Advice for getting good all-round results with HDRI

[Otuama]

Hi all.

We primarily use Corona Sun.  We haven't used HDRI for ages.

For a job I was on recently I wasn't liking the results with the sun so I tested an HDRI and after a bit of tweaking it looked so much better than the sun setup.

On Friday I was finishing up an old job and I thought I'd test it with HDRI -  I initially thought...... ooooooooh, this looks better, I'm getting a more realistic global lighting.

I then spent a while on a couple of shots tweaking materials and grass (it was coming out too washed out), because the materials had been made for the sun setup.

I put on test renders for the static shots and every 50th for the animation.  - Video below

What this resulted in was areas too dark..... areas too bright.... over saturated grass etc

I'm going to have to go back to my Corona Sun scene as time is short for this job but to fix the HDRI serup I'd have to tweak stuff per shot/area.... which'd then mean I have to tweak the areas I've tweaked cos my tweaks have affected my tweaks :D.

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So, after that long winded explanation, does anyone have any advice for getting an all round good scene lighting setup?

Can anyone think of any good training/courses.  Lighting is where we're lacking as far as I'm concerned.... we put in a sun & done.  This does result in sometimes quite flat/cartoonish results.

So I'd really like to improve this aspect.

Thanks

[maru]

Maybe it's just me, but in your images, I think the areas which I would consider neutral white/gray have some kind of yellowish-greenish hue. Maybe your HDRI just wasn't captured or calibrated correctly?
I also think that if a material "looks good under Corona sun but not under an HDRI" then something is wrong with that material. When using the Corona Physical Material, it should always remain "physical" regardless what lighting conditions we use.

Other than that - I can only recommend using whatever works best for you. If it's the Corona Sun, then why not just keep using it? :)

[romullus]

I agree with maru, if one feels the need to adjust the materials everytime when the lighting is significantly changed, then most likely there's something wrong with materials and not the lighting. Correctly set-up materials should look good under any lighting conditions. As for the video, i find that many shots in it are simply over exposed, including YT thumbnail. Maybe that's the main issue?