Understood- rendering true outdoor landscapes would be very slow with HDR- but if your camera angle is looking down, at say a 45 degree angle, it basically creates a "set" look.

I've posted here a simple HDR render on the RDNA Roman Villa with Bountiful Knights backdrop. Obviously the backdrop is a photo- but a Vue rendered 3D backdrop could be easily substituted- either on a plane, or later in POST.
In fact, rendering backdrop scenery with Shadow Maps would match pretty well with a Fore-Ground render done with HDR.

Unfortunately not available right now to post- I have rendered Seaplanes on Vue water with HDR- which looks great and rendered much faster than Ray-Traced lights! In fact, it looks like using Shadow Maps- but you don't have the Shadow Map size issues with HDR (and with HDR you can STILL use point, fill lights, etc...)

--but I tend to do all my 3D work and photography- with Photoshop as my ultimate compositing and tweaking tool. I often merge photo backdrops into my 3D (or even use the ultra HIFI-SIM Clouds that are a Flight Simulator Add-On-
best Sky-Clouds in any "3D" application and they render in Real-Time...)