Tips for making atmospheric lightning areas

[FlawlessHappiness]

For lighting:
Try it in real life.

Try darkening a room completely. Then have 1 light source. Ex. a window. Notice that nothing in the room is pitch black. This is a mistake i've seen lots of places. Nothing in a room is pitch black if there is a window.

Depending on how big the light source is, the light will just fade out more and more, further into the room.

If you have 2 colors in the room: Blue light from window, and yellow light from candle - Try mixing those two in a pointlight.

Don't ever only place a lamp, and don't do anything to it. The lamp isn't enough. You are the one to place pointlights and spotlights, to make the light move across the room.

It's mostly always important to have a boxlight covering your whole map. Tweak all the colors so it looks realist, but keep all numbers below 0.1. This will make it dark, but not completely black. Remeber: If there is a light source, nothing is pitch black.

For billboards: Look at FG's maps. They did it well, and if you cannot recreate it, then you can copy it.