Dynamic Lighting: bright "halo" on ground around player- landscape gets dark beyond "halo"

Dynamic Lighting issue.
getting a bright(er) “halo” on the ground around the camera POV (and player POV when PIE) which also causes the landscape to become dark(er) beyond the “halo” radius (no pic, soz). this is making it impossible to get my ground and road to match (using the same (duplicated) material for each), and when the Dir. Light is rotated the shift in shadows is dramatic and very wrong (see pic).