9
$\begingroup$

In blender 2.81a, there are two denoising tools:

  1. Under layer properties, you can scroll down and enable denoising
  2. Also in layer properties, you can check "denoising data" under passes > data and in the compositing workspace, you can add a denoising filter

Is there a difference between these two? If so, what is different and is one of them "better" (faster, more efficient etc) than the other?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Improve this question
$\endgroup$

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
10
$\begingroup$

For now Intel's OpenImageDenoise is superior to all the other ones. From the release notes:

Compared to the existing denoiser, it works better with more complex materials like glass, and suffers less from splotchy artifacts. It also gives better results with very low numbers of samples, which can be used for quick previews.

It is implemented as a post processing step, so it's easy to set up and thus not exclusive to Cycles, means that the node also allows to denoise EEVEE renders as well as images synthesized by other render engines.

Also see: What are the differences between different Denoiser options built into Blender?

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
2
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ Just to add: the Denoise node targets ray-traced noise. So it doesn't work on external images. And denoising Eevee renders has some limits - hashed shadows and reflections are not denoised. $\endgroup$
    – jachym michal
    Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 13:19
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ I think that's covered by "synthesized images" @ᴊᴀᴄʜʏᴍᴍɪᴄʜᴀʟ Anyway feel free to edit my post. $\endgroup$
    – brockmann
    Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 13:38

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .