Thanks to the both of you for answers and updates.

Before you replied, I found a solution (brograph slack)
I switched to DL / GI_DIFFUSE at 3000 samples
It ended up cutting render times in half
Used the camera imager, cranking the hotpixel on camera tag all the way to 0
This gave me firefly free ...

Fireflies.png

Single image: no fireflies (Scatter medium on an environemnt, and a light. )

Multipass: diffuse and light ID have many fireflies

In Octane Setting > Camera Imager > hotpixel removal at .82 (no fireflies at this hotpixel setting)

Enable the scene camera's imager, put the hotpixel ...

In case anyone finds this here is Aoktar's document

download/file.php?id=45828&mode=view

One thing in the FAQ is that my Mac render settings do not contain partial rendering settings section with the update method dropdown (see attached)

My apologies aoktar. You do great work.

Looks like it's due to geometry engine.

Resend only updated objects looks right

Resend all scene data produces the much darker image

I am running into a problem where my scene lit entirely of emissive textures looks great in the liver viewer, and much darker in the picture viewer.

I know I can change that in post, but I'm wondering if I could get what's in the live viewer into the picture viewer to be exactly the same.

Thanks

aoktar wrote:that's great. please watch latest tutorials. especially about render optimisations

Rendered 150 frames over night and had no problems, it looks like the update fixed it. I'll watch this Render Settings & Optimizations next... thanks again!!! ( https://vimeo.com/124066262 )

I did a quick render for 199 frames without any problem. Also why are you keeping kernel settings as default? Do you have some special log output? I see some strange functions at the crash point in bugreport.

1) Wow, 199 frames will take me days
2) I was keeping kernel settings as default ...

aoktar wrote:2.21 or 2.23.2? You should upgrade to 2.23.2, i can't help for older versions. What's you gpu, os, c4d version?

2 x K5000, OSX 10.9.5, r15

Wow you are fast. Thanks so much. I'm going to upgrade now and follow your suggestions and report back. (And yeah, I knew about the Show Alpha, I just couldn't find the setting after updating)