Forelle, that glow effect is too strong for my liking and the cliff is very dark.
I’m not saying its my liking (there is no glow - I just made the sky brighter and the foreground darker). It’s not my liking, this is how it would look like if you take a photograph. Your cam can not shoot again the overcast sky and make the street look bright at the same time. In reality thats technically impossible.
Read what User SSImpossible wrote: either you stick with the direct sunlight (which gives you shadows) or you stick with the overcast sky (but then you have to blow your sky out OR make your street darker). Thats just how things would work in reality.
I dunno if realism is your target, but if it is, I suggest you go outside with your digicam, set it to no flash and photograph against the sky with a tree in front of it. What you will see ist that either the sky is totally white or the sky is blue and your tree is black. Both is not possible without artificial lighting (trust my I am a filmstudent).
So a solution for you could be: set up a directional light (=sun) and play around with the angle and the height of your sun (also give that light a subtile redish color. This sun should brighten up your street so you are able to show the blue sky without hurting rules of realism (except when your sun points directly into the camera).
So now you just have diffuse lightning (a big sky is like a huge softbox). You eyes can show you a blue sky and a grey street at once - a camera can’t. So to make your street brighter you have to add a direct sun (with hard shadows). But these shadows will be quite dark. At least like in my version of the image.
I will take my camera out tomorrow and see what I get as a result.
My lighting is a major issue. HDRI by itself is not enough. If I only use an HDRI, the shadows are terrible. I’m trying to find a good tutorial or explanation online.
Yeah using your camera is probably a good idea - just be careful to not let your eyes fool you. Sometimes we think things are darker or lighter than they “really” are just because our brain cancels that out. For a good render it’s important to understand how a camera “sees” lights and shadows. I don’t say photorealism is the only way, but I think it is a good start to understand how to achieve certains effects with your lighting ; )
Unfortunately I’ve run out of time for this image. It was for a web graphic and I needed to get it up. My original plan was to do a night scene anyway. The lights are supposed to be headlights. The signs are the focus (sign manufacturer website).
Thanks everyone for your help. I never did get the daytime lighting configuration right. I will need to read up on these scenes more and learn more about compositing before I attempt a scene like this again.
Looks nice. You did also well with the night-sky ; )
I think your chromatic abration (on the rock right) ist a bit to strong - but well thats up to your taste
You’re right, it is too much lens distortion. I’m tired of looking at it though. Time to move on. I’m ok with how it turned out. The image below is the final one that went on the website.
