WIP - Balancing exposure on sunlit building tops in exterior renders — feedback

[sandmg]

Hi everyone, my name is Sandro and I’m from Argentina.
I’m sharing a preview of the image I’m working on, and I have a recurring question when creating exterior renders: how can I keep the top of the building properly exposed when it’s directly lit by the sun, while maintaining correct exposure in the lower part of the image?
Also, what else would you improve in the image? Any tips on lighting, materials, or post-production are welcome.

[maru]

Perhaps you could try adjusting your settings to match a reference photo/render?

[sandmg]

This is my reference image; despite my efforts, I can’t keep the upper part from overexposing.

[TomG]

Shadows are (as I would have expected) much deeper on the reference image, so an overall turning down of the exposure value will both reduce the exposure on highlights and deepen the shadows. Materials in your reference image are much darker, in your image they appear to be pure white, so I'd also adjust the material to be much more toward a mid-grey. As well as adding a texture for the material, as that adds more visual interest and probably further darkens the material on the walls with darker areas and lines.

Also, enabling the ACES OT tone mapping if it is not enabled, and applying a LUT, could yield some interesting effects to the overall look :)