It starts to look like the 0 and 0 solution earlier, where the small shadows dissappeared.

Minrad = 15
Maxrad = 0

Finalgather rays = 1000

The raised maxrad setting is showed here.

Minrad = 0
Maxrad = 15

Finalgather rays = 1000

Well after turning the maxrad up to 50, I cannot see any major degrading.

Minrad = 0
Maxrad = 50

Finalgather rays = 1000

Minrad = 0.1
Maxrad = 50

The minrad was decreased even further to 0.01. but I see no change compared to the rendering in the previous post.

Minrad = 0.01
Maxrad = 50

Finalgather rays = 1000

edit:
I wonder what is concidered a decent setting, so that one can simply beef up the number of finalgather rays. Finding an optimal time saving solution, with the radius setting, is quite important I guess.

Next I'll set min rad to a really good number 0.01, which is ten times smaller than the decent number of 0.1 (10% of maxrad), with maxrad at 1 (about 10% of my scene size in "maya units")
Im not completly sure what a maya unit is, but I recon it is meters in my project. The model of mine is about 20-30 meters wide out to the edges, but the "main" model is only about 10 meters wide, so I'll set the maxrad to 1 next.

I'll decrease the maxrad to a number where I cannot see any improvement, and then increase the final gather ray count from 1000 and upwards .

Well, it looks better!

Minrad = 0.01
Maxrad = 1

Minrad = 0.1
Maxrad = 1

Finalgather rays = 1000

Minrad = 0.2
Maxrad = 1

Finalgather rays = 1000

Minrad = 0.2
Maxrad = 2

Finalgather rays = 1000

Minrad = 0.4
Maxrad = 2

Finalgather rays = 1000

Minrad = 1
Maxrad = 2

Finalgather rays = 1000

Minrad = 1
Maxrad = 2

Finalgather rays = 200
Min Samples = 2
Max Samples = 2

RESULT:
Well, you get to see the railings better with higher sampling. So if you are going to render out smaller pictures, then pushing the sampling up may not be a waste of time. It could be something else if you render out a uxga resolution pic.

really nice efford you puttin' into this undseth..
good work man..

welcome to SM tripNfall.. :p

This is simply FUN after I read about the incandesence trick .

Minrad = 1
Maxrad = 2

Finalgather rays = 10000

Default Production quality:
Min/max sampling 3 and 3.
Triangular filtering, 2 by 2.

RESULT:
I'd be happy with this rendering quality! The jpeg format makes this pic shown here, look worse than it optimally is. I'll try to find the iff format on my hdd.

Great research undseth! Maybe I'll do some playin'

Darkon

---

Red bellows of flame have blackened my stones
Convulsing my frame and cracking my bones
Hell's dragons of steel who roar in their chains
Crawl into my caves to suck out my veins.....

-The Mountain P.F.M.