Radiosity renders differently with same settings

[SJS]

I have a room setup with lighting washing on the walls like track lights.

I have cameras placed inside the room, and outside looking into the entries.

I am rendering with custom radiosity using no ambient lighting and auto exposure along with 50% energy on the options. All the cameras are duplicates.

The renders of the cameras looking in the room look really nice and natural. Any camera that is in the room renders contrasty with no ambient light, and the light on the wall is overexposed.

The only setting I have found that makes all renders consistent is turning off auto exposure. But I would rather not use any ambient light, because this tends to flatten the scene out.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Dave Donley]

Hello Steve:

Your radiosity energy is set to 11%, increasing this will bounce the light around more to reach the corners. Here is the same file with radiosity energy set to 50%:

Edited February 5, 2009 by Dave Donley

[Dave Donley]

Here it is with the final gather settings at 1" and 50%, the file's values of 5' and 3% are giving you smooth results, but a bit too smooth - meaning the corners are lacking detail.

Edited February 5, 2009 by Dave Donley

[SJS]

I did bump up the radiosity as well with poor results and messed with final gather, well all the settings in radiosity for that matter with no acceptable results. The file I sent you had the lower setting I tried. In your examples the lighting is still blown out, and neither of your examples resemble my "picture 2". Neither does this explain why a camera in the room renders completely different from a render outside looking in. Would you agree?

I appreciate your help, but I still believe my problem is not resolved.