Fight Sky/Ceiling/Window Blowout 4 Interior Mall

[Morne]

Hi all

So tight deadline and little sleep over past few days. Can't think straight anymore to fix this simple issue.

I have a large double volume interior mall court area with small windows on top surrounding the ceiling and also a door entrance on both levels. Shops everywhere else.

I've gone the override route and checked all and interior lighting is perfect(ish). Except for exterior sky obviously blown out and bleeding the "living daylight" out of my ceiling!
I've set my VRayCam EV value to around 10 (iso 100 shutter 1/30 f

My sky floating values out the window reads between 4 and 10. I've tried putting the VRaySky just in environment slot, but ended up sticking into dome light.
Ceiling boards and in general all white in scene is RGB 220,220,220 with full white reflection frensel ticked glossy 0.65 subs 128. Perfect

How can I leave the current lighting as is without messing with the brightness, but at the same time get less of a nuclear BURN on my ceiling close to the windows. It's so bad that you can't see where the ceiling ends and the windows begin.
If I go for higher EV on cam then obviously ceiling by windows looks good and outside looks better, but more inward ceiling and rest of stuff becomes WAY too dark.

I've thought reinhard na dmaybe burn of 0.5, but my head hurts already just thinking about this and I'm ready to fall asleep right here.......

ANY comments or suggestions before I totally mess up my scene?

Here's a cropped render with low settings:



This is a very tight crop and the rest of the place is MUCH larger and "perfect" lighting

Mall is mainly lit with cove lighting and light spilling in from the shops. Here and there I have some fill lights to brighten darker areas.

[tricky]

Cheat it by rendering to EXR and blending one exposure with another of the same render perhaps?

I've sometimes found myself in a similar situation where I have the 'balance' of lighting wrong. I think the ideal approach is to start with just the vray sky/sun and no other lights and get the exposure about right for the areas near the windows. Then slowly build up the additional lights for the interior, always balancing with the vraysky exposure. Not a quick solution though.

[3DMK]

what is your colour mapping type???
Try exponential as that will dull down the blowouts
Hope this helps

[Morne]

Yes I always render linear. Thinking of just adjusting the levels in PS. doing a quick test now.

If that doesnt work will just use my mask for the white stuff and jippo it that way

EDIT: made the roof on the outside below the windows pure black 0,0,0 and that did wonders to eliminate the burn

[tricky]

I remember before the days of vray when we had to use 'negative fill lights' to suck hot spots out of a render. What fun that was.

[Morne]

Hmm ok pure black isnt the best idea either. Now the edge of ceiling seems a bit darker almost like weird shadow. I think 5,5,5 or maybe 15,15,15 will be perfect!