How to Render a Sequence and Denoise

How to Render a Sequence and Denoise with Noice 

Part 1 The Common Tab 

1. Render a still. Note how long it took and the amount of noise.

Render Settings 

2. Noice is Arnold’s native denoiser. In Render Settings, go to the Common tab and make sure your Path is going to your Images folder. If it isn’t, close Render Settings and go to File>Set Project. Go back to the Common tab and change the  following settings: 

File name prefix: restaurantRender_RAW 

Image format: EXR 

Compression: None 

Make sure Preserve Layer Name and Merge AOVs are checked. Frame/Animation ext: name.#.ext 

Frame padding: 4 

Start frame: 1 

End Frame: 1 (We’re just testing out one frame for right now. But when you are  ready to render your entire restaurant project, change the end frame to 240)

Renderable Camera: renderCAM 

Image Size>Presets: HD_540 

Part 2 The System Tab 

1. Render Device: CPU 

Part 3 The AOVs Tab 

1. Check the box next to Output Denoising AOVs. 

2. Notice the AOV Browser section and the Available AOVs in the left column.  Choose N (for Normal), P (for Position), and Albedo (this is another word for color). Click the double arrow to move these AOVs to the column on the right,  called Active AOVs. You can close the Render Settings window. 

These steps help Arnold detect noise so as to give you a better result. 

Part 4 Start the Sequence Render 

1. Change the menu in the upper left to Rendering. 

2. At the top of the UI, go to Render>Render Sequence>Option Box. Make sure the Current Camera is set to renderCAM.  

3. Click Render Sequence and Close. The computer will ‘think’ for a beat and then  you should see a window open up with your rendered image. It may look different  than when you did a test render of one frame. We’ll now run it through the denoiser in the next section.

Part 5 Using Noice 

1. At the top of the UI, go to Arnold>Utilities>Arnold Denoiser (noice). 

2. Click on the 3 dots near Input and find your restaurantRender_RAW.EXR in your  Images folder. 

3. Arnold automatically puts your denoised version in the same folder. 

4. You can change Frame Range to a single frame, complete sequence, etc.  Typically, you will want to select the complete sequence. 

5. Variance means the strength of the filter. Autodesk suggests .25 for a low  value, or .5 for a min value or .75 for a max value. 

6. Does your render look ‘splotchy’? Steps 5, 6, and 7 are meant to help with that.  Pixel Search Radius softens the neighboring region. Highest recommended value would be 40. 

7. Pixel Patch Radius = for best results, don’t go above 5. 

8. Click Denoise. 

9. Look at your denoised image and compare to your RAW image; you should have a much cleaner-looking image.