Denoising in Blender 2.81 - Intel's ML Compositing Node vs Cycles vs NVIDIA D-Noise

[@cg_cookie]

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[@b1na276]

please make Caustics tutorial

[@cg_cookie]

We post most of our courses to the Blender Market for anyone who would rather do that than a subscription: blendermarket.com/creators/cgcookie

[@manda3dprojects966]

I'm hungry, I want to eat that cookie, give it to me.

[@arcticspacefox864]

So hungry, you should make a model a cookie tutorial just because :D

[@bhBlacky82]

what denoiser would be recommended for blender 2.9.x is already a great one built-in now, as I am new or should I still take a look at external addons?

[@prophet74]

I ran Denoise on your blurred out Windows info and now I have all the information I need to take down your computer :) Great video.

[@cg_cookie]

Awesome!

[@c4pt4ina69]

@@cg_cookie i think its prophet74 in CG Cookie account.

[@jonlampel]

Hahaha I really shot myself in the foot there 😂

[@unknownclint1740]

Dude how did u come up with that

[@tactical_slime4608]

If you set your sample size ridiculously low like 5, you can sometimes get a artistic painting style to your render

[@AJman14]

Genius! I'll have to try that.

[@RenderingUser]

i set samples to like 2 well thats an artistic doughnut

[@Cyanidedan]

@@RenderingUser I set them to 1 cause my computer's 11 years old (basically a toaster)

[@RenderingUser]

@@Cyanidedan Mine's a potato

[@Cyanidedan]

@@RenderingUser ah I see

[@Frozen_Death_Knight]

This video was super useful. Explained everyhing quite well. I also got to give kudos to Intel for not making the denoiser an Intel processor exlusive. It's really going to pave the way for faster high quality renders going forward across the board. Still planning on going AMD in the future, but credit where credit is due. :)

[@positive_energy3131]

Not all bad things come from Intel, still planning for all AMD build too here.

[@cg_cookie]

Agreed!

[@csmemarketing]

Love your breakdown of Intel's OpenImage Denoiser. I'm using it on an All AMD Laptop. I get good results with 1920x1080 images, rendered at 1, 5 and 10 samples. I shocked at how good this is. Intel was smart to let it work on all CPUs, on their website they said any processor with SSE4 can use the Denoiser.

[@cg_cookie]

Thanks, it's crazy cool!

[@Nerdule]

Given that AMD CPUs use, fundamentally, the same architecture as Intel CPUs - they're both x86 processors, they implement all of the same instructions - I'm not sure Intel *could* have locked it to only using Intel CPUs. (It's not like the difference between AMD and NVidia GPUs)

[@typingcat]

@@Nerdule Intel has not a single proprietary instruction? Didn't AMD have something like 3D Now! If Intel has a proprietary instruction, they could have used that to block AMD processors.

[@T1mothyTee]

Cant wait for it to work better with animations... will change my life!!!!!!!!!!!

[@eggyrepublic]

"instead of 5000 samples, you only need 700" And here I am rendering everything at 200 samples and thinking it's a lot.

[@Levi_Zacharias]

theres me rendering a minecraft anim at 20. literally

[@thef-35lockheedmartinlight11]

You guys use samples??

[@jears]

Intel might suck at at making new cpu architectures, but even as a bit of an amd fanboy I just gotta give then credit for making it work on all systems and work so well.

[@shala_shashka]

From what I’ve seen they’ve been funneling their efforts into literally everything BUT CPU stuff. Mostly AI though.

[@criscrix3]

Because of the low video bitrate when you showed the denoised image first i thought it looks horrible but after a few seconds i was genuinely impresed.

[@fiveoneecho]

The reason NVIDIA’s denoiser doesn’t work well is because it’s a port of OPTIX, which is specifically for their hardware acceleration. It helps their marketing, but that’s not the reason why it is NVIDIA-specific. Porting it for Blender makes it worse because you are taking a decent tool for a specific hardware setup and making it into a generic tool that many other people have also created. OPTIX isn’t better than all other denoisers, it is just a convenient tool for people that happen to have hardware specifically designed for ray tracing. It will be cool for us NVIDIA users to have OPTIX in Blender in the future, but I am so much happier they are implementing a universally-usable denoiser first.

[@peshozmiata]

I don't see why the devs should even bother implementing Optix support if it's only going to work with Nvidia cards. It only encourages Nvidia to continue doing their anti-consumer shenanigans.

[@AJman14]

@@peshozmiata Because Nvidia cards are some of the most powerful, and they are the most used graphics cards in rendering.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@AJman14 Power is one thing, caring about the customer is another.

[@AJman14]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Every company has it's faults. At least they provide good products.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@AJman14 So much for free-market competition, eh?

[@GaryParris]

Excellently done and I found the same iin my own testing. And you're correct to test against nvidia and especially how it works on more computers. Nvidia should be accountable for their rtx only solutions most people can't afford rtx or nvidias option regardless of its possible future for those that can afford it, nothing wrong with saying that.

[@cgcrafted4684]

This looks very promising, especially since it works quite nicely with animaations too. Also I'm glad Intel didn't limit this to only Intel CPU's. I tried Nvidia's denoiser but it isn't suitable for animations and it sometimes glitches out at translucent edges (like curtains) and very unpredictable. I had to increase the samples to 300 with it to make it look good, but even then some textures looked not alright. At this point I could use Blender's default denoiser which did a better job at only 120 samples on my optimized interior scene and it was also working with animations. I'm curious if Intel's will beat the default denoiser as the only good thing Nvidia had is that it was quicker than the default denoiser.

[@a.i.e5278]

nice work, keep updating us on detailing in blender ... and more video

[@Dingle.Donger]

9:59 the way he said it was hilarious

[@AaronGwynaireGameDev]

I have been tinkering with denoising for a while now, getting good settings in the demonised within blender. However the denoise node feature is so cool, I have found it can make scenes look too plasticy, taking away realism, which is why I altered the noisy image input to just image and it seems to do a much better job of retaining details :) what I’m doing currently is rendering scenes externally then bringing them into blender as images to denoise, it’s really fun seeing the results :)

[@michaelsmusicinstruments9980]

now i finally know what this new denoising data button is, great explained thanks

[@AIRpursuit]

how do we also use Denoising depths, shadowing, variance, intensity and clean?

[@k44devStudio]

Great video! I use VapourSynth for denoising videos and there's nothing better than that.

[@JBGameplay]

12:08 Andrew with Blender Denoiser 12:10 Andrew with Optix Denoiser

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

8:38 How about if you denoised the normal as though it were an image, and then fed that into the normal input of the main denoiser node?

[@mihaelkardum8000]

Thanks for that video I would install blender 2.81 as soon as i can

[@khaled.aldajani]

Thanks for the video you answered all of my questions

[@dtizet6275]

ty i was just trying to figure it out wich denoiser was better

[@philiphanhurst2655]

I thought you knew what you were talking about up until you called Suzanne "the monkey". Completely unprofessional. Great video though, really good to know this stuff! Haven't used Blender in a while, but this will help if I pick it back up again.

[@SpencerMagnusson]

Great explanations, insights, and examples.

[@barmetler]

I'm just still baffled as to how much blender is a gift from god...

[@cg_cookie]

🙏👼

[@g60force]

there is no god!

[@barmetler]

@@g60force well then let's make a new religion! Blenderism...

[@PackingPeanutsProductions]

One thing I'm still curious about though... What do all the other settings do when you click De-noising Data.

[@mihaelkardum8000]

Other data is not used by intel denoiser

[@RowanSteyn3D]

this is so cool

[@earychow839]

What is the difference between the "Image" and the "Noisy Image"? Which one should I use?

[@mihaelkardum8000]

You can use one or the other depending on the render Use one that looks better to you when denoised

[@earychow839]

@@mihaelkardum8000 I just found my own comment and your reply after all these time, I just have to say that your reply was basically not saying anything at all, lol. I can answer my own question now. The two are basically the same. But if you stop your render mid way, "image" is going to denoise the finished portion of the render, while "noisy image" only works if you render the image completely. So generally, just use "image".

[@bitsurface5654]

Great Video - I like it, but you forgot that Nvidias Addon does not work on linux machines and that's important to me. Intels Addon works everywhere.

[@cg_cookie]

Good point!

[@ItsXDaniC]

8:56 Shouldn't you blur those IDs when you show your hardware?

[@cg_cookie]

Ah good catch, thank you!

[@AVACast-gs7bx]

Hi every one! Did you tryed to check the Clock in seed option (close to Sobol pattern)? This change the seed value using the frame time. Maybe this option can be a better solution for animations! Cheers!

[@MXFlamez]

80% of the time I use the denoiser The whole render just goes black so can anyone find a way to fix this

[@julianwildauer]

great info THX alot!

[@dafff08]

i tried optix and its ok for the viewport, however when rendering i smoshes fine texture on cloth edges so i stayed with nlm, but the compositor denoise looks pretty promising

[@SlayerDUDE1993]

Thank you soooooooooo much for this helpful tutorial!

[@ZUnknownFox]

4:52 what if you plug the third into the image of the second and then set the normal and Alberto of the second as how the second is set up? will that increase quality?

[@Ericaandmac]

Personally I like that old DNOISE addon that gives darkness to render. I always liked how renders look with noise and darkness

[@SteelShadowAnimations]

How do I export a denoised animation from the compostir. I rendered out the animation but it saved to my folder not denoised?

[@BUSCAVIDASPRODUCCIONES]

you have to activate the noise reduction from the scene composition tab (below the list of scene elements to the right of your screen) and then in the composition node editor, connect color with color, normal, with normal, albedo with albedo ... in the final render per frame, at the end of each render of it, the effect will apply to you, right now I have an active render with this method, and I have already made several animations with the same system, but in Cycles

[@SteelShadowAnimations]

BUSCAVIDAS thanks for helping me out

[@Jewfr0_legend]

i dont have the denoise node and im trying to figure out what is wrong. help

[@FCN82]

2:02 how can i switch from a pass to another?

[@valleybrook]

Excellent video!

[@romannavratilid]

So intel denoiser is the best out of those 3 for most users for most cases...? (or all cases really)?

[@cg_cookie]

Yep! I'd say in all cases.

[@romannavratilid]

@@cg_cookie thank you :-)

[@timedriverable]

Thanx, very informative. May I ask what type of setup you have for your computer? Need to upgrade.Thanx in advance.

[@sudd3660]

i tried nVidia OptiX denoising with D-Noise, completely useless for people that want clean realistic results. the built in denoiser blender does a great job. haven't tried Intel Denoising, but i hope it can be better than a properly set up internal denosier, it won't be used if it looks almost as good even if its 100 times faster, quality comes first then time.

[@annekedebruyn7797]

I agree. That's why I am glad we have both. For stills and hobby I can use the much faster AI, for work I can use the build in denoiser.

[@mihaelkardum8000]

With intel denoiser you have (image or noisy image), (normal or denoising normal) and (diffuse collor or denoising albedo) Which you can combine differently for different results.

[@mihaelkardum8000]

You shouldn't use denoiser with low samples for final render only for experimental renders

[@tybertimus]

Heyo, Blender noob here...when I am in the Compositor and hook the Normal from Render Layers up straight to the Viewer (like the video shows), I don't even get an image. Same with DiffCol. Denoising Normal hooked up to the Viewer works though. What have I done wrong?

[@creeyuwan2733]

Thanks! Great research !

[@MeriaDuck]

in my build, the denoiser normal map doesnt show up/stays black, did I miss an option somewhere in the render layer/render settings?

[@shermadini3398]

Is it worth updating just for new Blender denoiser? Or is Blender going to be more unstable and crash more often?

[@csmemarketing]

I find it quite stable. If you want, you can still use Blender 2.8 Stable, Render your images with the Denoiser Info enabled, then save your images as OpenEXR Multi-layered. Then open 2.81 Compositor, import those exr images and try the denoiser. All the info is kept in the image. 2.81 crashes some times, but not unbearable at least on Linux.

[@mihaelkardum8000]

Blender is really stable whit beta and alpha versions but you should be saving your scene often enough if it is saved it won't be a problem You can also have both versions.

[@shrek2andgoku]

Crashes quite a bit while rendering or using the denoiser but the results are worth it

[@Nitram-xw9ei]

@@csmemarketing Excellent tip. I didn't realise that 2.80 had the Denoiser Info option. I'll be applying this workflow on some volumetric tests today.

[@shermadini3398]

I had Blender 2.8 way before it got fully released. Blender is actually really stable. I just don't want to boil my laptop with extra crashes, event tho its a good one. Art is hard :D

[@TheAmazingJimmy]

I don't have the denoise node in my compositor for some reason and I've enable every single denoise option in cycles.

[@bronzekoala9141]

Have you updatet to the laterst blender build? It's not in 2.80. You need to download the 2.81 Alpha from builder(.)blender(.)org

[@TheAmazingJimmy]

@@bronzekoala9141 if the official release of blender 2.8 has all these options for denoising (In the render layers node I see all the same outputs), then why on earth does it not have a denoising node? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

[@bronzekoala9141]

@@TheAmazingJimmy Because they are not only needed for denoising.

[@TheAmazingJimmy]

@@bronzekoala9141 it's literally under "denoising" and says denoising in the window that has all the other outputs for the compositor. Nit only that, butnneither this guy, nor any of the other videos I've seen discussing the denoising feature have mentioned anything about 2.81 or some alpha or experimental build.

[@jonlampel]

@@TheAmazingJimmy Yep, mentioned at the very beginning - it's only in 2.81. The denoising data is also used for the Cycles denoiser found in the view layers tab, which is why it's there in 2.8. Happy rendering!

[@tiagotiagot]

You messed up blurring the Product ID and Device ID; I can read everything in a few frames

[@lotharmader8837]

Very useful! Thanks!

[@TheSSector5]

Hello! I need an answer ASAP!!! I know that OIDN is cool and really good and stuff and saves a lot of time but no matter what I do... whether I render in 4K with high samples etc NLM still gives me superior results for single frame renders. OIDN loses details such as the 1mm gap between my floor tiles but NLM keeps absolutely everything! Is this how its supposed to be? Is NLM best for single frame renders and Open Image best for animations or something???

[@thomasbrown3537]

I have a newbie question... With Blender always coming out with new releases and betas what does everyone do to upgrade? Do you have to uninstall the version you have and then install the new one?

[@gower1973]

You can have multiple versions installed, pre 2.8 there was no proper Windows installer, you just unzipped it to a folder and ran the exe, I currently have 2.8 installed via the windows installer and the 2.81 alpha in a separate dir parallel to the 2.8 install just unzipped, when 2.81 goes final it will probably overwrite 2.8 via the installer and then you just do the same thing getting experimental builds.

[@thomasbrown3537]

Thank you, gentlemen. You've been a big help.

[@Jojo2]

So essentially this could really help for people who have really bad computers right?

[@AstroSirrus]

This is awesome! How did you achieve the caustics?

[@fiveoneecho]

Never use animate samples with a denoiser! That will make the swimming so much worse, as you saw, because the noise pattern changes. So, the smoothed-out splotch pattern also changes!

[@0LoneTech]

Never say never... there's a case for temporally inconsistent noise in real time VR. Turns out that's better than creeping jaggies and banding.

[@fiveoneecho]

@@0LoneTech This isn't noise. You never use animated samples with a denoiser in an animation because it causes your edges to bubble and look fluid. This is not noise, this is fluid distortion. You only get noise if you are not using a denoiser. Usually the denoiser won't fail by leaving noise in, it will fail by causing splotches. It's really easy to write an algorithm that removes static-y-noise. Hard to do it without splotches. That argument aside, this is not something that I have come up with and preach in a holier-than-thou way. This was taught to me by an instructor. Just one of those things in passing, "Oh yeah, don't use animated noise with a denoiser because you won't see the noise in the end. That's the point of a denoiser, and it just makes the job harder."

[@purposeoflife47]

Thanks alot for the video. What do u suggest should i go for RTX 2060 or stick with my old GTX 1060 . Is optiX better or intel denoiser is fine?

[@PoollShietz]

what does noisy image do

[@arcticspacefox864]

Great video

[@WorthifyStore]

can this be done with video?

[@lessomnia8898]

When I plug in the denoiser, my render turns completely black. I have a very, very old computer, so I wonder what the minimum requirements are for this denoiser.

[@jamil1985]

Topaz is working on a denoiser app for animation sequence images

[@MTieleman]

How do you quickly switch the viewer between different nodes? Is there a hotkey for this function in blender 2.8 by default?

[@cg_cookie]

Node Wrangler addon and Ctrl-click!

[@jmack4275]

I'm a little late here, but how do I add the denoiser to my image sequence (animation)

[@syth-1]

So now that optix has been implemented into blender, can we use both intels denoiser and optix to get super speed renders?

[@UZEETM]

So how do you use it in animations with the compositor when rendering in PNGs?

[@ChristopherHemsworthCreative]

Love your content and am always excited when you post a new video. I have a question that has been eating me up for days on end and perhaps it's obviously answered somewhere and if so you can point me there, but please be kind about my ignorance I am still only transitioning from novice to intermediate with Blender. My QUESTION: how do we KNOW when we have a suitable high-res final image? Just based on eye-balling it? There are SOOOO many variables and factors with rendering it hurts my brain. When I work in Photoshop, it's clear to me when an image is "high enough quality to use" because there are some very clear factors. But with Blender .... I just don't know. For example, say I have a lit room and am aiming for a 1500px x 1500px final high-quality image.... i feel like essentially it's TRIAL and ERROR? Please, anybody point me to any and all resources to help me get mastery over producing a high-res image.

[@cg_cookie]

Hey Christopher, good question! The problem is that "suitable" is a pretty relative term. Suitable for what purpose? I'd recommend posting this question with some examples in our Community where everyone can chime in. cgcookie.com/community If you @ mention jlampel I'll get a notification to come check it out. Happy rendering!

[@ChristopherHemsworthCreative]

@@cg_cookie Thanks for the reply and suggestion! Will do!

[@eclairesrhapsodos5496]

Does 3000 samples enough for 4k?

[@blendergt]

Thanks for sharing!

[@Towik]

Will you or have you done a video about RPR AI denoiser?

[@brzo.]

I have older AMD stuff on my computer I feel bad for not at least having an Intel i7, I'm fine keeping the AMD GPU since it's pretty good even as an old model

[@romannavratilid]

What about renders from different programs, like 3ds max with vray...? Would it work...? It should (?)

[@cg_cookie]

I think it should work with any path tracer like Vray, Renderman, or Redshift, but I haven't tested that yet.

[@jaih12]

Great video, would like to see one, on the situations, where Nvidia raytracing, renders, are more benefiting, and how to get the most out of it... thanks, have a great day.

[@doctero]

What about images that were rendered by Blender? I hope I don't have to re-render 30mins of animation.

[@mihaelkardum8000]

If you have normal and albedo it would work. If not you need to re-render

[@darkhoodchief]

This is a huge timesaver. I use CPU because I work on a laptop and realistic renders take more than 20+ hours to render. This thing cuts that down to 4 hours.

[@pactube8833]

Guys help I wanna render as fast as possible but my hardware says another thing I have a good cpu and the worst gpu Is there a free render farm That I can use?

[@jmor3969]

I get that it doesn't work with photos but what about already rendered 3d images that have noise?

[@mihaelkardum8000]

If u mean those blue red images it should change the normal and albedo as well so it should work

[@joe-5D]

Does this 2.81 allow you to use octane ?

[@worm69420]

just pointing it out: blender cycles actually uses path tracing rather than ray tracing

[@RagingBubuli]

Noise on unfocused objects in Photos is normal. As long as the focused object is sharp, the photo is considered “good enough.”

[@weirdeye2251]

that was fun :D i can clean my old renders lol

[@SteelShadowAnimations]

How do I export a render with the denoise because every time I export it does not have denoise applied?

[@mihaelkardum8000]

You need to plug in the composite node not only viewer node than go to view than go to render layer and save it

[@SteelShadowAnimations]

@@mihaelkardum8000 Thanks

[@NielsPausma]

What about baking? Never see that come up in these tests

[@mihaelkardum8000]

What do you mean by baking

[@NielsPausma]

.MIhael Kardum rendering to an object texture instead of the camera view

[@mihaelkardum8000]

I think it doesn't use ray tracing for that

[@dedhead9322]

so, the beta will be available next month?

[@Tymon0000]

*Note:* Doesn't work when "Progressive Refine" is checked ☑ _Scene → Performance → Tiles → Progressive Refine ☐_

[@SlyNine]

What about volumetrics?

[@mihaelkardum8000]

It should also work

[@eriuz]

the intel denoiser works on ryzen cpu or intel xeon without intel igpu ?

[@mihaelkardum8000]

It works for everything that can run blender 2.81

[@eyeskids4021]

I'd like to ask you about recording a 3D animation of 3 minutes, how long to record it on Blender

[@aandarcom]

There are way too many variables for anyone to answer that question. You will have to learn a lot.

[@mihaelkardum8000]

It depends on many things

[@4.0.4]

Props to Intel, I'm more of an AMD guy but I'm glad they didn't lock it down just because.

[@mihaelkardum8000]

I always use intel

[@OgatRamastef]

fucking amazing

[@felipevece]

it would need a denoiser specific for EEVEE

[@mihaelkardum8000]

Eevee is not ray traced so it usually doesn't have noise try with more samples for Eevee it doesn't take long

[@hypernova4997]

Can we just talk about how meta the screen on that computer is in the scene?

[@eggyrepublic]

In a few years it might become standard to just work in rendered mode because ray tracing is fast enough to be real time

[@dahahaka]

I'm 99% sure that this only works because it's using the AI Chip in your Intel Gigabit Ethernet interface!

[@mihaelkardum8000]

No

[@dahahaka]

@@mihaelkardum8000 No u

[@ZsClawed]

There is also the AI Denoiser inside Radeon Prorender!

[@Sh-hg8kf]

Tfw ur gpu died and all you have is Intel HD 3k that can't even run blender 2.8

[@Atrac89]

Sucks it does not work for AMD

[@cg_cookie]

I'm on an AMD only machine and it works great 👍

[@runforitman]

Nvidia working with Blender to implement hardware acceleration for Cycles is the only thing tempting me to buy an RTX card

[@sh_4016]

Just Denoise the albedo and normal pass too