There were several changes made, here's the list (and how to do so yourself if anyone else is interested!):
All of these changes were created in a custom environment, which can be created under the Advanced ---> Environment Editor tabs. I called this one "blusky" because it is a cloudy blue sky, but I forgot the 'e' when I had saved it.
- advanced.PNG (125.46 KiB) Viewed 3121 times
The main thing that I changed was the skybox - which I used one of David Ainsworth's "Cumulus Blue" environments. It took some rearranging to get the different pictures to line up but the final product is seamless!
One of the key things to do if you're using a custom skybox/effects, is to uncheck dynamic sky and dynamic clouds. The effects won't show up without doing so!
In order to get a more vivid background, the fog setting is down to almost 0.
Outside of the editor, these are the detail settings I use. Although the frame rate on my computer hovers around 10-30 fps, the video recordings turn out perfectly fine! So I keep the poor frame rate in exchange for high quality videos
If anyone has any questions on the skybox - I'll gladly answer