Evening in the pine forest

In this respect, dome lights have the same limitation as IBL. All light comes from the outside (which is natural) but there are no air molecules that scatter light into thicket and undergrowth. Fill lights can help here. Yes, the first idea of what we call today HDRI came around 1935, but it was just too difficult to do it with chemical film. There is more dynamic in a low ISO film or a digital camera than can be displayed. Under the best lighting conditions on a really white paper an photo-print can have a dynamic range of around 100:1, the computer screen is a bit better with 256:1. But we can prepare an artwork for the medium it will be shown also by adjusting gamma a bit.

* Horo, at first you got it right! Indeed, the sun shines on the left and the front. There was such an idea: the sun still did not quite roll down to the horizon and there was enough atmospheric light to illuminate the back side of the trees. This kind of picture can really be made on film, if you choose the right exposure, and then make a print on low-contrast photo paper. In fact, you are right. In life there is a big difference between the dark and light areas of the picture (i.e., contrast). However, subjectively, a person looks with his eyes and brain. The concept of HDRI appeared in photography long before the era of computer graphics. It's just here that's what I did: I squeezed the dynamic range of the image in the way available to me. And about what I'm talking about? You yourself have written about this on forums many times. :-) ***** PS. If there were a lot of trees and bushes in this particular scene on the right, on the left and behind the camera, then the trees that are visible from the camera would be less illuminated, since the light from Sphere Dome Light would not penetrate into the thicket of the forest. In other words, there is less light in the dense forest than at the edge of the forest. Perhaps, I have too clumsy English therefore I can't correctly inform of the thought.

Thank you for the explanation. I thought the sun light comes from front left, if it comes from the back. than everything looks quite right.

* >"The tree trunks seem a but on the bright side to me but perhaps that is the way those trees are in nature." This is because there are no trees behind the camera to the right and left of the scene. Otherwise everything will be too dark. The scene receives lighting from Sphere Dome Light, ie, as if from the sky. On tree trunks there is a bitmap texture.

Beautiful render, there is even some light in the very dark part at left. The tree trunks seem a but on the bright side to me but perhaps that is the way those trees are in nature.