This is (most likely) final render quality
Added 2018-01-07 04:29:01 +0000 UTCI was really struggling with this new version of Lightwave because while it looked beautiful, it was taking forever to render. I just found the one setting that was causing me all the problem: Ray Recursion Limit. I set it to 1 and this entire shot rendered in 4 minutes. That means the entire 5000+ frame animation will probably take ~13 days to render. If I lower the resolution down to the older format of 854x480 I could probably shave off 3 days.
Before I found the Ray Recursion Limit solution it would have taken at least three months (!!) of solid rendering. It looks even more lovely with Ray Recursion set to 2 or more because that means the light is bouncing around the room.
Having said that, I think what we have here is a substantial improvement over the look of previous animations. It's just not as good as the engine is capable of rendering. So if I bought a super fast graphics card and Octane software we could have our cake and eat it too. But until I have an extra grand burning a hole in my pocket this is what we have to work with.
