Rendering an interior without having to fix over-exposed windows in comp

[atrask@hksinc.com]

I want to render an interior with proper exposure settings, without having to fix the over-exposed windows in comp (camera original exposure):



For instance, I want everything outside the windows to be at this exposure (camera exposure lowered in this example):


Darkening the window refraction fixes the over-exposed outside, but it also darkens the indirect light and reflections in the interior (camera at original exposure):


The closest solution I've found is putting the a lowered output of the vraysky map into the window glass environmment slot (camera at original exposure):

This allows all the indirect light to behave correctly, but now the issue is the interior's material reflections aren't reacting properly to the outside.

Has anyone found a solution for this problem right in the frame buffer without having to resort to compositing?

Thinking out loud, it seems like the camera needs to lower the exposure of the window material *after* all the scene calculations have been made. Do any camera shaders like that exist?

I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on this.

Thanks for your time!

[Morne]

There are various ways to get around this, pick from below options, or do a combination of these:

Treat it like any real world physical photo shoot

1) Either comp it (which you said you dont want)

or

2) Or add fill lights in the interior like they would do in a professional shoot. This will increase interior brightness, while bringing the interior and exterior exposure slightly closer together (some comping may still be required

or

3) Add a cheap flash on your camera (stick a single vray plane light behind your cam, aimed in same direction as the cam


Option 2 will give you better milage

Tone mapping your image will also help. Stick a LUT into the VFB and/or play with the adjustments.

[Vizioen]

Well it's going to look weird because of the different exposures, but to each its own. You can try adding a crytopmatte / multimat mask in the VFB if you have Vray 5.1, and lower the exposure there.

[3dwolf]

In the VRay-object-properties you could hide the darkened window glass for GI.