Hi guys,
waht is the best material to use for cove lighting? fast, noise and splotch free.
/Ryan
where are the good people in this forum?? 
Just use some rectangular vray lights pointing up, and make sure your GI settings are decent enough to avoid splotches. If you get a lot of noise, increase the subdivisions in your Vray lights. To speed up rendering time you can turn on ‘store with irradience map’ but that will not give you as nice of a lighting solution. However, it may be good enough for this type of application.