Interior lighting for Exterior Renders and Reflections

[JGallagher]

Hello, there are two things I'm struggling with.

One of them is adding interior lights to an exterior render. Is there a good way to do it quickly? I place lights in each room and it is tedious. Any tricks up your sleeves? I have a huge building to render with 100+ exterior windows.

Secondly, how do you guy deal with reflections from behind the camera on a large exterior scene? I'm working on a large building (see attached) and I would prefer not to have to model an entire scene behind the camera to have nice reflections. Using an HDRI helps but I really like using the new Corona sky and clouds.



Thanks for the help!

[TomG]

You can use the visibility overrides, put an HDRI into the Reflection override. That way it shows up in the reflections of the windows (and any other reflections that would normally reflect that sky), but does not replace or add to the lighting, nor change the direct view of the sky.

If the rooms are regularly spaced, I'd suggest using an array, or a scatter using the regular repeats rather than randomization as the quick way to place a light in every room.

[mferster]

Do you want it to actually light the interiors so you can see inside? Or do you just want something visible behind the glass that looks like lights, but can't tell what it is to drive interest?

If its the latter I would set up planes as corona light material with a texture something like this and emit light turned off. : https://www.textures.com/download/Shops0135/20991