Any possible way to increase dome light subdivisions when using 0 global subdivisions

[DeadLift315]

Hello,

At work we have been getting great results using Vlado's 0 global subdivision multiplier method when rendering exteriors. We just completed an interior animation using the same approach and ran into one significant issue. The HDRI dome light that is used as the exterior light in the scene was not getting enough lighting subdivisions. This is most noticeable when sunlight is coming through a window and hitting a wall. We were able to trace the problem to the direct lighting by observing the render passes. In a still image there is no issue, but even in a completely static animation (only the camera is dynamic) the hot spot wobbles and deforms. You can see the issue if you look at the small sequence of frames attached with this post.

The way we worked around this was to render patches with the global subdivision multiplier set back to 1 and increased lighting subdivisions on the dome light. This is obviously not ideal. Is there any way to exclude a light or object from the global subdivision multiplier? If not we think it would be a great feature to add in an update.

Thank you for your help!

[joconnell]

Well, Vlado's idea of setting the multiplier to 0 is to kill off any dumb things from user scenes or old stock assets that may have high settings. If you're using scenes you've made yourself from scratch and havent changed any of the default subdivisions, the minimum shade rate will likely overtake the default 8 subdivisions anyway so it won't make much difference. If your max aa is more than 8 it's probably being overtaken by the 6 samples in the shade rate anyway so yuo could likely leave your subdiv multiplier at something like 0.5 so it gives other subdivs soe breathing room, then raise up your dome light til it's clean.