Quick questions about the Denoiser

schadenjulian

Hi guys,

I recently noticed that the included denoiser literally does wonders to my renders and wanted to ask a few questions regarding it:

1. Is it only me or is it wayy better to let it kick in as late in the render as possible? Rather than letting it start early and then just continuing to let it render.

2. Is there any way for me to make it start when I cancel the render (or make it start when I want to during rendering)? I generally let my images render until I'm satisfied and then just cancel it but with the denoiser you have to set the start iteration manually and if it never even gets to that point (i.e. If I cancel it earlier than expected because it is already good enough and I'd need to wait another hour for it to reach the denoise start iteration) the denoiser just decides to do nothing.

NorthOf45

1. Yes (IMO). The default of 8 is way too soon. Could be hundreds or thousands, depending on, well, a lot of things. Scene complexity and lighting, especially.

2. You can adjust some render settings during the render from the Render Window's parameters panel, normally closed. First, set the Post Denoiser Available to ON in the Render Settings, otherwise it will not be included in the list of adjustable parameters in that panel. Look for the small button on the left side of the Render Window frame to open it once you start the render. You can enable Post Denoiser when you want, and change the start iteration. Best to have a number ready for the start iteration a little ahead of the current iteration when you enable it (you can see the iteration count in the render progress window). If it is too soon, you can just increase the start iteration to continue unfiltered, then wait to see if that is enough, repeat as needed.

f7eer

I usually render for a fixed number of iterations, and set the start post denoiser to this value, so that it only happens once at the end. I base this iteration on how an image looks after n iterations with the post denoiser off. The worse it looks, the more iterations I let it go for.

I also find the post denoiser pretty heavy-handed: It often smudges delicate textures and hair. Howeer, the poor hair performance has improved quite a bit in successive versions of Nvidia Iray (incorporated into DAZ Studio) released this year.

Padone

I do the same as @f7eer. From a technical point of view there's no sense running a denoiser multiple times so I don't know why the parameters do allow it. It should just run at the end of the rendering process. Also the iray denoiser doesn't use the albedo and displacement buffers that's why it loses details so it's not good for quality pictures.

schadenjulian

NorthOf45 said:

1. Yes (IMO). The default of 8 is way too soon. Could be hundreds or thousands, depending on, well, a lot of things. Scene complexity and lighting, especially.

2. You can adjust some render settings during the render from the Render Window's parameters panel, normally closed. First, set the Post Denoiser Available to ON in the Render Settings, otherwise it will not be included in the list of adjustable parameters in that panel. Look for the small button on the left side of the Render Window frame to open it once you start the render. You can enable Post Denoiser when you want, and change the start iteration. Best to have a number ready for the start iteration a little ahead of the current iteration when you enable it (you can see the iteration count in the render progress window). If it is too soon, you can just increase the start iteration to continue unfiltered, then wait to see if that is enough, repeat as needed.

Regarding 2. I knew that it was there but I honestly never even thought about just setting the iteration in that step XD. Thank you very much, that was exactly what I needed.

markusmatern

I usually use an external batch process to denoise after rendering using the Intel based denoiser.

There are several options mentioned in these threads:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/334881/use-this-a-i-based-open-source-de-noiser-from-the-comfort-of-daz-studio

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/316206/denoise-renders-and-save-a-lot-of-time-nvidia-not-reqd/

I open the original and denoiser version as layers in post processing and combine them.

Padone

@markusmatern Again, it is important to understand that the intel denoiser or any external denoiser can't be used correctly with daz studio because iray can't export the albedo and displacement buffers. So the denoiser only "denoise" the beauty canvas this way it's more a "selective blur" than a denoiser.

markusmatern

Padone said:

@markusmatern Again, it is important to understand that the intel denoiser or any external denoiser can't be used correctly with daz studio because iray can't export the albedo and displacement buffers. So the denoiser only "denoise" the beauty canvas this way it's more a "selective blur" than a denoiser.

Technically for me this only means the additional inputs would help in getting away with less iterations. However it rellay helps me in getting rid of the last noise in a very controlled way. IMHO there is no right or wrong, you just get a different result and can decide whether you use it or not. And also this may help with the exact edge cases where you may keep detail on the hair but remove noise in the shadows of the background especially when using DOF.

 

Padone

markusmatern said:

Technically for me this only means the additional inputs would help in getting away with less iterations.

Not quite. Without the albedo and displacement buffers the denoiser can only "guess" them from the beauty canvas. That will never be the same as having this information available especially for fine details. Also the very purpose of a denoiser is to get a good image before convergence. If the convergence is good you don't need a denoiser. So using "less iterations" with a denoiser is implicit.

see https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4555476/#Comment_4555476

TheKD

Yeah, the optix AI denoiser blows the current denoiser studio has out of the water. It uses albedo and normal map information.

nicstt

It worked great (non RTX card) on most things but was truly terrible on skin. Basically, it needed the full samples to work, so I rarely used it.

Shame it doesn't work on pre RTX cards; Intel's works on all, which I use in Blender. I'll be interested to see how it performs if I do upgrade to an RTX card - which will be a 3000 (or whatever).