RE:NIGEL GORE Architectual Visualisation

I can't take credit for this post, as it is from my mate Nick. I am not really a big knowledge on Metal ray or GI lighting, but he is. He also suggested researching lighting baking for your particular software as there is no point calculating every frame. Another friend (Philip) also pointed out that using a gaussian filter will be more forgiving (and simulate the softer edges as in photographs) ... compared with the mitchell filter which will give you sharper edges (which can be CG looking). Hope you found my last comment, I am only posting a new post when I think it is relevant for everyone to read. Pass you over to Nick.
Cheers Nick...

Best interior GI lighting forum ive read (with a mental ray focus), I
think somewhere in the 153 pages some one has made a summery of the key
points.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=87&t=190232&highlight=maxwell


And a few tips for achticture shading in mental ray:

Overview of the ach shaders in mental ray:
http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2009help/mr/shaders/architectural/architectural.html

MIA overview (Mental Images Architectural shader)
http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2009help/mr/shaders/architectural/arch_mtl.html#What_is_the_%3Cdfn%3Emia_material%3C/dfn%3E_?

A good overview of sky/sun simulation and using light portals to get
good interiors (bottom bits particularly good):
http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2009help/mr/shaders/architectural/arch_sunsky.html


And a bit on tone mapping (basically linear stuff in mental ray,
interiors always look a bit to dark using GI unless you do a bit of
gamma correction)
http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2009help/mr/shaders/architectural/arch_camera.html

And while I'm at it, good tute on lighting interiors (just theory):
http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/light04.htm

Get him to read ALL of this before he continues :)

Nick