More "even" direct light for difficult geometry?

[skogzort]

Does anyone know of any way to get more even direct lighting for difficult geometry like this? Mostly I would just like to darken the burnt out faces. It's outdoor lighting with one Max direct light for Sun and Vray Skylight. I'm using IRmap for the first bounce and QMC for second. Currently I lowered the multiplier on the direct light as much as I can with out major change to the lighting of the rest of the objects in the scene. I have also detached the burnt out faces to a separate object and lowered their Vray GI properties, but this does not make a lot of difference because the problem is coming from the direct light and not the GI. Does Vray have anything like the Light Painter utility in Max? or is there any way to handle this at the material level? I'm using all Vray Materials in my scene. Would a Vray light work better for exterior sun than a Max direct light? I will experiment some more, but I thought I would put this out here in case I'm missing something obvious.

Thanks much for any help/info/opinions

[TRGraphics]

I would try HSV Exponential color mapping. That will even out the lighting.

Tony

[natty]

You could also try the new Gamma, @ 0.6, 0.6 .. ive had some pretty good results with that.