> Many thanks for the feedback, cheers! =)
>
> I looked at the radiosity values again, and tried once more with error_bound
> increased from 0.05 to 1.8, I raised count from 150 to 200 though and also had
> low_error_factor 0.6 added in there to see what happens. In camera I reduced
> aperture from 0.35 to 0.25 just to finetune it a bit more. The result however
> didn't differ that much from the first one as the changes were so minor
> afterall. The render time was 06h 53m 56s so only a tad less.
>
> I looked at the rad_def.inc as well and tried some of the alternatives, but in
> the end I think my own settings made the scene more to my own liking.
>
> Changes that I'd still like to try for slight quality tunings would probably
> take me back to the good ol' 386/486 days for the rendering times, hehe. So I
> think I'll just have to upgrade my computer at some point now. :D
>

In some cases, you can gain some rendering time when using subsurface: 
In the global_settings, have subsurface{samples 25 25 radiosity on}
With low translucency, you may possibly go even lower. Using lower 
values and high translucency can result in some interesting effects 
around highlights, like a nice star shape...

low_error_factor default value is 0.5. In my opinion, you should not set 
it higher than that, especialy when you have a multicores CPU.

For your area_light, at 3 by 3, adaptive 1 don't have any effect as it 
start sampling at that value. Start with adaptive 0 and use a denser 
aray, like 9 by 9 or 17 by 17. Only increase adaptive if you get shadoe 
artefacts.
adaptive 0 start with a 2 by 2 aray.
adaptive 1 start with a 3 by 3 aray.
adaptive 2 start with a 5 by 5 aray.
To have some notable gain, you should use values that are at least 2 
steps larger for the lightlets aray.

A low density area_light with jitter and antialiasing can be very slow 
by forcing antialiasing for every pixel in the penumbra.
In this case, i'm not sure that the area_light is usefull at all. Try 
using a simple point light.



Alain

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