the critiques, they help just as much as comments do! 8)
-Obiwan
For some reason, I think the leaf shadows look kinda fake, maybe turnoff the ray shadow. 
Well if you are going for direct morning light I’d say you did a pretty good job.
I’m interested in what this scene would look like with a small
of indirect light.
Would you be willing to add a small amount of
Ambient Occlusion?
It has a very good outdoors effect… I love your leaves, the focal blur effect etc, and the idea in general.
However, I’d pay a bit more attention to details:
the house: how about a sliding window-door (that the most common configuration I can think of to open on a deck), and it gives you a chance to open the world to the inside as well.
if you keep the square make really elevated, or make it a pentagon, with ramps / benches and all, around.
Scale down the width of the slates (too wide IMHO).
But these are relatively easy to fix, to make it perfect.
Arnaud
Well, I’d like to finish the scene, add some detail, and work on the textures, but I’ve really completed what I’d set out to do. I’ve got two new renders to show, one done using spotlamps, and one done with AO (I haven’t experimented with Ambient Occlusion alot yet, so it may not look as good as it could ;)).
Spotlamp:
Ambient Occlusion (with a little PP in Photoshop)
I think the AO render looks a bit more like mid afternoon than morning.
-Obiwan
I like the spot light better, looks less aliased
try a yafray render…