using bump in the shade

[royter]

i am trying to render some wood beams in a room.
i am using a wood texture as the diffuse map for the mia_material plus a bump map.

when rendered outdoor with the direct light hiting it, the wood looks good thanks to the contrats of the bump effect.
http://www.aedii.qc.ca/v2/fichiers/uploads/section_4/expl1.jpg

but when rendered indoor (even with multibounce) the result is "flat"

i don't want to use "displacement", is there way to have a good result like in outdoor (and without increasing the bump level).

[Phil_Wilkinson]

I actually don't think it looks so bad. It is under diffuse lighting so it will naturally look like that. But... what about doing a separate shadow-only pass from a directional light (like the outdoor) to fill out some of the details? Or maybe a contrasty AO pass (after you hide the walls)?

[Puppet]

In your indoor scene your objects are lighten with FG only.
In mental ray 3.5 in 'auto' fg mode (by default) fg ignore bump at all (more faster).
If you want bump take affect to FG you should switch FG mode to '3.4' or 'strick 3.4' ('Use Radius Control' in Maya).

[royter]

i don't understand the meaning of this update.
i'll give the contratsy Ao pass a try.

thanks guys