How to properly light a scene that's both indoors and outdoors

Question

I'm creating an architectural rendering and I would like the inside of the house to be visible, yet, I want the windows to be closed because that's what I was asked. The problem is, with Sun strength set to 5 the insides look very dark if seen from the outside (see swimming pool area). If I want the inside to be illuminated like in the first picture, I have to set the sun strength lamp to 20. The lamps on the inside have not been touched between renderings, but they don't seem to be enough.

I have clamp direct set to 0 and clamp indirect set to 4. 2000 samples. Filter Glossy set to 1 The glass material is set like picture number 4 Background (enviroment) has a strenght of 1.2

Is there a way to achieve the same light from the inside and the outise in just one rendering?

(Also any advice on how to make the sky look better is higly appreciated)

This is also an issue with real world photography exposure. Either match indoor and outdoor lighting strength by pumping up interior lampas, and toning down the sun light, or render to a high bit depth and fix it in post production — Duarte Farrajota Ramos, Dec 23 '17 at 11:56
you can animate exposure as well, on most places you can press i to animate something. — user613326, Dec 23 '17 at 14:30
@DuarteFarrajotaRamos which lamp do you suggest I use inside for brightening the whole room equally and not make it look too artificial? — Christian Triolo, Dec 23 '17 at 14:36
Use the filmic blender color transforms. Read: Render with a wider dynamic range in cycles to produce photorealistic looking images — , Dec 23 '17 at 16:52
I would not artificially brighten the interiors, unless utterly needed. Just use the existing lights. If you really must use large area lights to avoid too much noise. You can also override light decay to be linear, generally brightening the scene, at the expense of realism — Duarte Farrajota Ramos, Dec 23 '17 at 17:18

score 3 · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-23T17:45:55.210

On a bright sunny day, the exterior will always be much brighter than indoors by several magnitudes. In the real world, photographers deal with this by adding and hiding light sources and making the interiors brighter until they get an image with a dynamic range that is within the limitations of the imaging device and the artistic intentions they are after.

There is no reason why you couldn't do the same, with the added bonus that in 3D rendering you can create light suorces that are invisible to the camera...

Create light sources the size of the windows and place them in a way that they don't block the incoming light, but suplement it. That way you'd still feel that the light is coming from outside the window, but in reality is coming from a light source inside the room. It is very important that you do not try to make the interiors as bright as the exteriors, it would break the illusion of realism. When you are indoors the exterior should feel a bit brighter and when looking at things from the outside the interior would be a somehow shaded (why would you want to buy a house that offers no escape from the intense sun light?)

A very important step towards realism is to create your scene with a much wider dynamic range, so that you can still keep values that are like those in the real world. But the trick is in how those values get displayed in the final image. The default sRGB color transforms for blender will severely limit the way light values can be displayed, try using the Filmic BLender transforms.

Was kinda working on that after reading various answers around. Will try the Filmic Blender. Will add light sources and try to fix it a little. Realism is not actually the main problem here, the problem is to make it as clear as possible, and I felt that seeing such a dark interior was not a good thing when trying to sell a property.
I will make the interiors less bright than the exteriors. Thank you all for your help! — Christian Triolo, Dec 23 '17 at 17:44

How to properly light a scene that's both indoors and outdoors

1 Answers1

Linked