I tried increasing the distance, the number of samples, and decreasing the strength. It's slightly better, but still not right. It's like the strength parameter is doing nothing. The pinky is particularly bad. This render also took super long.

In previous versions, AO strength worked on lights, just not on the AO node. That's why my shader uses a Blender to adjust the strength, instead of directly using the AO node strength parameter.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)