Altus denoiser

[WilleViz]

We have not licensed it; I'm just playing with it right now. As to what will happen in the future, I don't know yet.

Best regards,
Vlado

OK, thanks for your answer, Vlado.

[AlexP]

This is witchcraft. Would be good to see the animation test when its done.

[bigbossfr]

Yeah, i want to see an animation also please.

[bigbossfr]

Well, there's definitely more to do about the user experience

Best regards,
Vlado

I did a custom install. What i have seen is :
1) At the end of the install, you have a directory on C:\Innobright
You have also 2 env :
- altus_PATH : the path to the bin directory inside C:\Innobright
- altus_LICENSE : the license info

2) So i removed all the userSetup and did something like in env :

    'ALTUS_VERSION': '1.0',
    'ALTUS_PIPE': 'C:/Altus/${ALTUS_VERSION}',
    'altus_PATH': '${ALTUS_PIPE}/bin',
    'altus_LICENSE': '5053@license',
    'MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH': '${altus_PATH}/plug-ins',
    'XBMLANGPATH': '${ALTUS_PIPE}/icons',
    'MAYA_SHELF_PATH' : '${ALTUS_PIPE}/shelves',

3) I created a shelf that i added into the shelves directory :

global proc shelf_Altus () {
    global string $gBuffStr;
    global string $gBuffStr0;
    global string $gBuffStr1;


    shelfButton
        -enableCommandRepeat 1
        -enable 1
        -width 35
        -height 35
        -manage 1
        -visible 1
        -preventOverride 0
        -annotation "Altus@innobright" 
        -enableBackground 0
        -align "center" 
        -labelOffset 0
        -font "plainLabelFont" 
        -imageOverlayLabel "Altus" 
        -overlayLabelColor 0.8 0.8 0.8 
        -overlayLabelBackColor 0 0 0 0.25 
        -image "altusButton.bmp" 
        -image1 "altusButton.bmp" 
        -style "iconOnly" 
        -marginWidth 1
        -marginHeight 1
        -command "checkAltusEnv" 
        -sourceType "mel" 
        -commandRepeatable 1
        -flat 1
    ;

}

This is cleaner.

Now i have to test the GUI but yeah, this is not very "production friendly"

[^Lele^]

The villa's grass blew my mind. (Cue the obvious jokes, go on...)

[chadstevens]

I'm posting here my findings using the denoiser with 3ds Max images. It could be nice to write a script for this in Max, similar to the provided one in Maya.

*) You need to render two images of your scene, with different DMC seeds. You can change the DMC seed using the following MaxScript command:

renderers.current.dmc_randomSeed=N

where N is the random seed. I used 0 and 1234 in my tests. The images can be really noisy.

*) Altus can work with just the two RGB images. However having a few extra elements help to define the results better: VRayBumpNormals, VRayMatteShadow, VRayDiffuseFilter. Technically a world position pass is also needed, but I haven't figured out what exactly this is (i.e. in world space or camera space).

*) I used the "separate render channels" option of the V-Ray VFB to save the image and the render elements.

*) I used a command line similar to the following:

altus -r 10 -i "altus_test" -o "d:\temp" -b "d:\temp\altus_tests\sun_sky_b0.RGB_color.0139.exr" -b "d:\temp\altus_tests\sun_sky_b1.RGB_color.0139.exr" -a "d:\temp\altus_tests\sun_sky_b0.VRayDiffuseFilter.0139.exr" -a "d:\temp\altus_tests\sun_sky_b1.VRayDiffuseFilter.0139.exr" -n "d:\temp\altus_tests\sun_sky_b0.VRayBumpNormals.0139.exr" -n "d:\temp\altus_tests\sun_sky_b1.VRayBumpNormals.0139.exr" -v "d:\temp\altus_tests\sun_sky_b0.VRayMatteShadow.0139.exr" -v "d:\temp\altus_tests\sun_sky_b1.VRayMatteShadow.0139.exr"

In this first test, both images took about 1m 17s each with progressive sampler. The denoised image looks a bit brighter and somehow shifted with one pixel. Denoising took 40 seconds (not sure if that was CPU or OpenCL). But I guess not too bad for a total of 3 minutes.

Best regards,
Vlado

Hi Vlado,

I was wondering if it would be possible to do a short tutorial video because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing or how to actually run the process.

I'm sure everyone else would really appreciate it.

Thanks very much.

[vlado]

I was wondering if it would be possible to do a short tutorial video because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing or how to actually run the process.

I'm sure everyone else would really appreciate it.

Yes, will do that. Lele might also end up writing a small script for it, will see how it goes.

Best regards,
Vlado

[chadstevens]

That's Excellent, Thanks Vlado and Lele

Vray is definitely one of the best renderers out there, but what's even better is the support and the community that Chaosgroup have built.

Thanks again.

[Oleg_Budeanu]

That is quite cool !
When i'll have a bit more time i will try this one as well, thanks for pointing this out.

[^Lele^]

Yep, working on the Max side of things, for the fun of it.
Shouldn't be too long in its basic form, while integration with DL and BB it's likely best left to the pros

[jenya.andersson]

very cool!

[3LP]

Lele, dude, you're a pro, aren't you?

Can't wait to play with your script.
I have a few animation that needs to be send to BB that could really benefit from all this!

Stan

[3LP]

I can work on that...

Best regards,
Vlado

Would be great if we could have a option somewhere that would create automatically the two renders at the same time.
Even if it's some sort of stereo render, 1 VFB, double width, each image rendering with different seed. But when saving out the image, it would save the two views in different files. It would be very obvious that we are rendering dual. You don't want to have that option on without knowing what you do.
Actually thinking if it, would be even better if innobright could accept those single file/dual width renders. It would be easier than dealing with multiple files every-time. If they accept multi layered exr at the same time, strike! input : 1 file -> easy

Stan

[super gnu]

these ultra-low subdiv tests are impressive, but i wonder how many subdivs youd need in the two source images to give it enough data to avoid any smooshyness in the end result, i.e. something that would pass for a straight high-end render. and given the subdivs needed, how the time for those two, pluss the denoise pass, compared to doing said high-end render.

i just worry that to get rid of the last bits of wierd softness from the scene, your gonna end up winding the subdivs up higher and higher, until the time savings are not so mind-blowing.

im also extremely interested to see an animated test. the one on their site wasnt super convincing. there was some low-frequency shimmering visible.



-Stan : great suggestions, both the double width render and the multi layered exr support. would really make it easy to use.

[mcnamex]

Impressive