Optimization taking a long long time

[JML]

I have a scene with a bout 20 trees, each of those trees
are about 200 000 polygons.
each time I render (with raytrace shadow on), it takes like 3 minute to optimize each
trees and then 30sec to 1 minute to render them..
is it possible to optimize them just one time and then LW save the
optimized object somewhere ?
this way it would not have to do it every time.

thanks

[toby]

That sounds like the "Extra Ray Trace Optimization" in the Render Options panel. Try turning it off.