For this exercise, we are using Architectural materials exclusively ...

All lighting is photometric.

Indoors we are using the preset lights:

Here is our scene:

This is the scene in standard renderer:

Turn on mental ray:

Turn on advanced lighting

Use this Draft setting:

This is a medium render setting, which takes significantly longer:

Light shades material:

(Note -- set luminance from light does not work in mental ray)

Lights are wall washes, a spot light, and 3 100 watt bulbs in light shades

The track light, with a preset halogen spot light:

The lamp shades, with 100 watt bulbs

Adding a window

Material is all architectural including the glass

If you want the sun to illuminate the scene:

Create planes of outdoor scenes or sky outside the windows, facing inside:

Make sure your walls have 2 sides (use shell)

Add IE sun and IE sky (They can look through the backs of the image planes for the sky and landscape)

Use lume glow material in the diffuse slot:

 

Set to 5.0 or 10.0 or whatever you like for it to be bright enough:

Now let’s set up for the outdoor light to illuminate the indoors through the windows.

Create 2-sided walls so light can only come in through the windows:

Make sure exterior daylight is OFF

The light from the sun is very bright in the room.

Turn ray trace shadows ON for the sun ...

This deepens the shadow tones in the room.

For reference, this shows all indoor lights OFF: