Short post update:
Was testing some post-production stuff using LUTs, testing out ArionFx (some cool stuff, but I'll stay with VFB+, even though the glare seems more advanced).
Did 3 new pics in my test project (during single Thursday night): (I am updating them on website :
http://talcikdemovicova.com/house-ipes/ ). Now I'll move finally into dusk mood with tons of artificial light.
I wish I could post our commercial projects, but we have such NDAs that I would be homeless overnight : / So... Sometimes in September/October.
If you wonder, how I got clean DOF, I didn't :- ) Not even after 2000 passes :- D (Default 16/2 !!!) I simply used denoised 100perc. version overlayed using Z-Depth mask, so only the DOF in the background is denoised, but nothing else.
I often use z-depth for masking exposure, or color balance, but this worked too.
Post-production step: VFB+ (Filmic mapping, Bloom/Glare, LUT), then Photoshop CameraRaw.
Someone asked about the white paint, it's all about the textures. The base I bought from
http://www.extremetextures.com/ The rest is 1.4 IOR and 0.7 Specular, because of the wrong fresnel. In fully functioning PBR shader, it would be 1.52 and 1.0. The variance is only though (roughness) glossiness map.
Actually, I have issue with this (and few other) scene, the GI on the ceiling is absurdly noisy. It's not the material, even if I put 128GB diffuse it's still noisy. Rays/sample are only 26 +/- so this isn't complicated project.
Adaptivity does surprisingly almost nothing, Denoising saves the day (plus 2000 passes !! few hours on my...ehm, 200 threads). So who can guess what I do wrong ? Is it too many high-res textures ? Too many rough materials (everything is specular) ?
Or too much use of 3dsMax composite node ?
Something makes this scene awfully hard to clean out. It's always the ceiling in other scenes too. Sometimes it's backwall. I trace it to some kind of GI+Rough specular occurrence. Something about it can't sample well.
I think I'll render the scene with 128RGB diffuse override, and then 128RGB low-glossy override to see behind. It's not the lights, the noise is the same with single Sun&Sky there.