Denoiser vs NeatVideo Denoiser test

[Robert]

I did a test animation to compare between V-Rays denoiser and Neat Video 4.0 denoiser in Nuke.
The advantage of Neat Video is that it interpolate between frames, so in different to Vray it looks a few frame in advance and back and that giving a better result

So there is one thing that is quite difficult to solve, the little grain in the refraction of the glass. I used adaptive with 8 max samples. All Shaders a Vray Shader, no Modo shaders.
I did a Modo render to compare, and one thing Modo does is that it renders the refraction much smoother and cleaner. However Vray is faster. Render time about 4 min per frame.
I still need to find out how to get rid of that small grain so.

Here are the two samples:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...y_denoiser.mov
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...eoDenoiser.mov

[vlado]

If you want cross-frame denoising, you need to use our standalone vdenoise tool, or our Nuke plugin. You can try that and see if it helps with the grain.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Robert]

Good point. Where do I find vdenoise for Nuke?

[vlado]

You can get it here:
http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/misc/vdenoise_nuke.zip

This is still an experimental version - so please let me know if there are any issues.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vladimir.nedev]

Not sure about the V-Ray denoiser in NUKE, but you can find the standalone vdenoise tool under /Applications/ChaosGroup/V-Ray/MODO_x64/bin on Mac OS X.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[Robert]

Thanks Vlado, but I only see Linux and Windows builds of the plugin.. so no OS X not fun.

[vlado]

Unfortunately there hasn't been any incentive for us to do an OS X version.

Best regards,
Vlado

[cheerioboy]

You can get it here:
http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/misc/vdenoise_nuke.zip

This is still an experimental version - so please let me know if there are any issues.

Best regards,
Vlado

Nice, thanks for sharing this! Will certainly play around with it when the time comes. Are there any other nuke scripts for vray?

[vlado]

Nice, thanks for sharing this! Will certainly play around with it when the time comes. Are there any other nuke scripts for vray?

Does V-Ray for Nuke count

Best regards,
Vlado

[cheerioboy]

Does V-Ray for Nuke count

Best regards,
Vlado

ha - too much, too much!

[BVA]

You can get it here:
http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/misc/vdenoise_nuke.zip

This is still an experimental version - so please let me know if there are any issues.

Best regards,
Vlado

I am not that clued up in Nuke.... please can someone help me install the plugin? ( I am following the directions on the "readme" doc included in the download)

1. - Windows: C:\Program Files\Common Files\NUKE\x.x\plugins\
I dont have this NUKE folder..... can I copy the folder to this instead?
C:\Program Files\Nuke10.0v4\plugins

2. "2. Add the VRayDenoiser folder to the NUKE_PATH environment variable before running NUKE.
example:
- Windows: set NUKE_PATH=<path to plugin>/VRayDenoiser;%NUKE_PATH%
- Linux: export NUKE_PATH=<path to plugin>/VRayDenoiser:$NUKE_PATH"

Where do I set this?

[georgi.zhekov]

1.Just make a folder in this location

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Nuke\10.0\plugins

Copy the files there.


2. Open the Start menu type "Env" and it will show you the option to edit the Environment variables at the top.

[BVA]

this was quick...thanks, got it!

[Oleg_Budeanu]

quite interesting comparison !
Is that effect of denoiser or VRayDenoiser video is more heavily comressed, rather than NeatVideo sample ?

[Robert]

No, same compression. Done in Nuke with H264 defaults.

I did another test, this time I split up all channels and recomposed them in Nuke. I used a heavy flickering interior scene, moving objects and light, then I uses NeatVideo Denoiser 4.1 on just the diffuse output and the result was flicker free.
There was still noise on the reflection output, a bit harder to denoise without loosing detail, but also of that I got rid.
Then I did a second compositing, using just V-Ray output and then the NV denoiser again, it was just bit less good in quality, a few lines with less details, etc. But overall expectable. V-Ray AA denoiser can't deal with flickering, so I skipped it.

I'm very happy with the result, its just awesome cool to render an animation without caring about IC or Light cache flickering. It was all rendered over network, without IC save or 'take camera path' option. Of course that doesn't mean it always works. There are cases with black/white pixels on the border of your image where deflickering can cause some black spots. But there are ways to deal with that.
For all pre 4.0 users of the denoiser, you should update!

Now stop my shameless advertising, and once the V-Ray denoiser for Nuke comes for OS X I will test it to.