Is there a way to set the Diffuse Bounces per Object ?
For example:
The complete Scene should be rendered with 4 Diffuse Bounces, but one Object should have 12 Diffuse Bounces (in my case it’s a Carpet made of Hair Particlesystem which gets to dark when Diffuse Bounces set to 4).
Render with 12 Diffuse Bounces. For materials that doesn’t need it you need to add a node group that limits the amount of bounces.
In the test below with an enclosed space relying on indirect lighting, I’m going from 44.19s to 19.63s for 128 samples. The savings are a lot less for open space rendering where direct light is more prominent.
This is the material set I use when I need to lower the diffuse bounces for some materials - replacing diffuse with an AO shader: