vDenoise Command Line tool Helper (Maxscript UI)

[^Lele^]

not entirely sure (am on totally different builds myself.) if it made the first beta cut, or if it'll make the second, for that matter.

[vlado]

The Nuke denoiser is not technically a part of any beta; it will work fine even with the current official releases. You can get it here:
http://help.chaosgroup.com/vray/misc/vdenoise_nuke.zip

You can wire as many denoiser nodes as you need to denoise whatever render elements you need.

However, instead of working with denoised elements, it seems better to leave the denoising for the last stages of compositing where you already have put together the comp and you just denoise the final RGB result. This is also the only way to work with deep compositing. You can also use the noiseLevel render element as a mask to control the strength of the denoising in various parts of the image, if needed.

Best regards,
Vlado

[AC5L4T3R]

Sorry Vlado, I was talking about the Vray 3.5 beta. I've got a super tight deadline atm and have to sacrifice quality for time. Ideally I'd want to denoise the passes so they can be used by the comper (they don't have vray for nuke).

[vlado]

You don't need V-Ray for Nuke.

The denoiser plugin for Nuke is a completely separate and free plugin for Nuke, as can be seen in this video:
https://youtu.be/IzmjPuU3chk

Best regards,
Vlado

[AC5L4T3R]

Oh right, awesome thanks

[AC5L4T3R]

Could you show me how to set up the environment variable correctly as I'm having trouble with that part.

[vlado]

Extract the plugin for your version of Nuke to some folder, f.e. d:\temp\VRayDenoiser. Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced system settings > Environment variables... button. Click the New... button and enter the variable name NUKE_PATH and set the variable value to the path where you extracted the VRayDenoiser.dll (i.e. d:\temp\VRayDenoiser).

Next time you start Nuke, you should have the VRayDenoiser node available. If there are any problems, please email me to vlado@chaosgroup.com

Best regards,
Vlado

[Mokiki]

What would be the way to go to keep the multi exr workflow (manipulating passes etc.) and use the denoising functionality without nuke?

[DPS]

Is there any way to denoise a sequence from separate exr render elements? I just switched my workflow mid animation - silly me.

[olly]

Don't think so.

If it is any help, I save out the separate exrs along with a single exr that contains all elements. I denoise the single exr and then use the denoised frames alongside the separate elements for the post work.

[DPS]

Luckily I've cranked my settings pretty high anyway but will try that next time - will be pretty large in terms of storage.

[caypiranha]

Many great Thank for this! seems to work like a charm.

more quuestion to chaosgroup: isn´t it possible to do this for gpu and cpu together?

.. and while I wrtite this: low Prio for GPU migh be nice as well... here´s laggy to write... =)

[eyepiz]

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
V-Ray Next users ought to run vdenoise.exe (from your v-ray installation folder, "bin" subfolder) from windows explorer, so to get a nice UI, like so:


-- Old post, non-Next V-Ray users only --

It's a macroscript I wrote to help with sequences' post-process denoising.
It works with VRImage files and Multi-layer EXR files, best written directly from the raw file output of V-Ray (but provided the elements are there, any exr will in fact do.), with auto-numbering detection.

Installation:
*) RUN the file called "vDenoise_3.40.02.ms"
*)Select, from the top menus, "Customize->Customize User Interface..."
*)From the "Category" pulldown choose "VRay", scroll to the very bottom, and find "vDenoise Command Line Tool Helper UI", like shown in the image below.
*)With it selected, you can assign it to a shortcut (I used ctrl+alt+shift+v, which is free by default in max), a menu, a toolbar or a quad menu, as you see fit, through standard max operations.




Once the new tool is run, the UI appears:



Operation:
1)Click "Pick a File in your sequence..."
2)Pick a .VRImg or.Exr file from anywhere in a sequence (ie. no need to pick the first.).

3a)Click "Denoise it!"
4a)Find the denoised results into the input files folder.

3b)Ctrl+Click "Denoise it!" : a dialog will appear informing you the command line has been copied to clipboard (press ctrl+shift to skip the message box entirely)
4b)Open a command window, paste your command line, change it as you wish, and run it.

This will auto-detect sequences and change the frame blending to 1 (once only. It can be overridden manually.).
UI controls will activate only if they make sense to do so, depending on user choices. When disabled, their displayed values are not taken into account.

Known Limitations:
Multiple dot sequences in image names will fail (denoiseMe......exr), and not failing would require some annoying string parsing: please make sure a Dot's there for a reason (ie. add something in between them!). ^^

Notes:
The script will always build the shortest possible command line, so if some options are enabled, but do not appear explicitly in the command line printed out in the listener, it is because those options in their current state, are provided as defaults by the executable (f.e.: Manual mode, radius 10, or strength 1.0).
Controlling the denoising operations from the command window which opens up will confirm it.
Saving a preset with the name "default" (non case-sensitive) will load it automatically on startup.
Should it find such a preset, and load it, it'll automatically roll-up the presets rollout, so it'll be out of your way, and shorten the dialog.
If the file picking button tooltip always contains the full picked path, handy in case the button is cutting it off.

The script is fully tool-tipped: be kind to the poor soul which had to write them and spend a second reading them!
vDenoise_3.40.02.ms.zip : This is somewhat QAd (by you kind people) and it works within its limits. If unsure, download and use this one.

Edits and ChangeLog:
04-06-2016: Generally Strengthened the file pathing and number detection routine, It now supports network paths and arbitrarily dotted files, provided the numbers in between the dots are ONLY numbers.
f.e.: denoiseMe.RGB_Color.A.Few.More.Dotted.Bits.In.TheI mage.Name.0000.exr will work, while
denoiseMe.RGB_Color.A.Few.More.Dotted.Bits.In.TheI mage.Name.00a00.exr will be considered a single image.
07-06-2016: Now uses the variable "VRAY_OSL_PATH_3DSMAX20XX_x64" to build the denoiser path, safer than the max installation one (Thanks Blago).
19-06-2016: Updated for 3.40.02 (sp4 hotfix), to include the -frames option to pick a subset of frames to denoise in a sequence, rationalised the interface and added ctrl+click to copy the command line to the Windows clipboard.
25-06-2016: Fixed a logic issue for the UI which prevented per-element denoising if a non-manual preset mode was selected.
26-06-2016: Added a dropdown to choose process priority, however to be able to do that i had to change the way i invoke the denoiser, and this also leads to two command windows being open. Available as B version for the time being.
18-08-2016: Removed the ugly B version. Added a BackBurner Enabled version which needs testing.
19-08-2016: Updated the BB version to -hopefully- a working one. definitely more time needed on that release, so be warned.
19-12-2016: Removed the BB version. Please don't use it, nor ask for any support on it. Feel free to change the script to suit your needs however, should you have downloaded it already.

"V-Ray Next users"

Hi Lele,

I'm currently on V-Ray Next and the new vDenoiser does not appear to do a few things the V-Ray 3 vDenoiser does have.

Per-Element Denoising (not the "select denoise elements" in the new version UI) the old version deniosed the frames per elements and comp them back in one go. The outcome was a nice clean file with only the denoised element.

V-Ray Next vDenoiser does not seem to Denoise on multiple GPU's, in V-Ray 3 I could use all my GPU's installed to denoise, this was very handy for denoising an animation were hundreds of frames were being denoised.

I have done some comparisons and the results are better using the V-Ray 3.6 command line denoiser when using Per-Element Denoising, fine details like in fabrics are preserved were as the new Denoiser blurs then out.

These were the command line settings I used in V-Ray 3 can these be done in Vray Next?

"-mode=default -useGpu=2 -elements=1 -frameBlend=3 -display=0"

I would appreciate any guidance on using the new VDenoiser.

Thank you!

-E

[^Lele^]

matanov will know best, i think!
The old script has been superseded by the UI, so changes are out of my hands.

[matanov]

"V-Ray Next users"

Per-Element Denoising (not the "select denoise elements" in the new version UI) the old version deniosed the frames per elements and comp them back in one go. The outcome was a nice clean file with only the denoised element.

V-Ray Next vDenoiser does not seem to Denoise on multiple GPU's, in V-Ray 3 I could use all my GPU's installed to denoise, this was very handy for denoising an animation were hundreds of frames were being denoised.

There is something fishy around the multi gpu denoising and we are checking it now.

About the denoising the elements and comping them back together - can you describe your workflow and why exactly are you missing this method?