Blender Optimization - Beware of Square Samples
There is a sneaky render setting in Blender (using Cycles) that can increase your render time by 128x (or more) with a single click. It's called "Square Samples" and if you're not familiar with what this setting is doing, you might be in for a bad time!
Check the article I wrote about this: https://blendergrid.com/learn/article...