Grainy Render - Longer Time or More Light or...?

ebonartgallery

I have this scene running at 2 hours, but it's still grainy especially on the skin. Is the best solution to (1) leave it running longer (2) add more lighting, or (3) something else? I really don't want to up the lighting much more because I like that 'hospital ambiance' of lit spaces contrasting with darker un-used space.

Computer: 4gb memory, GeForce GTX 960.

Scene: I have a scene set in the Psi Medbay - I've taken some of the mesh lights present in the scene and changed the luminance units to brighten things up a bit, but I still want that feel of indirect lighting and some visible spots of dark and light in the pictures.

I'm also working my way though the 'iray for newbies' thread to see if there are major tips I might have missed, as well.

Richard Haseltine

You can try adding more light and then using the Tone Mapping settings to conceal that. You might also try replacing the emissive surfaces with lights with a shape to match them or with single polygon planes placed to cover the light surfaces - it looks as if there are a fair number of polygons per light surface now, and that will slow things down as each acts as a separate source of rays.

ebonartgallery

Richard Haseltine said:

You can try adding more light and then using the Tone Mapping settings to conceal that. You might also try replacing the emissive surfaces with lights with a shape to match them or with single polygon planes placed to cover the light surfaces - it looks as if there are a fair number of polygons per light surface now, and that will slow things down as each acts as a separate source of rays.

How would I use Tone Mapping to conceal that? UP the F-stop time to lower the light level?

 

BTW this is the kind of thing I'm seeing, now"