Rendering help with Twilight/Vray -- Background / Sky issues

Hi - I’m trying to render some models and running into a similar issue in both Vray and Twlight (limited experience with both up until now). When I try to render any kind of sky background, I just get a flat color of a portion of the sky - almost like it’s out of scale with the model?

In Twilight Renderer I’m trying to use the Spherical Sky environment setting, along with images from the Kerkythea resources site (CD Skies), per a SU Essentials tutorial I was following. The preview in the environment settings looks good before I go to render (picture attached).

I’m getting the same issue in Vray. All the tutorials I’ve followed it seems that people get a clear horizon line in their background with the default render settings, and with the domelight added they get a rendered sky texture. I just get a flat color from the background and can pan around to get other colors from the sky, but again it’s a solid color for the entire skybox in my renders.

Any ideas what might be going on? Thanks for any input.

Edit: Apparently I can only post one image per post as a new user. This is from the twilight render.

Here is the environment preview of the sky background before the above render.

I don’t know Twilight, but should an environment map not be a high dynamic image like hdr or exr instead of jpg?

Try using the hemispherical sky & turn off the sun.
You’ll have to adjust the camera settings.