Quote - Sam,
I've heard a lot of people do that ... I'm just concerned about losing shadows from one render to the next so they don't flow.  Do you have a solution for htat?
Boni

 

It's dead easy if you use a bit of thought to how and what you remove.  

This scene, for example, rolled over and died with everything in.  I then split it into three, removing the human figure and all his armour and weapon for one render, plus some of the props.  The second render has the human figure, the third has the additional props.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1497637&member

I generally remove figures in their entirety, clothes, accessories and everything.  That way, you'll get continuity of shadows when you replace them.

A variant is to also render the figures without any scenery, textures or lights after everything else, so you can use the result as a mask when compositing, in order to make cutting out figures from the background much easier.  I sometimes use this technique if I have a lot of reflections in an outdoor scene.

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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