Grainy image

pete2106

I've been having this problem with my images for a while but I thought I might see if anyone can help.

 

I've attached a recent character render I ran off to illustrate my problem.

The image is fine but if you look at the character in the darker areas of shadow (like under the arms), the image is really grainy.

I don't know what to do to have this come out cleaner.

Any suggestions?

 

 

The Blurst of Times

Run it through the Intel denoiser.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/316206/denoise-renders-and-save-a-lot-of-time-nvidia-not-reqd/p1

Takes seconds to clean up via AI.

Richard Haseltine

Areas that are indirectly lit are slower to converge - if the rest of the scene is well lit it's possible for them to still be grainy when the convergence threshold is reached. There are several possible approaches:

• if the render fits onto the GPU, turn enable and turn on the new denoiser in the Render Settings' Editor tab (this will try to eliminate the grain, but may also over-smooth other areas - the render won't stop sooner, but you may be able to stop it as good enough sooner)
• increase the Convergence Ration in Render Settings' Editor tab (this may make Iray take account of the grainy aeas, so they get finished too)
• increase the quality in Render Settings' Editor tab (this makes Iray more demanding about what counts as converged, possibly giving the grainy areas time to finish adequately)
• add some more light to fill in those areas (this will actually speed the render, but obviously risks changing the look in a way you don't want - you can try adjusting the Tone Mapping to balance the changes)
• use the Spot Render tool, set to go to a new window in the Tool Settings pane, to redo the problem areas and save as Tiff or PNG so you can just plop the (hopefully) fixed area on top of the main render

Sevrin

It's not the most noise I've seen.

You can try the solution proposed here, but I don't like as a first resort it for photo-realistic renders.   It's good if you use it as a second layer in Photoshop or something, just to smooth things out, but I find it smooths things too much to use on its own for portraits.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/334881/use-this-a-i-based-open-source-de-noiser-from-the-comfort-of-daz-studio/p1

You can also try increasing your render time and number of samples, and also increasing quality and changing the percent of convergence a bit.

I don't know what model this is, but as a rule when you have a lot of skin showing it's a good idea to use skin textures with a little more detail.  More detail won't make noise go away, but it's a lot less noticable than on large smooth surfaces.  Also models tagged as HD give better and more realistic results.

pete2106

The Blurst of Times said:

Run it through the Intel denoiser.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/316206/denoise-renders-and-save-a-lot-of-time-nvidia-not-reqd/p1

Takes seconds to clean up via AI.

I just tried that. It's incredible. It took 2.5 seconds and has cleaned it perfectly. I'll attach the cleaned image for comparison

The Blurst of Times

pete2106 said:

The Blurst of Times said:

Run it through the Intel denoiser.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/316206/denoise-renders-and-save-a-lot-of-time-nvidia-not-reqd/p1

Takes seconds to clean up via AI.

I just tried that. It's incredible. It took 2.5 seconds and has cleaned it perfectly. I'll attach the cleaned image for comparison

Glad it helped! (A few of us are pointing to the same thing in different threads :-D )
It's an amazing tool. It helps a lot of us with more modest computers to shorten the need for rendering time.

The command line is always best (HA, old person talking), but there are multiple ways to use the denoiser tool.
I use a batch file, but the other link has a Daz script.

Anyway, the de-noised/clean version is great!

Catherine3678ab

Richard Haseltine said:

Areas that are indirectly lit are slower to converge - if the rest of the scene is well lit it's possible for them to still be grainy when the convergence threshold is reached. There are several possible approaches:

• if the render fits onto the GPU, turn enable and turn on the new denoiser in the Render Settings' Editor tab (this will try to eliminate the grain, but may also over-smooth other areas - the render won't stop sooner, but you may be able to stop it as good enough sooner)
• increase the Convergence Ration in Render Settings' Editor tab (this may make Iray take account of the grainy aeas, so they get finished too)
• increase the quality in Render Settings' Editor tab (this makes Iray more demanding about what counts as converged, possibly giving the grainy areas time to finish adequately)
• add some more light to fill in those areas (this will actually speed the render, but obviously risks changing the look in a way you don't want - you can try adjusting the Tone Mapping to balance the changes)
• use the Spot Render tool, set to go to a new window in the Tool Settings pane, to redo the problem areas and save as Tiff or PNG so you can just plop the (hopefully) fixed area on top of the main render

Thank you.

Sevrin

pete2106 said:

The Blurst of Times said:

Run it through the Intel denoiser.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/316206/denoise-renders-and-save-a-lot-of-time-nvidia-not-reqd/p1

Takes seconds to clean up via AI.

I just tried that. It's incredible. It took 2.5 seconds and has cleaned it perfectly. I'll attach the cleaned image for comparison

Oh, it clears up the noise, alright, but he also looks even more plastic than before.  Unless you're going for for an android-type look?   Denoising is awesome for hard, smooth surfaces, especially metal and plastic, or for cartoons.  For organic surfaces, on it's own, it has limitations.  

Taoz

The Blurst of Times said:

pete2106 said:

The Blurst of Times said:

Run it through the Intel denoiser.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/316206/denoise-renders-and-save-a-lot-of-time-nvidia-not-reqd/p1

Takes seconds to clean up via AI.

I just tried that. It's incredible. It took 2.5 seconds and has cleaned it perfectly. I'll attach the cleaned image for comparison

The command line is always best (HA, old person talking), but there are multiple ways to use the denoiser tool.
I use a batch file, but the other link has a Daz script.

There is also a DragNDrop version for Windows:

https://taosoft.dk/software/freeware/dnden/

 

pete2106

Sevrin said:

pete2106 said:

The Blurst of Times said:

Run it through the Intel denoiser.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/316206/denoise-renders-and-save-a-lot-of-time-nvidia-not-reqd/p1

Takes seconds to clean up via AI.

I just tried that. It's incredible. It took 2.5 seconds and has cleaned it perfectly. I'll attach the cleaned image for comparison

Oh, it clears up the noise, alright, but he also looks even more plastic than before.  Unless you're going for for an android-type look?   Denoising is awesome for hard, smooth surfaces, especially metal and plastic, or for cartoons.  For organic surfaces, on it's own, it has limitations.  

Yeah, I was gonna say. It does make the skin look more plastic-like but given the choice, I'd take that over the graininess. I don't know enough about how to light it all to make the skin look realistic. If you have any pointers it would be really helpful.