Render interior

[Anonymous]

As you can see in the picture I am trying to render an interior from the exterior trough a curtain wall.
I want to have the more depth of field to see the whole interior that is quite transparent, made most of them with curtains walls. I set up some general lights next to the inner ceiling but the result it is quite dark.
I am rendering without GI for texting. The speed shutter is 1/125 the opening is 5,6 and the ISO is 200.
Ray threshold is 5, Ray depth is 12 and Reflaction depth is 12.

What I can do for having nice interiors with high depth of field.

[Erwin Edel]

I think HDRI can be used for two things: background and illumination. You can use both, but also use just one of them.

I gave up finding something that suited conditions for Netherlands for background and I never could get the hang of lighting with it, but maybe someone else can help out there.

I'm quite happy with physical sky presets to get a nice cloudy look (as shown in my sample image).

[Anonymous]

Some thing happen to me, never find a HDRI that works find.

Here are my results with the previous scene and an HDRI I found.

I think it is much better than the previous one, but still the interior is too dark. If I increase the ISO I got both exterior and interior too dark. Is there a way that I get lighter interiors without adding any interior light.

[Erwin Edel]

Have you tried using the one general light that I suggested? It can evenly light up the interior a little bit, without having to go through the trouble of setting up a whole lighting plan.

There is a slight noticable orb of light where you place it, but beyond that it is evenly lit. So with some smart placement, you can light up interior quite easily.

[Anonymous]

This my final result with interior lighting. But still have 1 questions, the column pointed should be transparent to allow to see what is behind. I would like to make more obvious his edges without increasing reflexion. How can I do it?
Any other comment are welcome

[Erwin Edel]

What I do to make edges more obvious, is make a sketch render (remember to tick 'transparancy') and overlay it in photoshop.

I use the colour image to give the sketch lines colour (white or very light colours will keep the lines black, more saturated colours will gives the lines some colour) and then use a multiply and 50% transparancy to give subtle lines.

It makes the images a bit more illustrative (if that's even a word). Again, see my sample image before.

A trick I do to avoid having a sketch horizon line, is hide the terrain and clip the model at terrain level.