I would imagine in a production environment, you have a network. So network rendering to the rescue. I have a slow machine so everything is slow for me, but I manage to do my Bryce renders mostly in under an hour. I even did an 800x600 indoor scene with soft shadows that only took 4 hours. If you are in a situation where time really really counts you use tricks. If it's your own artwork then speed is only a convenience not a necessity. Spit