Is it possible to use PMC for animation?

[PeterCGS]

Never had any issues either. The only time I have had problem was when using strong SSS, and rendering on multiple computers. It seemed one computer for some reason rendered a tiny bit different from the others (different graphic cards etc etc.)

[vinz]

good to know ! ... it certainly come from something wrong that i do , i will have to check in details.
but it seems i'm not alone in this case! so it's weird.

[jmfowler]

I don't use HDR lighting at all in any of my scenes - but I do use the octane sky system with sun - but most of my scenes are interior - I also use fake glass on windows where the sun will come through otherwise it would create a lot of noise in my interior, but I do a real glass test first to see what interior reflection highlights I will miss out from doing this - if you follow.

I use lights with black body lighting, some with IES applied, some animated lighting textures - fire place, LED TVs etc.

I use PMC on all my scenes - I have tried ALL other setups with different settings but I can't get acceptable results without PMC for animations - DL and PT just won't clear up some areas after a certain time - PMC renders more linearly after its start period, meaning I can choose a sample setting with fairly predictable results, sometime lower settings can leave some shadowed areas a bit more speckly but I don't ever get fireflies - which would kill my animation.

For FULL HD animation I always use
- PMC, max samples 4000-8000 depending on results, filter size I leave at 1.5 to reduce any flickering, ray epsilon .0001 ( smaller vales increase render time - larger values can create problems especially with glass) , alpha channel, keep environment and alpha shadow on, max depth 8, max rejects 100 , caustic blur 0.2. all other setting default and I don't use anti-firefly filter.
I render from the command line using .bat files with windows UI set to basic, high performance, no aero etc.

creating mix materials often causes my Maya to crash untill their completed and applied to objects, I don't use any SSS shaders.

My current setup is 6 cards, 3 in 2 machines. 5*680's 4gb plus a 580 3gb.