I used the sun and a black non-reflective surface. I wanted to see how long the BPT rendering would take with 1000 diamonds (58 facets each) and a single point source for the lighting. I plan on trying some other lighting effects, but probably not with the BPT engine. With 58,000 reflective/refractive surfaces, there’s an awful lot of rays to trace. Suggestions are welcome
A simple ray trace gave pretty good results in less than a minute:
It would make an interesting ‘Render This’ subject. By uploading one of your diamonds you might get a lot of feedback on how different renders and settings can work on a specific object.
Here you go, pretty much basic Twilight. Material White Glass/Diamond. With Sketchucation Studio HDR no3 and sun. Preset 9. No other geometry or background. I could tweak and play with it for days. Some more environment would probably bring out the individuals better, it’s all a bit of a mesh as is.