white windows/lamp shades/gamma

[enoonemr]

Hello everyone,
Im trying to setup the lighting for a living room (attached work in progress image)
In the viewport everything looks pretty much ok, I am using max 2009 mental ray with mr photographic control , mr sun mr sky, daylight system, with a mr skyportal for the overall lighting and some photometric free lights and target lights for the interior singular effects.
I would really appreciate advice on:
-I Can't get to manage to get the "sunset" look on the outside.
I've tried all the settings in the photographic control, an I always get white windows. I would like to see some sunset sky and some garden...
-The material of the shades... now I have some photometric points as light sources, and the material is A&D with a diffuse map, 0,1 transparency and 1 translucency weight...they worked, but not with the photographic control, as soon I turned it on the stop glowing...
-I read a tutorial on gamma correction, and this is my first project where I tried. Basically I turned it on (2,2) and (input) gamma 1 (output) gamma 2,2. And for each material with diffuse map I use the gamma/gain utility shader to locally control the gamma per texture map. Everything looks so washed out now!!!
Thank you very much in advance,
Best wishes,

[cogliati]

I believe your problem is not gamma nor exposure, but rather your portal settings. Under the sky portal settings, go to advanced parameters and change the transparency from white to grey and see if this helps. When this setting is left at the default white colour, it makes the windows look blown out. If you were to change it to black you would see that everything outside will be visible.

[siliconbauhaus]

nice tip there mate

[enoonemr]

Thanks you very much cogliati !! it worked wonders! excelent tip!!, I wouldn't have found that one for myself...
BTW Already solved the lamp shades problems too:
With a simple AD material, ussing the same map for the diffuse, translucency and self ilumination (glow)
transparency: 0,25, translucency weight: 1 and selfilumination: 1 unitless.
About, Gamma setting I think is a matter of getting used to the new setting...in any case if someone has an advice it is very appreciate.
Thanks again,

bye
I am attaching a very low res of the updated scene...still work to do but geeting there...

[jaymedia1]

thanks man ! you have solved for me too! nice tip. but this sky portal is not in max 9 so what do you suggest for it ! (texture washout and white windows)
thanks for reply.