Quote - With IDL you don't need AO. You must have the IDL parameters messed up. IDL includes contact shadows.

Oh, right.  AO is just a way to fake IDL, and AO nodes aren't compatible with IDL anyway.

After following another thread of your's from a couple years ago - I was trying to figure out how remove nostril glow as well - I finally discovered why I wasn't getting any contact shadows even with IDL enabled.  The shadow map on my main light was set at the default 256 with a Min Shadow Bias of .8.  I had no idea what either of them were or what they controlled, so I never bothered with them.   Once I set my shadow map to 1000 and the bias at .1, I got contact shadows and eliminated my character's nostril glow.

:)