Questions about saving of extra denoiser render elements

[vlado]

Hey everyone,

We are considering this item from the Aha! ideas portal: https://chaosvray.ideas.aha.io/ideas/VRAYMAX-I-45 about not saving auxiliary render elements used purely for denoising. We are considering the following changes:

1. The Standalone denoiser should never write the auxiliary auto-generated denoiser elements in the output files it produces;

2. When V-Ray writes multiple output files (one file per render element), the auxiliary auto-generated elements should never be saved (there is no way to use them for denoising with e.g. vdenoise anyways);

3. When V-Ray writes a multi-layer output file (.exr or .vrimg), there should be an option whether to save the auxiliary elements or not; in 3ds Max specifically, this option can be added to the browse dialog for the file name where we have other options like 32/16-bit output, separate Cryptomattes etc (see screenshot mockup). The default should be to save the elements. The option should be called “Save denoiser extra data”; when enabled, auto-generated denoiser render elements are saved; when the option is disabled, the auto-generated render elements are not saved;

4. When saving to the VFB History, the auxiliary elements should be always saved to the .vrimg file that is stored in the history so that the denoiser can be recalculated if the image is loaded in the VFB again;

5. When saving from the VFB itself to multiple files (one file per render element), the auxiliary auto-generated elements should never be saved;

6. When saving from the VFB to a single multi-layer file, there should be an option to save auto-generated elements or not. The default should be to save them.

7. Some render elements might be added manually by the user and the denoiser will reuse these directly rather than adding them again. Such render elements that are added explicitly by the user, should not be affected by these options.

Are we on the right track? Should we implement something differently?

Best regards,
Vlado

[Spatial]

This is great Vlado!

Specifically point 3 above will cover our studio 95% of the time and save our file syncing sanity.
The ability to uncheck "save denoiser extra data" is great and hopefully it's a sticky setting that remembers your choice.

Our ideal workflow is to add a VrayOptionRE to unlock EXR DWAB/DWAA compression, add whatever render elements we need and get a lean single EXR without denoiser data. Thanks!

[Joelaff]

Pretty well sums it up. Would be ideal if you could select which of the extra elements would be saved from the standalone denoiser. Sometimes those elements are things we might want in the final file, like position passes or albedo. Of course those can be added manually as other elements, but that then adds to the initial (predenoised) file size. A perfect world would allow specifying a list of channels to keep or delete via the command line (for deadline).

[gandhics]

I approve this message.

[vlado]

Pretty well sums it up. Would be ideal if you could select which of the extra elements would be saved from the standalone denoiser. Sometimes those elements are things we might want in the final file, like position passes or albedo. Of course those can be added manually as other elements, but that then adds to the initial (predenoised) file size. A perfect world would allow specifying a list of channels to keep or delete via the command line (for deadline).

Actually the denoiser will reuse those elements if they already exist and were manually added; they won't be doubled up and will be passed through to the final denoised result. However of course if this is too cumbersome, we could consider a way to specify which elements to keep.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Joelaff]

Actually the denoiser will reuse those elements if they already exist and were manually added; they won't be doubled up and will be passed through to the final denoised result. However of course if this is too cumbersome, we could consider a way to specify which elements to keep.

Best regards,
Vlado

In that case then this sounds right in the money! Thanks.

[Buck]

3. having the option to save them or not would cover any use cases that I could think of!