How to Use V-Ray Denoiser: A Step-by-Step Guide for 3ds Max Renders

What you’ll learn in this guide

V-Ray Denoiser detects and smooths noise in rendered images and render elements. Because denoising is applied after rendering, you can change the denoising settings and process the image again without re-rendering the scene, provided the necessary channels are available in the V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB). This guide covers adding a denoiser to a 3ds Max scene, choosing an engine and processing settings, processing images with the standalone vdenoise tool, and denoising animation frames in batches.

Denoising reduces noise, but it can also soften image details. So instead of aiming for the smoothest possible image, check surface textures, fine edges, and shadow transitions as well.

Requirements

• V-Ray for 3ds Max must be installed. The standalone Denoiser Tool is included with the V-Ray installation.

• You can use a render with the necessary render elements in the VFB, or a multi-channel OpenEXR or .vrimg file.

• The NVIDIA AI denoiser requires a compatible NVIDIA GPU. Chaos documentation states that this engine works with Maxwell and newer GPU architectures.

• The Default V-Ray denoiser can run on the CPU or an AMD or NVIDIA GPU. Intel Open Image Denoise can fall back to the CPU if a suitable NVIDIA GPU is not available.

On Windows, you can open the standalone tool from the Start menu. In Windows 11, use the “Denoiser Tool” shortcut under “V-Ray for 3ds Max”; the tool can also be run from the command line.

Preparing the denoiser in 3ds Max

1. Add the VRayDenoiser render element

Go to the Render Elements tab in the Render Setup window, click Add, and add VRayDenoiser. This render element prepares the channels used during denoising. These include noise level, defocus amount, world positions, world normals, and diffuse, reflection, and refraction filters. The standalone tool may still work if some channels are missing, but the output can be overly blurry.

2. Choose a denoising engine for your use case

VRayDenoiser offers three engine options:

• Default V-Ray: Runs on the CPU or GPU. It stands out for producing consistent results across channels in compositing workflows where render elements are denoised together.

• NVIDIA AI: Requires an NVIDIA GPU and, according to the documentation, can denoise faster. Results may be less consistent across render elements than with Default V-Ray.

• Intel Open Image Denoise: V-Ray’s integration of Intel Open Image Denoise. According to the documentation, it uses a suitable NVIDIA GPU if one is available; otherwise, it falls back to the CPU.

Rather than treating one engine as the default choice for every scene, test the options on the same render. Compare changes to fine lines, reflections, shadows, and texture details in particular.

3. Adjust the Strength and Radius values

The presets for the Default V-Ray denoiser use different Strength and Radius values: Default uses Strength 1 and Radius 10; Mild uses Strength 0.5 and Radius 5; and Strong uses Strength 2 and Radius 15. You can also adjust these two parameters with the Custom option.

As Strength increases, noise is removed more aggressively, but the image may become too blurry. Radius determines the area around each pixel sampled during evaluation. Higher values can produce a smoother result, but slow down denoising.

After changing the settings, click Update to reapply them if the necessary render elements are available in the VFB. This lets you compare different denoising settings on the same render without rendering the scene again.

4. Check the sampling settings

Chaos recommends using the Bucket or Progressive image sampler and a Noise threshold of 0.05 or lower for most scenes. The denoiser works better when noise levels are similar across different parts of the image. Very low sampling can reduce the information the algorithm needs to produce a clean result. So don’t treat the denoiser as a replacement for sampling settings.

Processing images and animations with the standalone vdenoise tool

Included with the V-Ray installation, vdenoise can process still images or animations outside 3ds Max. The tool can read .vrimg and multi-channel OpenEXR files and write output in the same format. After opening the GUI, select a file or frame sequence in the Input File field, then choose an engine and preset and click Denoise.

For a single image, specify the file path on the command line:

vdenoise -inputFile="D:\\render\\salon.exr"

Change the path in the command to the location of the .exr file you want to use. For an animation sequence, use question marks in place of the frame numbers:

vdenoise -inputFile="D:\\render\\anim_????.exr"

All frames in the sequence must be rendered before animation processing begins; vdenoise can evaluate multiple frames together. The Blend Frames setting in the GUI determines how many neighboring frames are used during processing and helps reduce flickering between consecutive frames. You can also choose the start and end frames and the frame step in the corresponding GUI fields.

Common mistakes

• Starting without preparing render elements: The denoiser may work without some required channels, but the output can become blurry. Adding VRayDenoiser before rendering helps prepare the necessary elements.

• Choosing the NVIDIA AI engine without checking the hardware: This option requires a compatible NVIDIA GPU. Rendering the scene on the CPU does not remove this requirement.

• Removing noise too aggressively: Increasing Strength or Radius can also soften details. Zoom in and compare the output from the Mild, Default, and Strong presets.

• Processing animation frames one at a time: Treating frames independently can cause flickering throughout the sequence. Chaos recommends the standalone vdenoise tool for animations because it can blend frames; all frames must be ready before processing.

• Expecting clean details from low sampling: If sampling is too low, the denoiser may not have enough information to work with. Check the noise distribution and render settings together.

Next steps: evaluate the result for the scene and delivery format

After your first test, don’t look only at large, bright surfaces. Zoom in to inspect fine edges, reflections, shadows, and textures as well. If you use render elements for compositing, check the results for those channels with your chosen engine. In the standalone tool, use the Select denoise elements window to choose which color elements to process; denoised elements can be written to a new file and transferred to compositing software.

In architecture, interior design, and archviz workflows, this approach can be useful for teams that want to try different denoising settings after rendering or process animation frames in batches. Hardware affects the choice of engine: Default V-Ray can run on the CPU or GPU, while NVIDIA AI requires a compatible NVIDIA GPU. For animation delivery, it’s important to check consistency across the entire sequence, not just the quality of a single frame. The source documentation does not specify pricing or license coverage; current V-Ray terms should be verified separately.

Sources and licensing

This tutorial is adapted into Turkish from Chaos’s “VRayDenoiser” and “Denoiser Tool” documentation. Both sources are listed as license=free.