You could say it’s a view from a roof. I made it tonight and I’m kind of happy with how it turned out 
It’s 4,13 mb, so try it out!
http://orion.luon.net/~roderik/documents/blender/movies/spark.avi
Might give you a good look of how the dutch streets look like 
C&C welcome!
P.S. roddy is my real-life nickname :-?
This thread continues with images, if you’re not interested in movies, scroll down 8)
I’m finding it hard to comment on something… I can’t say the movement of the spark is unnatural…
Two things…
The street lamp visible light never seems to get drowned out… it seems to be quite dominant… not sure how you would tweak it…
Second, the shadows look maybe a little sharp when the spark is off screen… as the spark comes closer the street gets filled with light… but only until it stops hovering over the furthest building tops…
it’s an OK animation, but I’d like to see something more pleasing.
Mhm. Greatest problem so far, in my opinion, is the halo of the lamp. Turn it down a little. If you have such a halo, that means, there is some sort of fog around. But there obviously isn’t.
Next, the lamp a the beginning is so bright, yet noting is lighted by it. So it seems almost like postprocessed in. Maybe add a spot light at the base of the halo (meaning on the ground) lighting to the sky with a huge SpotSI (about 170). Dim the energy down a lot. This is some sort of radiosity fake. Hope you understand my poor english!
Add textures.
Add beveling. Everything in that street is quite sharp at the moment. If you add beveling at least the outlines of the thinks could be seen at the beginning. I think, this might look very good!
Only my 2 cent. Good start…
@burnhard: ooh, i didn’t notice about the halo yet - i kept my eye on the incoming spark good point… (personal note: check my stuff more thoroughly!) and bevels is also a good idea. Hmmz, maybe it’s also because i’m using a raytraced sun, which has no setting for soft shadows… I’ll have to wait a little bit for that to come or use yafray 
and I’d like to see something more pleasing too, it’s a WIP after all 
@jerri: you noticed the halo-thing too although it’s foggy quite much in Holland, it’s not that foggy. You’re right. The spark is too bright indeed. I’ll see if the radiosity-fake technique works for me… And yes! Textures! More details! Beveling! All of it!
Thanks both! I think an update (not in movie-form, just plain pictures) will be on its way… 8)
here’s an update there’s much I can comment on myself, but I’m out of time for now… for one, the spark is still too bright, i focused on the rest today … gotta learn to make textures myself :x
enjoy
(C&C always welcome!)
Some tweaking of the textures & lighting resulted in this:
The street looks far more dutch now yaay
I retouched the lantern and made a lantern-only scene, which i liked so well that i spontaneously made an avatar out of it. Tell me what you think…
the little green thing is grass, growing out of the cracks
Wow i LIKE THE GRASS MON HOW YOU DID THAT j/k
the lantarenpaal (lamp) is nice, but i dont like the street…
hehe yeah well, the street looks like a plane with a texture… which it is, of course. I’ll work on that some more.
i like your signature