v3.8.0

v3.8.0:

HIGHLIGHTS:

• NRD: introduced optional "NRDEncoding.hlsli"
• NRD: introduced optional per per-pixel disocclusion threshold
• NRD: increased default disocclusion threshold
• NRD: fixed bug leading to rounding materialID 2 to 3
• RELAX / REBLUR: various improvements
• REBLUR: removed settings "minConvergedStateBaseRadiusScale" and "maxAdaptiveRadiusScale"
• REBLUR: specular tracking improvements

DETAILS:

• NRD: introduced optional "NRDEncoding.hlsli"
• NRD: introduced optional per per-pixel disocclusion threshold
• NRD: increased default disocclusion threshold
• NRD: fixed bug leading to rounding materialID 2 to 3
• RELAX / REBLUR: fixed potential SMEM out of bounds access
• RELAX / REBLUR: added support for IN_DISOCCLUSION_THRESHOLD_MIX
• RELAX / REBLUR: improved disocclusion check
• RELAX / REBLUR: improved "back faced" history rejection
• RELAX / REBLUR: fixed previous normal fetching math for footprints touching "background" pixels
• RELAX / REBLUR: refactoring
• RELAX: improved math handling jitter
• RELAX: added view vector- and roughness- based stoppers to A-trous
• RELAX: removed ortho related hack from TA pass
• RELAX: added materialID support to anti-firefly filter
• REBLUR: improved SMB (surface motion based) accumulation speed estimation
• REBLUR: tweaked anti-firefly suppressor settings
• REBLUR: tweaked roughness weight for specular VMB (virtual motion based) tracking
• REBLUR: fixed parallax-based specular confidence for VMB (was too aggressive at high FPS)
• REBLUR: removed settings "minConvergedStateBaseRadiusScale" and "maxAdaptiveRadiusScale"
• REBLUR: improved checkerboard resolve if amount of SMB is high
• REBLUR: fixed potential over-sharpening in disoccluded regions (ancient regression)
• REBLUR: increased aggressiveness of curvature correction
• REBLUR: improved hitT for tracking in TS pass
• REBLUR: fixed potential out of screen roughness check in TA pass
• REBLUR: resolved TODOs
• REBLUR: improved curvature estimation if parallax is high
• REBLUR: tuned settings of virtual parallax difference based confidence to minimize potential ghosting
• REBLUR: fixed SMB data influence on VMB in TS pass
• REBLUR: fixed bug not allowing a lower value to be clamped to a bigger value from fast history
• SPECULAR_REFLECTION_MV: updated curvature calculation math
• improved docs

v3.7.0

NRD v3.7.0:

HIGHLIGHTS:

• NRD: introduced NRD_NORMAL_ENCODING and NRD_ROUGHNESS_ENCODING parameters (controlled via CMake) to cover more encoding variants out of the box
• NRD: introduced read-only "normalEncoding" and "roughnessEncoding" in "LibraryDesc" describing which encoding NRD has been compiled with
• NRD: improved curvature estimation and usage for any type of supported normal encoding
• NRD: fixed wrong curvature direction (was Y-flipped)
• NRD: CLEAR_AND_RESTART now clears only "history" resources, including user-provided outputs
• RELAX: fixed dynamic resolution scale related issue for specular (regression)
• REBLUR: improved specular tracking
• REBLUR: removed "enableAdvancedPrepass"
• REBLUR: reduced potential chroma shifts
• REBLUR_SH: fixed bias (increased lightness)
• REBLUR_DIFFUSE_SPECULAR_SH: fixed wrong resource bindings if pre-pass is off
• NRD INTEGRATION: descriptor caching is now based on native resource pointers instead of NRI pointers

DETAILS:

• NRD: introduced NRD_NORMAL_ENCODING and NRD_ROUGHNESS_ENCODING
• NRD: improved clears on CLEAR_AND_RESTART
• NRD: removed shared NRD_NORMAL_ENCODING_ERROR
• NRD: curvature error compensation made normal encoding dependent
• NRD: fixed numerical instabilities in curvature estimation
• NRD: fixed how thin lens equation interacts with concave surfaces
• NRD: fixed wrong calculation of curvature direction
• RELAX: NRD_NORMAL_ENCODING_ERROR => RELAX_NORMAL_ENCODING_ERROR (no functional changes)
• RELAX: fixed resolution scale regression in virtual motion based reprojection for specular
• RELAX: moving to using "ApplyThinLensEquation"
• REBLUR: NORMAL_ULP increased from 0.0009 to 0.004 (1/255)
• REBLUR: consistent REBLUR_NORMAL_ULP usage
• REBLUR: removed / resolved some TODOs
• REBLUR: prev-prev test improvements
• REBLUR: changing luma doesn't allow energy boost
• REBLUR: removed "enableAdvancedPrepass" (low IQ gains, adds bias in SH mode)
• REBLUR_DIFFUSE_SPECULAR_SH: fixed wrong resource bindings if pre-pass is off
• NRD INTEGRATION: descriptor caching is now based on native resource pointers instead of NRI pointers
• NRD INTEGRATION: improved debug output
• NRD INTEGRATION: NRI updated to v1.86
• updated MathLib

v3.6.0

NRD v3.6.0:

HIGHLIGHTS:

• NRD: removed "SpecularLobeTrimmingParameters"
• NRD: improved NRD SDK generation script
• REBLUR: regression and bug fixes (sorry, it's an expected side effect of doing steps forward)
• REBLUR: improved IQ and performance

DETAILS:

• NRD: removed "SpecularLobeTrimmingParameters"
• NRD: improved NRD SDK generation script
• NRD: Fooplot graphs replaced with Desmos graphs
• NRD: improved compatibility with HLSL 2021 (WIP)
• NRD: clarified in comments where NRD_USE_OCT_NORMAL_ENCODING and NRD_USE_MATERIAL_ID come from
• NRD: getting rid of point-mirror samplers in the shader code
• REBLUR: changed estimation of optimal hitT for tracking
• REBLUR: added random rotation to HistoryFix pass
• REBLUR: hitT for very low roughness is not modified by HistoryFix pass (already clean)
• REBLUR: made another attempt to properly tune virtual parallax based history rejection
• REBLUR: fixed SH related bug in pre-pass (regression)
• REBLUR: improved SH denoising (pre-pass now behaves as "advanced" since direction and PDF are available)
• REBLUR: unified hitT weight between radiance and hitT
• REBLUR: unified hit distance factor
• REBLUR: improved performance
• REBLUR: fixed a rare case of out-of-bounds access, when unused half of a resource is filled with NaNs
• REBLUR: improved calculation of virtual motion based accumulation speed for specular
• REBLUR: blur radius refactoring (all relevant code gathered in one place for clarity)
• REBLUR: fixed a minor issue in debug visualization
• REBLUR: tuned blur radius "addon"
• REBLUR: code refactoring and simplification
• SIGMA: changed shader names to match overall REBLUR style (no functional changes)
• updated README & UPDATE

v3.5.0

NRD v3.5.0:

HIGHLIGHTS:

• REBLUR: important follow up bug & regression fixes
• REBLUR: fixed broken DIRECTIONAL_OCCLUSION denoiser
• REBLUR: significantly reduced memory usage of OCCLUSION & DIRECTIONAL_OCCLUSION denoisers
• REBLUR: improved internal anti-firefly suppressor
• REBLUR: more stable specular tracking
• REBLUR: improved IQ
• REBLUR: temporal stabilization is now less important for IQ (but still needed for antilag)

DETAILS:

• NRD: SH simplifications
• NRD: prepass rotator now scales blur radius by +/- 25%
• NRD: added cutoffs for non-exponential weights to minimize FP precision drifting
• NRD: added optional "NONE" mode for kernel rotation
• NRD: fixed strangely-looking code for texture clearing
• NRD: tweaked hit distance weight to be not stricter than 3%
• NRD: introduced NRD_EPS
• NRD: reduced code entropy
• REBLUR OCCLUSION and DIRECTIONAL_OCCLUSION: switched internal processing to 16-bit UNORM/SNORM instead of 16-bit FLOAT to fix darkening effects when history length is very long
• REBLUR OCCLUSION: significantly reduced memory usage
• REBLUR OCCLUSION: simplified code to be closer to non-occlusion mode
• REBLUR DIRECTIONAL_OCCLUSION: fixed! (was broken after recent changes)
• REBLUR DIRECTIONAL OCCLUSION & SH: fixed internal anti-firefly suppressor
• REBLUR SH: advanced prepass made always on since direction and PDF is available
• REBLUR: rotators now scale blur radius by +/- 25%
• REBLUR: exposed "historyFixFrameNum" and "historyFixStrideBetweenSamples" instead of "historyFixStrength"
• REBLUR: min PDF check moved to encoding phase
• REBLUR: tuned fractions
• REBLUR: fixed "darkening" bias (old regression)
• REBLUR: massaged blur radius calculation
• REBLUR: blur radius boost adjusted by roughness (regression)
• REBLUR: tuned blur radius in spatial passes if number of accumulated frames is low
• REBLUR: massaged curvature angle
• REBLUR: switched to symmetrical kernel
• REBLUR: improved virtual parallax based confidence calculation (less history drops for glossy specular)
• REBLUR: simplified checkerboard resolve & accum speeds interpolation
• REBLUR: relaxed parallax check if history length is short
• REBLUR: fixed potentially numerically unstable direction normalization (regression)
• REBLUR: fixed virtual motion based history accumulation acceleration (regression)
• REBLUR: tweaked plane distance sensitivity after history reset
• REBLUR: switched anti-firefly to 3x3 instead of 5x5
• REBLUR: anti-firefly and fast history clamping improvements
• REBLUR: fixed lost after refactoring scale in "GetSensitivityToDarkness" (regression)
• REBLUR: returned not affecting main history anti-firefly for hitT in temporal stabilization pass (regression)
• REBLUR: fixed ancient code preventing anti-lag from resetting history to 0 (was only 1 frame)
• REBLUR: improved checkerboard resolve for fast history
• REBLUR: matched surface- and virtual- based motion footprint quality calculations
• REBLUR: spatial filtering now follows specular lobe better
• REBLUR: improved behavior in disocclusions
• REBLUR: improved anti-firefly suppressor
• REBLUR: disocclusion check simplification
• REBLUR: used averaged instead of normalized previous normal for backfacing check
• REBLUR: resolved some TODOs
• REBLUR: improved code reuse
• REBLUR: refactoring
• RELAX: unification related renamings
• updated README & UPDATE
• updated MathLib

v3.4.3

NRD v3.4.3:

HIGHLIGHTS:

• bug fixes & improvements

DETAILS:

• fixed lost after refactoring scale in "GetSensitivityToDarkness" (regression)
• returned not affecting main history anti-firefly for hitT in temporal stabilization pass (regression)
• fixed ancient code preventing antilag from resetting history to 0 (was only 1 frame)
• fixed potential black outlines introduced by temporal stabilization pass
• improved checkerboard resolve for fast history

v3.4.2

NRD v3.4.2:

HIGHLIGHTS:

• bug fixes & improvements

DETAILS:

• REBLUR: fixed broken resource bindings in REBLUR_DIRECTIONAL_OCCLUSION denoiser
• REBLUR: tweaked plane distance sensitivity after history reset to minimize overblur
• REBLUR: tuned blur radius in spatial passes if number of accumulated frames is low (gives IQ and performance)
• REBLUR: switched anti-firefly to 3x3 instead of 5x5
• REBLUR: anti-firefly and fast history clamping improvements

v3.4.1

NRD v3.4.1:

HIGHLIGHTS:

• bug fixes

DETAILS:

• NRD: reduced code entropy (no functional changes)
• REBLUR: relaxed parallax check if history length is short
• REBLUR: accelerate hitT accumulation for low roughness (resolved TODO)
• REBLUR: fixed insane blur radius boost for low roughness (regression)
• REBLUR: fixed potentially numerically unstable direction normalization (regression)
• REBLUR: fixed virtual motion based history accumulation acceleration (regression)
• updated MathLib
• updated README

v3.4.0

NRD v3.4.0:

HIGHLIGHTS:

• NRD: anisotropic curvature estimation
• REBLUR/RELAX: improved specular reprojection on curved surfaces
• REBLUR: added fast history
• REBLUR: introduced denoisers working in spherical harmonic (SH) space
• REBLUR: reduced memory usage
• REBLUR: temporal stabilization pass can be turned off eliminating associated overhead
• REBLUR: specular tracking improvements
• REBLUR: better history reconstruction in disoccluded regions
• RELAX: improved performance
• RELAX: improved anti-firefly filtering
• RELAX: improved history confidence usage

DETAILS:

• NRD: anisotropic curvature estimation
• NRD: exposed helper "GetMethodString"
• NRD: gDebug is now available in Common.hlsli
• NRD: updated README and UPDATE
• REBLUR: added SH denoisers
• REBLUR: switched to YCoCg
• REBLUR: added fast history
• REBLUR: rewritten HistoryFix (no mips anymore)
• REBLUR: reduced memory usage
• REBLUR: improved error compensation and reduced bias
• REBLUR: fix for checkerboard resolve in advanced prepass mode
• REBLUR: removed virtual history amount correction which is not needed anymore
• REBLUR: reduced bias in pre-pass
• REBLUR: fixed laggy specular reprojection on bumpy surfaces
• REBLUR: specular confidence doesn't affect hit distance weight
• REBLUR: specular prepass setting should not affect diffuse only denoiser (and vice versa)
• REBLUR: improved reprojection on curved surfaces
• REBLUR: simplified temporal stabilization params
• REBLUR: fixed wrong output in DIFFUSE_DIRECTIONAL_OCCLUSION
• REBLUR: simplified roughness weight in temporal accumulation pass
• REBLUR: removed gFramerateScale based acceleration
• REBLUR: tuned "GetSpecAccumSpeed" (consistent parallax usage)
• REBLUR: tuned prepass parameters
• REBLUR: fixed & optimized hitT for specular tracking
• REBLUR: fixed (corrected) curvature if its sign is oscillating
• REBLUR: fixed (returned) virtual motion based normal weight in temporal accumulation
• REBLUR: added prev-prev test for roughness
• REBLUR: improved firefly suppression
• REBLUR: removed clamping to noisy input for specular
• REBLUR: dropped unnecessary output for sky pixels
• REBLUR: tweaked surface based motion accumulation
• REBLUR: hitT check for virtual motion in temporal accumulation replaced with parallax check
• REBLUR: improved prev-prev test
• REBLUR: prev-prev test checks surface similarity
• REBLUR: performance optimizations
• REBLUR: tweaked hit distance weight
• REBLUR: fixed regressions
• REBLUR: improved virtual motion roughness confidence in temporal accumulation
• REBLUR: maximized code reuse
• REBLUR: refactoring
• RELAX: removed geometry weights in firefly filter
• RELAX: switched from disocclusion threshold to spatial filtering threshold in disocclusion fix
• RELAX: added prev-prev test for roughness
• RELAX: improved confidence buffers handling
• RELAX: performance optimizations
• NRD integration: now computes memory usage

v3.3.1

NRD v3.3.1:

• REBLUR: fixed regression in checkerboard resolve
• REBLUR: fixed specular fallback to surface-based motion if virtual-based motion confidence is low
• README: fixed outdated info

v3.3.0

NRD v3.3.0:

HIGHLIGHTS:

• NRD: exposed HitDistanceReconstructionMode
• REBLUR: removed residual noise level setting
• REBLUR: diffuse pre pass is on by default (as a recommended setting in most cases)

DETAILS:

• NRD: better weights standardization
• NRD: exposed internal macro to use exponential weights for non-noisy data (current behavior preserved)
• REBLUR: exposed 3x3 and 5x5 hitT reconstruction modes
• REBLUR: improved hitT reconstruction pass
• REBLUR: hitT reconstruction pass gets implicitly disabled in checkerboard mode
• REBLUR: prepass IQ and performance improvements
• REBLUR: removed "is hitT valid?" checks (assuming hitT reconstruction is always enabled in case of probabilistic sampling)
• REBLUR: checkerboard resolve IQ and performance improvements
• REBLUR: better hitT accumulation
• REBLUR: improved specular tracking
• REBLUR: improved history fix pass
• REBLUR: tweaked how accumulated frames affect antilag and error estimation
• REBLUR: tweaked / simplified error estimation
• RELAX: exposed 3x3 and 5x5 hitT reconstruction modes
• RELAX: improved hitT reconstruction pass
• RELAX: hitT reconstruction pass gets implicitly disabled in checkerboard mode
• RELAX: prepass IQ and performance improvements
• RELAX: returned back to 1.0e-4 for min PhiLuminance to fix black patches if signal is very sparse