Multipass Renders - Noisy Beauty Pass in After Effects

[Ferdinand13]

Hi there,

I'm rendering an animation in Octane Render for C4D (3.05.3) using Path Tracing to create a series of Multipass EXRs. The resolution is 1920x1080 and at 1200spp in the C4D Picture Viewer the overall Beauty Pass looks good.

However, when I open those EXRs in After Effects and break out the Beauty Pass via the EXtractoR effect, things don't look as nice anymore.

There's a whole lot of noise, that didn't show up in the C4D Picture Viewer.

Any idea, why this happens? Looking forward to hear your comments.

[jsuarez388]

Recently found some problems with exporting 32bit EXRs myself. My issue was with multilayer EXR and info passes, after frame 80, EXR would render black, but anyways...

I am curious, since you are saying that you applied Extractor in After Effects and extracted the beauty pass, i'm assuming that you are also rendering a multi layer EXR... if this is the case did you try adding a Levels effect and playing with it to see if the noise goes away?

With EXR once you export the beauty pass that means (if I am not mistaken) that this is not tonemapped color space, like it is in the Live Viewer in C4D, once extracted it is linear therefore things might look a bit different and would require some color correction or even compositing of other passes (lights, reflections, etc)

Try it out and let me know what you come across, I am interested to see where this goes with EXRs

[slepy8]

If you render to EXR with Render Layer Masks set for some objects you don't only get the beauty pass and layer masks.
You get additionally beauty pass images with alpha according to Render Layer Masks.
So in overall if you have for example 4 Render Layer Masks set, you'll get 5 beauty passes.

I realised these additional beauty passes are noisy AF recently and found no solution to this.

Just leave "Save Beauty" ON and composit this Beauty Pass with Render LAyr Mask.

Just be sure to choose the right beauty pass in Extractor.

[aoktar]

So in overall if you have for example 4 Render Layer Masks set, you'll get 5 beauty passes.
I realised these additional beauty passes are noisy AF recently and found no solution to this.

I've removed these additional beauty passes which come with RL masks in my dev build . Are they necessary/usefull somehow? What you think?

[slepy8]

IMHO they are not needed.
They just take hard drive space.
Most people are compositing using alpha masks however..

[aoktar]

IMHO they are not needed.
They just take hard drive space.
Most people are compositing using alpha masks however..

I suppose so thanks!

[jsuarez388]

If you render to EXR with Render Layer Masks set for some objects you don't only get the beauty pass and layer masks.
You get additionally beauty pass images with alpha according to Render Layer Masks.
So in overall if you have for example 4 Render Layer Masks set, you'll get 5 beauty passes.

I realised these additional beauty passes are noisy AF recently and found no solution to this.

Just leave "Save Beauty" ON and composit this Beauty Pass with Render LAyr Mask.

Just be sure to choose the right beauty pass in Extractor.

No, this is not the issue. I didn't check Render Beauty in my mutlipasses. I only needed the Layer Masks (object buffers) to be able to composite in After Effects. The multilayer EXR worked great for 80 frames or so, after that it's all black, and this didn't just happen with the layer masks, ambient occlusion and light pass had the same problem. I had to re-render to PNG sequences and then it worked, I even tested it out rendering individual EXR sequences and it worked too, so I think there might be a bug or something when rendering multilayer EXRs out of Octane.

As for your problem, did you render a tonemapped pass out of cinema? meaning not the beauty pass from the multipasses in Octane, but the actual image composited with AO, shadows, reflections, etc - does this come out grainy?

[aoktar]

Hi jsuarez388,
Just talking about issues that will not help to detect if there's a problem. Don't you mind to send your scene? It's way how we check the problems.

[jsuarez388]

Hi jsuarez388,
Just talking about issues that will not help to detect if there's a problem. Don't you mind to send your scene? It's way how we check the problems.

Hey Ahmet,

Sorry i didn't mean for this to seem like i'm just complaining. Not at all. I was just trying to expose the similar problem I had with EXRs to Ferdinand13 and also tried to give him some advice.

Speaking about my scene, yes I can send you a scene for you to test. I'll let you know in my post, since you already replied there as well, i just didn't have time to upload it till now that the project is done.

Thanks!

[aoktar]

Hi jsuarez388,
Just talking about issues that will not help to detect if there's a problem. Don't you mind to send your scene? It's way how we check the problems.

Hey Ahmet,

Sorry i didn't mean for this to seem like i'm just complaining. Not at all. I was just trying to expose the similar problem I had with EXRs to Ferdinand13 and also tried to give him some advice.

Speaking about my scene, yes I can send you a scene for you to test. I'll let you know in my post, since you already replied there as well, i just didn't have time to upload it till now that the project is done.

Thanks!

Sure i know that. Just we need more direct feedbacks from users. I believe making a better software will make you happier. Thanks and i'm waiting for a scene.