[Half Life]

You can also use "hide from reflections" to keep the black planes from being a problem.

Best,
Jason.

[Mihai]

A black surface positioned behind the camera to absorb some of the light WOULD alter the look of the render because it WOULD be reflected in the polished surfaces of the lobby (marble floor, floor to ceiling glass windows, metal trim etc.)

It wouldn't alter the look just because these surfaces would be seen reflected in other surfaces (which can be easily taken care of as Jason mentions), but also that it would affect how much light they reflect back into the scene. Usually these very subtle lighting variations are what make an interior render look realistic, and why Maxwell doesn't take shortcuts to save on render time. Sometimes there are just not so many optimisations you can do, and you have to just wait for the render to finish If you want to hide a wall behind the camera to make the lighting situation a little easier you can do that, in some cases it can look fine. Take for example photos of furniture in a "room", in a real world studio that room probably only has walls facing the camera and perhaps half a ceiling. It can still look ok, but you won't get the same lighting as if it was a complete room. So it depends on what you're trying to achieve with the render. If it's ment to show pretty accurately what the lighting will be in a space then you have to model it real, use realistic emitter values and camera exposure values.

[zdeno]

It wouldn't alter the look just because these surfaces would be seen reflected in other surfaces (which can be easily taken care of as Jason mentions), but also that it would affect how much light they reflect back into the scene. Usually these very subtle lighting variations are what make an interior render look realistic, and why Maxwell doesn't take shortcuts to save on render time. Sometimes there are just not so many optimisations you can do, and you have to just wait for the render to finish If you want to hide a wall behind the camera to make the lighting situation a little easier you can do that, in some cases it can look fine. Take for example photos of furniture in a "room", in a real world studio that room probably only has walls facing the camera and perhaps half a ceiling. It can still look ok, but you won't get the same lighting as if it was a complete room. So it depends on what you're trying to achieve with the render. If it's ment to show pretty accurately what the lighting will be in a space then you have to model it real, use realistic emitter values and camera exposure values.

AMEN pure true