Here's the scence. I don't know if Maya saves the shaders used in the file, but I hope it does. This is a Maya 6.0 file by the way.
I definately think it has something to do with the shader, because I re tested two renders back to back, and this chrome one here: https://oregonstate.edu/~rhodesd/3D%2...ome%20Hand.tif, took only 1 minute to render, versus the blue render (see above post) which took 43 minutes this time. That's 43X as long of a render, and all I changed was the shader.
Scene: https://oregonstate.edu/~rhodesd/3D%2...TesstRender.mb
"We don't actually need to know that the main character has a past. All we need to know is that he has an objective and a lot of people are going to die and a lot of innocent inanimate objects are going to be destroyed and blown up before he can complete that objective."