DR Animation Speed Hacks

[jujubee]

I tried to read up on this forum about speeding up rendering times within animations. There'a alot to read and it can be quite daunting.

This is one of my first times using this program to attempt a simple animation. I have a highly reflective character that moves around a little. An HDRI map as my light source. I'm using 3 computers with Distributed Rendering. I have the max scene set to:

Antialiasing Sharp Quadratic.
Simple Two Level Default.
GI Reflect/Refract checked. -2/0 from Irradiance Map. All else default.
And Lastly Bucket Mode.

All else is factory settings. The animation is 251 at 30 fps. It's running at about 3:30 per frame - Max says I have 14:16:02 left. It's 640x480. What can I do to speed this animation up while retaining quality? I'd try Rosenman's Irradiance Map technique but my character is highly reflective. Plus I really don't have much geometry in the background- just a plane. Anyone out there that can suggest some ideas or would be kind enough to share their magic bullet settings?

-jujubee

[losbellos]

can you give a shoot of it?
If your character highly reflective then you dont need much care about gi, especially if there are just planes around... se how low you can get without artifacts. I think -4/-3 clould do it. If you need shadows better to get from light source not from Indirect illum. You need just to set the multipliers that both will give good result. Also dont forget that u can use the HDRI map in the vray reflection slot. (if the hdri map multiplier fo gi needs to take down too much because of the light)

[jujubee]

I really like the effect of the GI and really don't want to toss it. I could try to set the min/max rates down a little lower before obtaining artifacts. The HDRI is already in the vray environment settings.

[losbellos]

gi on what? As you says your character is HIGHLY refletcive... So gi doesnt makes much sense on it. The second thing what you write planes. So...
thats it what I can help, sorry.