Denoising noisy animation

[Twist]

Hello. I'm trying to figure out how to use the denoiser with animation.

So far I've figured out I have to use standalone denoiser and I'm outputting exr multichannel as needed.

I set it to 30 and noise threshold to 0.005 and I still get very noisy renders. The denoising comes with a lot of artifacts as well.

What are your render settings and denoiser settings for an optimal result?

[vlado]

If you mean the noise in the glass, make sure the option "Affect channels" for refraction in the VRayMtl material is set to "All channels" when rendering.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Twist]

Hey Vlado. Thank you for replying. N

no, let me rephrase the question

How high in subdivs and low in noise threshold do I have to go to get a render i can denoise and not get a so much denoising artifacts? What is normal for interior scenes for production? Like I said, i still het a lot f noise with 30 subdivs (progressive) and 0,005 i threshold.

[Buck]

If you add a "sample rate" render element, looking at this will give you an idea if you need to increase your maximum samples, or decrease your threshold, or possibly both.

For example, If you have a lot of solid red in that render element and your render is still noisy, then you are hitting your maximum samples and need to raise it. If you have lots of blue and green, and no red with a noisy render, then you aren't hitting your maximum samples, so you need to lower your threshold some more to give more samples. There may be more you can take from this, but that's how I use it. I think that's the way it's intended on being used anyway.

I believe Vlado had a video on how to use this a few years back.

[Twist]

If you add a "sample rate" render element, looking at this will give you an idea if you need to increase your maximum samples, or decrease your threshold, or possibly both.

For example, If you have a lot of solid red in that render element and your render is still noisy, then you are hitting your maximum samples and need to raise it. If you have lots of blue and green, and no red with a noisy render, then you aren't hitting your maximum samples, so you need to lower your threshold some more to give more samples. There may be more you can take from this, but that's how I use it. I think that's the way it's intended on being used anyway.

I believe Vlado had a video on how to use this a few years back.

Thank you for the reply.

I guess I just underestimated how much I had to bump up the samples. Is 40 subdivs and 0.005 threshold uncommon for interiors? Maybe hard to tell as it's more a case by case scenario.

Anyway I get noiseless images after denoising now. That' s great. Now I only have issues with flickering as you can see in the gif below. How do I tackle that??

I rendered with CUDA btw.

[Twist]

I figured it out. I was a matter of setting Retrace to 8 under Light Cache.

But now I have a new problem. The denoiser doesn't denoise the images where there's glass. Please help!

In the images below you can see that eveything besides whats behind the glass is desnoised. I checked affect all channels under refraction with no luck.

[Buck]

I don't know a solution for that, but a work around would be to hide the glass.

If you need any reflections on the glass, render them separate and comp together.

[zero-13]

Probably not necessary for both but since I don't know exactly why other than it has resolved issues for me in the past with transparent materials. For areas behind the glass I always make sure to check under Reflection: "Reflect on back side" and under Refraction: Affect shadows, and that Affect Channels for Reflection and Refraction are set to: All channels

As far as Denoising I get good results with leaving the VrayDenoiser settings at default settings, even baked in to the final frames. I typically only have to adjust the "Noise Limit" to an acceptable noise artifact tolerance, usually no higher thn 0.08 which gives very fast render times but some splotchiness as you've noticed.

A Noise Limit between 0.06 - 0.04 with the default V-Ray Denoiser Settings (Not Nvidia Optix Denoiser) gives me very fast render times and acceptable clean frames with moderate to high motion.

I combo that with rendering at a higher resolution than my final deliverable resolution, and end up with a very clean animation. That said I have not worked any super slow camera moves or motion so perhaps that might make any artifact swimming noticeable if it's there that would otherwise be masked by moderate and fast motion?

Not sure if any of this will help, mostly redundant and obvious, but the intention is there.
Also, I really hope this all applies to the Maya version because I'm a Max user that noob stumbled into the Maya section somehow LULZ!