Hi Scott, if all you want to do is render out a room of whiteness with nice shading to show form, there are a few ways to do this. Below are the three I know of listed in order of hassle and render time. Maya7 only hypershade> create mentalray node> texture tab> mid_amb_occlusion> hook this node up to the ambient channel…
http://www.impresszio.hu/szabolcs/MentalRay/DirtmapMayaFiles.htm http://www.impresszio.hu/szabolcs/Download/Dirtmap1.2mayaFiles.zip You shouldn't need any lights. Unless you want harder edged shadows. Apply this to all the ambient nodes of your scene materials.