PSA: Did everyone know about pixel filters but me?
Leonides02
Posts: 1,379
in The Commons
Sorry if this is not news to anyone, but the quality of my renders just increased exponentially. How? I discovered the "Pixel Filter" slider in render settings.
I always had a vague feeling my renders look kind of blurry even when I applied HD morphs.
Now, setting my pixel filter to "mitchell" and "0.70" instead of "Gaussian" and "1.5" it makes a huge difference! Everything is sharper and in high-resolution.
Give it a try.
P.S. I still don't know what mitchell or lanczos means, so if anybody knows chime in!
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Math is what it means. Pretty sure Gaussian refers to good old Carl Friedrich Gauss. Mitchell and Lanczos refer to Don Mitchell and Arun Netravali, and Cornelius Lanczos, respectively. If you want more details, you'll need to study their math.
actually there is a difference, but your settings are over sharp on my renders ... I've gotta dial back alittle ... thanks for the tip though
I always set mine to 1.0 as that is sharp & that is why I have a harder time getting realistic renders. They are sharp as in real digital camera HD sharp so any model deficiency is more readily exposed, not that I care too much, I like the sharp focused look.
Gaussian is actually the best one of those I believe.
...
Yep - set mine to 1.0 too. I have a render preset for IRay and that is one of the things I set. I also use Mitchell though I'm not sure why ... I think it was recommended somewhere.
I've got mine @ mitchel 1.1 plus noise filter enable, which is just stunning. I have no idea why the default setting is gaussian. If DAZ wants people to get head-turning results out of the box (to showcase how great the render engine is) they should set Michel 1 to the default setting.
Pro Tip: Don't adjust this setting to see what it does if you're in the middle of a render that's been going for 22 hours. It will start the render over back at the beginning.
/sigh
The noise filter doesn't add more blur? I have it turned off because I'm afraid it will undo all the awesome that I found with the pixel filter.
Yeah, I have no idea what they're thinking. Gaussian 1.5 is so damn blurry. Is this a holdover from the old days?
Thanks for sharing this tip @Leonides02 and others who have shared their ideal settings.
The other direction is just skip the filtering and do that in post
check this post to check what each setting does
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1769416/#Comment_1769416
Thanks @mcorr. That's quite helpful.
Question: That post states the noise filters can be changed during rendering, but I can't access my render tab while a render is ongoing...?
I did not know this either. Thanks for sharing!
I feel like it's not widely known. When I did a search for "pixel filter," almost nothing came back on the forum.
If you render to a new window on the left hand side you can expand it to see some noise & bloom settings taht are adjustable on the fly :)
I had no idea. There is soooo much stuff to learn, I am always grateful for these little tidbits of knowledge that I haven't gotten around to trying to figure out. I always wondered what the other choices under that filter were for lol. Just didn't have time to test it.
I had no idea also... Looks like i have some tests to run!
thanks for the intel!
that sounds important but I don't understand how that's done ...
how do you render to a new window while a render is going?
You have to set up your original render to render in a new window, insread of straight to file. If you do that there is a tiny little button on the left side of that window roughly in the middle, that will open up a box where you can change things like tone, contrast as well as what was mentioned above and it will do it in real time while rendering.
What!?
*goes hurridly to new render*
Note that if you are using canvasses, changing parameters will restart the render.
You have to set up your original render to render in a new window, insread of straight to file. If you do that there is a tiny little button on the left side of that window roughly in the middle, that will open up a box where you can change things like tone, contrast as well as what was mentioned above and it will do it in real time while rendering.
sneaky little hidden button ... thank you!
The setting will depend on the pixel size of your render. I have mine set at 0.7 Mitchell as that seems to be the best for the render size I use, 1496x997. When doing photos in Photoshop though, with the greater number of pixels,4288x2848, I have seen me having to set it to 1.5 or even 2.0 Mitchell to get the sharpness right. The setting is how much the adjacent pixels are changed. 1.0 is one pixel, 0.05 is half a pixel, 1,5 is one and a half pixels. That is from memory as it is a years since I looked it up and started using it.
As will a number of other settings, without using canvases. I even had the render start over once, when I changed the Max Samples. Boy, did that have me seeing red. If you just want to test all this to see what is possible, I recommend doing it on a test scene you created just for the purpose... so you don't lose hours and hours of rendering, as @zombietaggerung did.
I did six different renders (three sets of two) to test this and I don't see a difference.
Here's Gaussian:
Here's Mitchell:
My eyes aren't the best though (I've had to wear glasses/contacts since I was 8). Does anyone else see a difference in the two? It's entirely possible that my eyes just suck. lol
I found this explanation. The main site seems to be gone but this is a cached version from Google.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tDRDEhrebOsJ:softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/renderoptions_mr_SettingSampleFiltering.htm+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=opera
Aeon Soul gives always the tip for pixel filter : (tip: remember to set your "Filtering > Pixel > Pixel Filter Radius" at 0.50 or so to enjoy all the crispy details of the textures, especially in very close-up renders). :)
I did some tests and I could see a difference but it's easiest when switching between the two pictures directly. And my tests were 'default' and 'mitchell .7' and 'mictchell .4'. Also including the default and the .4 run through Topaz Clean, where the sharper filters produces better cartoon lines. Clickable links open in new windows so you can switch between tabs to compare instantly.Look at the skirt and fingertips in the Clean version; you can see details sharper in the hair (Charity Med-Rez) and skirt in straight renders.
Default Filter:
.4 Mitchell
Topaz Clean Cartoon Default
Topaz Clean Cartoon Mitchell .4
No, my eyes are fine and they go back and forth between thinking one is clearer and then the other is clearer. So I think when you have really good source material to render with good lighting they are for all practical purposes the same.
I looked (searched on the net) for discussions and the only discussions I saw where about texture blurring (Mitchell) vs geometetry edge blurring (Lanzcos) and that would arise as with Gaussian the bigger the value you choose over 0. I think 0 turns the filter off. The filters are meant to blur & obscur that the models are fake.
Thanks for the feedback. It's much appreciated! I wasn't sure if I couldn't tell the difference due to me or if there really wasn't any difference. I'll keep experimenting with it though. You might be right in that the lighting may make a difference. I always use pretty intense lighting with most of my renders. I wonder if it would make a difference with darker more "moodier" lit renders.
Thanks again for the feedback! :)