Attached Link: http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1076724&member

Thanks guys! It's been quite a while since I started this thread. I was surprised to see new posts in it. Looks like most of the questions were answered. Thanks BH for dropping good info here. It is apples and oranges, though. These settings (original post) were never meant for a closeup. Your render times prove my original point, btw. My render attached;

This render make  your point. Maxed out textures, render settings and light settings. Render time 8-9hrs. Looks better. No doubt about it. These are "final" settings.

I'll try to tidy up those light setting numbers for you Sealtm2...I'm still cannot access my P6.
When I wrote this thread, it was during a long fight with an ailing pc that would not allow me to render with the settings I wanted. If I wanted to post a decent render, I literally had to "find" the way to make it happen. My new pc will allow me the luxury of not having to deal with a lot of this. I think, though, that it is still useful in getting a maxed out scene to render and/ or if you have an old pc.

I refer to the 2nd post by kuroyume0161 and his "draconian" take on how big a texture resolution has to be when occupying a 512x512 space. This sums up (in a lot less words lol) my take on the use of texture reductions.

It started for me when V3 was released and some were trying to see how many could be rendered in one scene. Something became apparent early on. As you added more figures to your scene, your camera had to back off to see them. As your camera backed off, the resourses required decreased and so, hi res requirements decreased as well. Low res skins could then be used (no difference from that distance) and a few more V3s added...

It takes more power to render a closeup of a head with hi res texture and hair than it does to render 3 hi res figures at a few paces. Why? More of that hires texture fills the screen with the closeup. The shading rate has to be lowered to deal with the hair artifacting and detail.

With a closeup, you have to use max settings for realism. The max texture has to be 4096. The shading rate has to be low. Btw, Each point drop on the shading rate (1.00-0.00) requires firefly to make 100micropixel calculations for each pixel. So, if you ever wonder why things don't seem to be moving, check your shading rate first. Pixel samples have to increase with distance (figure to camera), oddly enough to escape artifacting (jagged edges). Closer you are, less you need.

Sorry Fox! You wanna closeup render? Prepare to suffer.... LOL

Hope this is still useful and gets you a render.