Mental Ray lighting Tips ?

[snowclouds]

Hi all,

So far my skills in MR lighting I can archive pretty realistic indoor lighting + shadow (soft+hard) + ambiance through using daylight system in combination with MR sky portal and final gathering and other photometric light emplacements... but the problems is, my final gather is ultra-precise and i really want it to keep it the way it is.

so, are there some good tips on how to work it around so I can get a good <1 min render time w/ probably the same quality on mr? because currently i have a horrible wait of 16 min/frame...

I'm going to animate but i really don't want to go back to unrealistic raytraced shadows and cartoonish results... tips?

[snowclouds]

omg... help?! - I know at least some of you use mental ray one way or the other. just some advice... please and thx