Altus denoiser

[vlado]

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

[instinct]

I have not tried this yet, but according to the readme it sounds like world space and bumpnormals (quote: NOR: Forward Facing Normals with bump map preservation / POS: World Position)

Cheers,
Thorsten

[vlado]

Well, passing world position from 3ds Max gave me really odd results, so I didn't include it. Will make a note to use the bumped normals though.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

3 minutes for each render and 1 minute for denoising.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Morbid Angel]

That actually looks pretty good! Their installer crashes for me I can't try it

[vlado]

That actually looks pretty good! Their installer crashes for me I can't try it

Well, I tried to install it once, and then it would crash every time until I deleted the folder it was trying to install to.

Best regards,
Vlado

[AlexP]

So, whats the catch?

[instinct]

Well, passing world position from 3ds Max gave me really odd results, so I didn't include it. Will make a note to use the bumped normals though.

Best regards,
Vlado

Gave it a quick whirl. Providing world space position did not create odd results here. It did not affect the result either though heh.

Anyways. The results are REALLY promising here. Drop the dual render requirement and this looks really nice.
I had a leather part rendered so noisy that you can not tell it's leather. Was pretty nicely restored. Of course not perfect, but given the input it looked really cool.

Cheers,
Thorsten

[vlado]

So, whats the catch?

I've no idea yet... I have to render a few animations to see if there's any flickering.

Here is one more, 4 minutes for each render, 1m 10s for denoising, so about 9m 10s total. Btw all these tests are on a single i7-4771 @ 3.5 GHz. It blurred some of the bushes, I wonder if the point position pass would have helped. Then again, it's only 2 AA subdivs (really just two).






Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

Drop the dual render requirement and this looks really nice.

I can work on that...

Best regards,
Vlado

[bigbossfr]

I can work on that...

Best regards,
Vlado

Oh yeah...
In Maya, add an extra UI to include the denoiser. I can code it. Like we choose the path of the denoiser executable, the UI see what render element we have...

Edit : i am testing Maya integration

Edit 2 : they give an installer and after an userSetup. Bad idea.

[vlado]

Edit 2 : they give an installer and after an userSetup. Bad idea.

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

Best regards,
Vlado

[WilleViz]

Sorry for asking a maybe stupid question, but is this Altus denoise tech something that has been licensed by Chaos Group with the goal to eventually integrate it into Vray?

[vlado]

Here is another set; 8m for each image and 2 minutes for the denoiser, so total about 18m. The input images are really really noisy, just 2 subdivs for the Fixed sampler.






Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

Sorry for asking a maybe stupid question, but is this Altus denoise tech something that has been licensed by Chaos Group with the goal to eventually integrate it into Vray?

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