realistic lightning

Support Lighting and Rendering
#1

Hey i have a problem with my outside lightning when i render my scenes. im not getting that realistic look
IF you look at http://www.quakewiki.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/cry-engine-3-1.jpg You can se that there a super realistic lightning, while in mine it looks cheap and unrealistic, why? and how do i get a more realistic look?

The first picture is from cryengine 3, And i though that blender cycles render must be more powerful that cryengine senc cryengine is a real-time render and blender isnt.
Im using the Cycles render and not the standard or game engine!

Here is my scene: http://puu.sh/4B16X.jpg
Thanx in advanced

#2

Do you even have shadows enabled? Because I’m not seeing them. Lighting’s only one part of the equation. Textures are a big part of it.

Steve S

#3

few notes
–are you using HDRI lighting? with shadows?
– are you using the compositor for stuff like bloom / mist / haze?
– are you using DoF?
– get better trees… you can clearly see the leaf planes… for the background they probably are fine but not for the foreground
– get better grass / weeds
– make a better composition of the image… what are we looking at? the example is of this nice lake… with yours, i am unsure what i am supposed to be looking at.
– your water looks 100% reflective, where it should be transparent somewhat and you should be able to look to the waterbed somewhat
– get a better ground texture, needs more variation, like as it goes to the water, it should be somewhat dirt.

#4

I believe that if you look very closely, you’ll see that the light must be coming from several different “solar” sources. Which is not possible on this planet. There are numerous conflicting depth-cues in this image, which is why your eye can’t accept that it’s really 3D. It looks like a really-bad montage.