Lighting

The lighting took forever to get right for this scene, with so many interior lights I had to find a way to make limit the shadows caused by them. Otherwise all objects in the scene would have 7 different shadows. I found a way eventually, but here is a screenshot the scene before lighting:

1) I first added a spotlight through the window to cast a faded shadow of the window's cross-hatched frame. The spotlight is high up and faded because its near midday in the scene (these are all rendered in mental ray):

2) Next I added an area light casting from the wall with the window on it. The spotlight is just for the window's shadow but realistically there needs to be bounce light too:

3) Then it was the interior lights turn. The way I stop them from causing too many shadows was to make the light set to 'linear' decay, so it faded out quickly before effecting the rest of the scene. I also added a glow to the lambert of the bulb the light was in:

4) I then added another area light coming from the ceiling to give the room an orange glow of bounce light from the interior lights:

5) I then finally added an extra area light coming from the ceiling for the bar coming from a suspended, long, rectangular light above the bar:

This lighting is incredibly dim but this is the way its described in the story. "A ray of sunshine never visits this apartment any more than the glare of the festal torches..." I quote from the story.