Its in the lighting when I started my renders took 3 days now its mostly 1/2 to 6 hours mostly in between.. Im just amazed you are getting characters to work with SLG i could not get good textures.  If you are going to take that long i suggest using full LUX. Thanks for the tut BTW when I tried gen X it looked like crap..

 

I dont find hide body patrs do that much if you are going to use alot of lights its going to take long I have had renders with a few mesh lights with 3 characters take an hour nothing hidden.. Whereas some with everything hidden still took 2 1/2 days with alot of converted lights with a starship enterprise bridge... I ran the same render without all the light conversion for the hack of it and it would of taken less then 2 hours...

 

Please note I have been at this since late feb...