Pathtracer¶
Summary¶
The Pathtracer renders the scene. It takes the PT GEO and PT LIGHT components and POPs beside it (Geometry / Lights), renders them through a Camera COMP (Camera), lights them with the lights, emitting materials and an optional HDRI map, and removes the noise with one of four methods (Method on the Denoising page).
Place it in the same network as your scene, set Camera, and connect a TOP to its first output. The first scene walks through it.
The Pathtracing page sets up the image: what is rendered, the size, how many light paths and bounces, the environment and the lens. The Denoising page chooses and tunes the denoiser; see Denoising.
Outputs¶
- Output 0: Color - The rendered image, denoised with the chosen Method.
- Output 1: Depth - The depth of each pixel as a depth buffer stores it, from 0 near the camera to 1 at the far end; the background is 1. Use it for compositing and fog.
- Output 2: Normal - The world-space surface normal of each pixel, (0, 0, 0) on the background.
Pathtracing page¶
Camera Camera - The Camera COMP to render through. Its position, orientation and field of view are used.
Geometry / Lights Geometry - What to render: PT GEO and PT LIGHT components and POPs, by name or pattern, looked up next to the Pathtracer. The default * renders everything beside it. Components and POPs with their Render flag off are skipped, and so are components whose Render parameter is off.
Lock Input Lockinput - Freezes the scene as it is: changes to the geometry no longer reach the render. Use it for heavy scenes that don't move, and turn it off to see changes again.
Panel Panel - The panel that shows the render, usually a Container COMP whose Background TOP is the Pathtracer's Color output. With Use Panel Resolution its size sets the render size. Right-click a surface in it (without dragging) to open that surface's material; Ctrl+right-click opens its PT GEO or PT LIGHT.
Use Panel Resolution Usepanelresolution - Renders at the size of the Panel instead of Resolution.
Resolution Resolutionw Resolutionh - The size of the image in pixels, when Use Panel Resolution is off. With DLSS this is the output size, and the render itself is smaller by the Quality Preset.
Reset Reset - Starts the render over, discarding the accumulated frames and the denoiser's history.
Rays Per Pixel Iterations - How many light paths are traced per pixel in each frame. More paths give a cleaner image each frame and cost more time. With the Average method the image also gets cleaner over time while nothing changes.
Bounces Reflections - How many times light may bounce between surfaces. More bounces brighten indirectly lit areas and are needed to see through glass (every glass surface counts), at more cost. 0 gives direct light only.
HDRI Map Environmentalmap - An equirectangular (latitude-longitude) HDRI image that surrounds the scene and lights it. Without one, the surroundings are black and only the lights and emitting materials give light.
Dimmer Dimmer - The brightness of the HDRI's light.
Rotation Rotation1 Rotation2 Rotation3 - Rotates the HDRI around the scene, in degrees around X, Y and Z.
Render as Background Renderenvironment - Shows the HDRI behind the scene. Off, the background is black while the HDRI still lights the scene.
Apply Dimmer to Background Applydimmertobackground - Applies Dimmer to the visible background too. Off, the background keeps the HDRI's own brightness.
**MIS HDRI Map ** Mishdrimap - Aims light paths at the bright parts of the HDRI. Turn it on for HDRIs with a small, bright sun or lamp: it removes most of the noise they cause. It prepares a sampling map whenever the HDRI changes.
Render Light Sources Renderlightsources - Shows lights and emitting surfaces to the camera. Off, they are invisible to the camera but still light the scene and still appear in reflections.
Firefly Clamping Fireflyclamping - Limits how bright a single light path may be, which removes fireflies: isolated, very bright pixels. Lower values remove more of them but also dim small, bright highlights. 0 turns it off.
Focus Distance Focusdistance - The distance from the camera, in scene units, that is in focus when Aperture is above 0.
Aperture Aperture - The size of the lens. 0 keeps everything sharp; larger values blur what is nearer or farther than Focus Distance more strongly.
Denoising page¶
**Method ** Method - How the render is cleaned of noise. The denoising guide compares them.
- Average - Adds up the frames while nothing changes, so a still image becomes clean over time. Any change starts it over. Best for final stills.
- SVGF - A real-time denoiser that reuses previous frames and blurs noise while keeping edges. Works with a moving camera and moving objects.
- OptiX - NVIDIA's OptiX AI denoiser. Needs Windows and an NVIDIA GPU.
- DLSS - NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction: an AI denoiser that can also render at a lower resolution and upscale. Needs Windows, an NVIDIA RTX GPU and the DLSS plugin (Plugin Path).
Temporal Accumulation¶
SVGF: how previous frames are reused.
Strength Tempampstrength - How much of the previous frames is kept. Higher values give a smoother image but react more slowly to changes; lower values react faster and leave more noise.
Depth Threshold Depththreshold - How much a pixel's depth may change before its history is discarded. Lower values discard more, which reduces smearing behind moving objects and leaves more noise.
Normal Threshold Normalthreshold - How similar a pixel's surface direction must stay to keep its history, up to 1 (exactly the same). Higher values discard more.
Albedo Threshold Albedothreshold - How much a pixel's surface colour may change before its history is discarded. Lower values discard more.
Variance Weighting Varianceweighting - How much the noise level decides between history and the new frame. 0 uses Strength as it is; higher values let clean history win over a noisy new frame, and a clean new frame over noisy history.
Spatial Filtering¶
SVGF: how the noise that is left is blurred away.
Passes Passes - How many times the image is blurred. Each pass reaches twice as far, so more passes remove larger blotches of noise and soften more detail. 0 turns the blur off.
Normal Sigma Normalsigma - How strictly the blur stops at edges between surfaces that face different ways. Higher values keep such edges sharper.
Depth Sigma Depthsigma - How far the blur may reach across differences in depth. Lower values keep objects in front of others sharper.
Luma Sigma Lumasigma - How far the blur may reach across differences in brightness. Higher values remove more noise and more texture detail.
Variance Threshold Variancethreshold - Pixels that are already cleaner than this are not blurred.
Plugin Path (.dll) Pluginpath - The DLSS plugin, DlssTOP.dll. The DLSS method needs it; leave it empty when you don't use DLSS.
Quality Preset Quality - DLSS: how much smaller than the output the render is. Smaller renders are faster, and DLSS fills in the detail.
- DLAA (1x) - The full output size (no upscaling). Best quality.
- Quality (1.5x) - 1/1.5 of the output size.
- Balanced (1.7x) - 1/1.7 of the output size.
- Performance (2x) - 1/2 of the output size.
- Ultra Performance (3x) - 1/3 of the output size. Fastest.
**Use Velocity ** Usevelocity - Tracks how moving and deforming geometry moves from frame to frame, so the SVGF, OptiX and DLSS methods can follow it instead of smearing it. Turn it on when objects move. The camera's own motion is always tracked.
Anti Alias Antialias - Smooths jagged edges in the final image (an Anti Alias TOP on the Color output), from low to ultra quality.
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