Creating the outside environment

To create the outside environment, I first tried to apply textures on a plane and place them just outside the window. This worked for the window behind the bed but did not work with the window to the side.This was because the direction of the light outside was at a different angle from the side window so it did not light up properly. Other lights placed next to the plane did not work either as the skylight was too powerful outside the room and made the other lights obsolete.

Then I tried to use an environmental map with an image of the skies. This however, did not work with our scene. It was not visible what so ever. So then i decided to try another method. Where a Dome is built around the room using a large sphere. The texture is applied to the dome and you should be able to see the dome outside the window. This however did not work either as the dome covered the global illuminations and caused the scene to be rendered black (no light). So i decided to test it by cutting off the top of the dome so it was like a ring around the room as can be seen below. This worked perfectly.