Denoise AOV - using Noice and not Optix

[CiroCardoso3v]

I searched on the forum to see if this is possible and found nothing specific. I want to rebuild my beauty pass on Nuke. For that I need to denoise diffuse, specular, etc. I can't find a way to do that with the current denoise in 3ds Max.

Do I need to do this using the command line? Yes, I know that there is an option to denoise in the AOV manager, but I don't have a GPU that supports Optix. Besides I am doing an animation and Optix isn't good enough for animations.

I am trying to use this syntax

noice.exe "Y:/HD_RandD/renders/ArnoldNew/A_Diffuse_Noice_Input.exr" --output "Y:/HD_RandD/renders/ArnoldNew/Diffuse.exr"" -aov diffuse_indirect -pr 3 -sr 6 -v 0.25

Or are we just stuck to the beauty pass? If so how VFX approach this limitation?

[madsd]

Declans stand alone denoiser is kinda nice because it relies on "a render of anything" and an Albedo and a Normal AOV, besides it also runs on the CPU.

denoiser -i qwe.exr -o notkitchen_Denoised.exr -a AOVs.exr -n AOVs_1.exr


The trick is to add in a 3rd AOV, one that contains the indirect AOV and you call that instead of the beauty pass when denoising.

That will denoise on the CPU "any input" cpu/gpu/AOV's etc.

[CiroCardoso3v]

@ thanks.So does that mean noice can't denoise the AOVs at the moment right? I just need to know that before doing an entire animation in Arnold and then getting stuck.

I will have a go with the Declans's denoiser, but does it compare to Arnold's denoiser?

[madsd]

Declans denoiser stuff sits between OptiX and noice in terms of quality, it is muuch better than OptiX, if you let something render for x number of seconds and denoise and compare Optix with Declans stand alone you see huge differences in detail presevation.

You could experiment building your own input with variance, Z and the other layers the Exr needs, then you swap out the beauty with the AOV you want to denoise.
I havent tried this, I just know we had to build the exr manually in the start where anything, in reality could go into the beauty layer.

[CiroCardoso3v]

oh boy. That is no good news at all. I think I will have to go back to Corona then.

I can't rebuild 7200 frames x 5 or 6 aovs that I need. Besides I need the noice quality to get away with the noise I have on this scene.

This is really a let down

[madsd]

The AOV needs a variance filter. Let's try mess around with it.

[Stephen.Blair]

noice can denoise AOVs.
But you need variance AOVs for those AOVs

[CiroCardoso3v]

ok, but how does that work then? Is there a small tutorial that actually explains that workflow? I saw your post about this, but is only for Maya

https://answers.arnoldrenderer.com/questions/16837/efficient-denoiser-utitliy-workaround.html

[Stephen.Blair]

I'm looking at that now.
The Arnold plugins do not export the variance AOVs for non-beauty AOVs. In Maya I can workaround that, but I'm not sure about max yet...

[madsd]

An AOV can I guess sit in there 2 times, 1 with gaussian filtering and another with variance, if required. Each line we can do like that maya image, give both a gaussian and a variance.

[Stephen.Blair]

hmm, not so easy

[Arnold]: [driver_exr] AOVs_1.exr: ignoring duplicate layer "direct" of type RGB in file `C:\Users\Stephen Blair\Documents\3ds Max 2020\renderoutput/AOVs_1.exr'
[Arnold]: [driver_exr] AOVs_1.exr: ignoring duplicate layer "indirect" of type RGB in file `C:\Users\Stephen Blair\Documents\3ds Max 2020\renderoutput/AOVs_1.exr'

[CiroCardoso3v]

I am trying to add a Diffuse AOV with the varience and see if that works.

[CiroCardoso3v]

Is this something that can be implemented from Maya?

[Stephen.Blair]

I don't think it is possible.
You need to be able to add a second AOV with the same light path expression as the original. So for diffuse, it would a custom AOV for C<RD>.* with filter = variance

[CiroCardoso3v]

oh...I was really hoping we could do it. I am not sure I can rely on Neat Video to denoise the AOVs. I am going to try but if this doesnºt work I need to completely drop Arnold until AOVs can be denoised. I am gutted

[Stephen.Blair]

You can do it in Maya with MtoA. But 3ds Max and MAXtoA are a different implementation, and I don't see a way to work around it like I do in Maya.

[CiroCardoso3v]

Ok, so are there any plans to implement this?

Honestly, this is a point where I can justify implementing Arnold. If we can denoise AOVs like you can do on other renders, then I don't see the point. I can't wait 20 hours or so to have a finished render.

[madsd]

First hole through via Declans hook.

-I save the Albedo and Normal in 2 files.
-I also save the diffuse indirect out, in this case I picked 2, just ignore the second.
- Swap out the RGBA with the indirect_Diffuse AOV and run the denoiser process.

The image on the right is the indirect denoised with this CPU denoiser and the right is before.

1 thing though, you can see the albedo transfered, the indirect is a float in that sense, so the albedo needs to be desaturated or do an auto post flatten to float space needed.
Else, you get incorrect values when you start to composit these things. You need to batch these things for many frames, but it can all be done with DOS batch and some automated image processing tool doing some flattening.

[CiroCardoso3v]

This is cool @

I may able to use Arnold after all. Fingers crossed as I am going to test this.

[madsd]

1 more test in 3k res ~