I am often astonished by the number of lights that some among us use to illuminate their scenes of outside. For my part, I use the most often just a sun and the ambient lighting (but also the IG), and I don't have the impression that the multiplication of the sources of light makes the pictures more realistic.

What do you think of it?

and what technique of lighting do you use?

I agree, for outdoors, I rarely use more than one sunlight and a few point lights for highlights. But sometimes, you need a few fill lights, to lighten up some objects in the scene that are too much in the shadow to look realistic. Shadows are too strong for objects that are not in the sun's way, even if you reduce shadow intensity.

I set up my athmosphere then go crazy triyng to make it lighten the darkest areas. Now I'll set point lights to make them clearer.

I've done only 2 scenes using VUE ... still learning.

But yes, I only use the atmospheres' sun and ambient light.

It depends on what I'm lighting and the look I'm trying to achieve.

If I want a "naturalistic" look for an outdoor scene I may just use the sun.  I may add a second (occasionally a third) lower powered sun to soften areas in shadow and reveal things hidden in them.  I prefer this to using ambient light as it gives me more control.  I often work with ambience pretty much reduced to zero for all the materials in a scene.

If I'm lighting a figure I often use a traditional cinematic 3 light set up to compliment the natural lighting.

If I want dramatic lighting I'll use the number of lights required to achieve the effect I want.  I'd do the same if I were lighting a subject for a photograph or on stage.  For example for a night scene I was making recently of a woman holding a lantern near her head I used a cylindrical array of point quadratic lights to emit the light from the lantern to give it a more realistic look.  These lights were only set to illuminate the main figure and the floor.   A single low powered, blue tinged sun was used to add a bit of general illumination to the surroundings but excluding the main figure. I then used spot lights with mostly blue colouration to pick out bits of the surrounding space to make the final image more atmospheric.

If you go to a movie set in real life you will see that they always use artificial lighting even in the daylight, expect for those rare cases where the director wants a straight real life effect (but that never happens in Hollywood movies)

Lighting sets is an art in itself and a very difficult one. It requires years of study and years of practice. Things with CG art is made easier by the tools (you can have lights that don't cast shadows, lights that only affect one object, et c.). But anyway it remains a very difficult thing.

 

For indoor scenes, I usually start with a pitch black atmosphere - no ambiant - no sun - and work my way up to rebuilt the lighting I want.

For outdoor scenes, one of the best method I know of is detailed in one of czarnyrobert's tutorials. It does a fairly good job at emulating ambiant lighting without the need to use costly methods such as IBL or radiosity.

I never use ambient light in Vue...in my view, it creates flat and insipid images without definition.

I will always use fill lights if I need to lighten dark areas. Actually, if you understand how light works in the real world and transfer that into how you create lights in a scene, then sometimes that is the only way to get what you want...and can be a life saver if you are doing animations or large prints.
In fact this is where Infinite is playing to one of its strengths; the fact you can exclude objects from light sources...it make radiosity/GI faking sooooooo much easier.

Cheers

Mostly I begin with an all white atmosphere, one white sun, no ambience,
then insert other lights
(not very strong, no shadows, light only on selected objects/groups)
to light the subject, and to open some shadows,
tune that, then add some ambient.

Basically, i figure lighting is for 5 (interconnected) things:

1. Defining form and contour (naturally), which greatly affects:
2. realism.
3. Adding clarity and readibility to your composition, to improve your image's:
4. Meaning and story-telling ability.
5. Adding drama.

For outdoors in sun, i usually go for GI and just sun for distant objects & terrain, but use point lights for fill, volumetric spot lights for sun beams and a 2-3 light (photo portrait studio setup) for major characters.

Depending on the scene, i'll also add prop lights, like a point light inside a street lamp at dusk or such. But if the prop doesn't cast light & shadow onto other objects, i do this:
When i need small visible colored lights (e.g. running lights on an aircraft) i don't use light sources. Much less expensive to just use a small glowing primitive cylinder or sphere  

Caricaturing (emphasizing) the different color temperatures of sun, skylight and prop lights appeals to me. For instance, making sunlight very orange, skylight very blue, etc. to add drama. And my protrait lighting rimlight (light from the back of a figure to outline just one side of the figure's edge, halo the hair, etc.) will often be strongly colored.

I avoid flat lighting or zenith lighting and mostly use sunlighting near sunset time, sometimes with a visible sun at the horizon or an implied sun behind a cloud or prop, but with a strong volumetric beam implying the sun's position.

Like everything else in your scene, your lighting ultimately comes down to just what you are trying to express in each image. So, the scene must drive the lighting.

With a life-long love of light and color, and some decades of experience using them, in light shows, light sculpture, inventing projection effects machines and doing fine art photography (and now digital art), i consider myself a lighting expert. You can find some Vue lighting tutorials on my site and a thorough discussion of light and color in my e-book.

The exceptional creative control of light and the great render engine in Vue 5 Infinite were some of the things what got me into Vue. And the IBL and HDRI possibilities are very exciting.

_jc  'Art Head Start' e-book: Learn digital art skills $19.95
'Art Head Start.com Free chapter, Vue tutorials, models, Web Tutorials Directory.

Actually JC makes a good point; Have you ever wondered why landscape photographers try to stay away from taking photos in harsh midday light or ambient cloudy days and search for the light created by the early morning or last light of the evening. So important is the light given before sunset, it is commonly known as the "Golden Hour" by photographers...and for a good reason ;-)

Cheers

Sorry, if i came off like bragging above. It's just that light and color really are my favorite things and that passion has its effect.

Just as Cheers mentions, whenever i do outdoor photography, i get up before dawn, then nap during the midday light and start again in the afternoon. That late light really brings out the forms and reveals things you just don't see at other times. And the aerial perspective is much stronger. Guess it's the same in a good simulation. 

Also like Cheers, i often end up with the sun off, especially for work with volumetric lighting.

Also, lighting in Vue is one of the things that really creates an artist's individual style. Everyone makes their own slightly different approach.

Attached Link: multiple lights image

There are a couple of tutorials in renderosity and out in the web on how to use different approaches to lighting in Vue... If you look at the picture at the link above, there is no sun in that scene... All lighting was done with multiple spotlights, both indoor and out, to create the sunset feeling... The sun in the distance is a spotlight with a red filter applied... There's about 3 or 4 spots in the room... A couple more right outside... Lighting is one thing that you could spend months and months experimenting with and not exhaust the possibilities... An art teacher once said that with the right lighting, any subject can become a work of art... :)

Here are some of the better tutorials in lighting for Vue... The last one looks like a good tool...

http://nggalai.com/tutorials/tut_01.htm

http://www.varian.net/dreamview/dreamdesign/evd/class/index.html

http://www.varian.net/dreamview/dreamdesign/evd/light/index.html

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/support/tutorials/?page=3&cf=%2Fsupport%2Ftutorials%2F

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/support/tutorials/?page=4&cf=%2Fsupport%2Ftutorials%2F

http://www.perpetualvisions.com/articles-and-graphics/review-lightune.htm