Grrr. I'm seeing a new kind of artifact. We're rid of the splotchies, but look at the bottom of the big ball. There is a hard transition in luminance from one band to another. The assignment of samples to the ball is too sparse, even though I've made adjustments trying to get them more frequent.

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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)