How to get even, bright lighting without blown out spots? Examples included.

[joadhughes]

I've been working in VRay for nearly two years and I would consider myself a decent artist. My materials and texturing is good but my lighting has always lacked. I'm having trouble achieving well lit interior rooms, with nice contrast and colours, but I always end up with overexposed spots and the rest of the room being, just okay.

 

I want my renders to look more like these:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/2017/02/vemdalen-kitchen

http://www.cgarchitect.com/2017/02/creative-city---neu-marx7

http://www.cgarchitect.com/2017/02/creative-city---neu-marx8

http://www.cgarchitect.com/2017/03/bankside-flat---2

 

Maybe it is just because I know that my images are just renders, but I always feel like they don't like right, they look 3d. They never have that realistic, photographic quality that I see from professionals. I am very critical of myself, I don't ever love what I end up making, but I want to improve myself a lot this year.

 

Any tips? Anything I should be doing in VRay? I see people using HDRi's and getting great results, but mine don't turn out that nice. My raw renders always need a lot of work, because the lighting is never as even as I want, but I've seen other peoples unedited work and the render is almost good enough to publish as is.

 

Sorry if that felt like I was ranting, I just really want to get better, I want to be the best I possibly can be, especially if I am going to be doing this professionally. Thanks for any help

[Chris MacDonald]

Most of those look like a plain white domelight - or a very overcast HDRI at best. Really nothing fancy going on.

 

Don't be afraid to over expose the exterior/windows - far too many people try to expose for the exterior and they end up with completely under exposed images.

[Sho-Time1]

I agree with Chris. Don't be afraid to over expose. The color correction and highlight burn tool in the vray frame buffer are your friends. Some people use color mapping Reinhard and then adjust the burn value. But that's not the correct way so forget I mentioned that he he. PG skies has some good overcast if your looking to buy HDRI.. feel free to post any works that you have for better critique...