Arnold and DAZ Studio - unsharp an noisy Renders

[achim-schnick]

Hi Guys, I would like to ask for some advice regarding DAZ Figures in Arnold Renderer.
Attached a simple Genesis 8 Figure imported via DAZtoMaya Bridge. Original Textures converted to Arnold Standard Shaders by DAZtoArnold Bridge, too.
Rendersettings as below and it is still looking unsharp and noisy.
Rendertime 1 Min 33 Sek
Any Advise available to get better Results?

(Compare the DAZ Iray Render ready within 13 Seconds - Same Model 1000 x 1000 px

SETTINGS:
Arnold on GPU NVIDIA RTX 3070
Camera AA 3
Antialiasing (I hate that) 10
Picture Resolution 1000 x 1000 px
1 Area Light - Samples 10
Figure Resolution Base Mesh, no subdividing.
No Hair, looks even worse due to getting some 100.000 Polygons more.
DAZ Iray Textures 4K converted to tx.
(Some DAZ Models have 16 K!)

Surely DAZ Figures are optimized for DAZ Studio, but why has Arnold (or me) obviously has such a Problem with it?
Could not find any Solution via YT so far.

[lee_griggs · Accepted solution]

Hi, I would start by familiarizing yourself with the removing noise docs here.

Also, have a look at the samples settings here.

Looking at your renders, it seems that SSS samples aren't high enough. Try increasing SSS samples with CPU first to see the difference and to get used to the different sample settings and then try GPU. 3 samples should be enough for the Area light.

From the GPU rendering docs:

Matching noise can take a little experimentation because Arnold GPU uses Camera (AA) sampling only. We recommend you also use Adaptive sampling. Here are some guidelines:

• Set the Max. Camera (AA) in the range of 30 to 50 (depending on the scene, you might go closer to 100). In general, the max samples should be a large value. A large max samples means that the quality is controlled by the noise falling under the threshold, instead of by clamping to the max AA.
• Set the Adaptive Threshold to something like 0.015 or 0.02. For a noise-free render, lower the threshold value, maybe even as far as 0.010.
• Set the Camera (AA) samples to around 3 or 4. One of the few reasons to go higher with AA is for motion blur. The higher the number of Camera (AA) samples, the less of a speedup you'll get from adaptive sampling.

Converting 16k textures will add some time, but it will need to do this only once. 

Ensure that you are using the latest Nvidia drivers and pre-populate your GPU cache.

There are also denoising imagers.  

More info here.

[achim-schnick]

Thanks. I really did not had a View to the SSS Slider. Works much better now. Even with low Camera AA.But funny, that CPU gets in somehow better and faster than GPU.

Anyway thanks for advising me the Direction.