What affects Particle Tracing processing times?
When running PT, the system decomposes the model into triangles (in memory), onto which particle hit points are recorded. The time needed to mesh each of these triangles is directly related to the number of hit points on it. So, the more hit points it has, the longer it takes to mesh. There are several areas that should be watched in order to speed up the meshing: Materials Do not make materials overly reflective. In nature, very few materials reflect more than 70 or 80% the light they receive. This applies to textures as well as base colors. When creating a material definition, the Specular setting is used for both specular reflection (in conjunction with the Reflect setting) and for specular highlights (in conjunction with the Finish setting). Even a small amount is enough to slow down the calculations. The number of light sources and number of area light samples also can affect Specular material calculations. Similarly, turning on Anti-aliasing will further complicate the processing
