Evidently I’m hardheaded since a Blender podcast mentioned you couldn’t animate with the denoiser in 2.79 due to ‘Flickering’
Well I can say at the default denoiser settings that is exactly what happens and nobody would use it. My question would be is it possible to later make the denoiser useful when animating. Obviously I’m not familiar with other 3d programs.
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Hi.
I’m sure that if you use denoiser only to remove residual noise (still keeping high sample rates and without using the filter with strong values), you can perfectly use it for animation (see Notes)
https://docs.blender.org/manual/de/dev/render/cycles/settings/scene/render_layers/denoising.html
Anyway, in the next stage Lukas will implement optimizations for animation like cross frame denoising:
https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Lukasstockner97/GSoC_2016/User_Documentation
Thanks YAFU that answers the questions I had. Although motion blur just occurred to me. But, the developers are way ahead of me evidently. And, since I most likely won’t be actually rendering this project until early next year maybe 2.8 will be out. In the mean time I might try several seconds at a higher sample rate. Once again thank you.
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The best way to get around this is simply to use a static seed. This makes the flickering much less visible for any reasonable sample rate for stills.
What does that mean: static seed? Set it to a non-zero value?
@ Pixelgrapher, I wouldn’t be to sure of that using the denoiser. I’m no techno but I’m thinking it would be worst. The one thing we do know is you can’t use the setting that worked for a still render. It will take many more render samples for animation to avoid this flickering problem. I’m guessing some of my interior shots will be up around 6:30 but relatively clean with the denoiser.
And, this brings up another problem. To find the point where flickering ceased to be a problem would have to be trial and error with the specific scene. Damn hopefully box selecting the noisiest area will tell the tale. But, even then it will be some time consuming test. I will simply wait on the young genius to address the issue. He is well aware animation can be a problem now.
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For animation with Cycles it is generally recommended to enable that button to get random noise pattern in each frame. Otherwise you will get an annoying visible static noise pattern.
Now with Denoiser… I’m not sure that flickering is only produced by the noise pattern of the render. My doubt is about objects with noisy materials moving. And also about whether any possible remaining static noise may end up being more annoying than flickering. Anyway I am not sure here, I would need to do more tests. Edit: I’ve done a little test, apparently it’s better static noise pattern. But be sure to use high sample rates and proper denoiser settings to not get static patches.
For now it is advisable to render with high sample rates if you are going to use denoiser. Suppose your scene requires 10000 samples to render normally without any noise. Well, if you are going to use denoiser with Radius=5 for example, try with 8000 up to 6000 samples, but not much less than that.
Then when cross frame denoiser is implemented, we may be able to reduce much more sample rates.
Also as the documentation mentions, perhaps it may be appropriate to use use “Correlated Multi-jitter” as a Pattern method.
I know everyone is excited about Filmic Blender as they should be. For some subjects it is spot on. But, for me Lukas is the man since my current little project is about saturated color and just a plausible reality for the average viewer. And, finally I can move a camera without glossy surfaces looking like marbles glued on glass. What noise that is left is smooth if you will. Right now not much time is saved with the denoiser when animating. But, the young man is aware of that and who knows what 2.8 will bring. But, regardless kudos to Lukas and his denoiser.
Indeed using a static seed + denoiser I get really clean result in animations. It need a bit of test to find the right sample count. Indeed some residual bloby noise pattern can show up in animation that is barely unnoticeable on static renders, then adding more samples is needed.
In the end, I add a little post-process animated noise like this : http://www.cineticstudios.com/blog/2015/3/4k-film-grain-a-public-experiment-with-free-stock-footage.html
even subtle it helps a lot to get rid of last blobs from the denoiser and give a better filmic look !
I guess we are all searching to take advantage of this as Lukas is still working. Personally I’m having to use clamping and rather high samples when animating. But, coming away with results I didn’t have before. Having a frame render in six minutes instead of eight in some shots. And, I’m not exactly working on the 3rd & 7th here. But, I am working in a interior just looking for results I can live with.
And, as I mentioned Lukas is the man in 2.79 and I can only hope he finds a way to keep working on this. In my old demented mind it’s already the greatest thing since sliced bread. And, what a gift if it could get better. Ton, do I hear an amen here.
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