Viewport denoising wasn't added to blender until 2.83 and he is using 2.82. As for affecting the lighting, it depends. If you are going to be using denoising for your final render then you should use it. If you aren't going to use denoising for the final render then you shouldn't use it.
Got it!
Makes sense! I haven't seen a fundamentals course for rendering. Is there one? If not, any insight on whether it ever makes sense to not denoise your renders?
I know in animation we usually add some noise as a final step make it less perfect and fake. Would it make sense to NOT denoise to begin with? Or is it best to have a noise-free image, and then stylize?
For animation render you don't use denoise in most cases. If you'r doing a still shot or a really slow motion shot then maybe, but blender's denoising is not designed for animation rendering, and can cause a flickering effect. The motion blur, depth of field, and flipping of the frames hides or removes a lot of the noise anyways. in rare cases it removes to much and you have to go in and actually add noise.
You actually learn most of it through the fundamentals course since to see end results you have to render. If I remember correctly the Fundamentals of Materials and shading goes in more detail about rendering. It could be the Fundamentals of Texturing, but I'm pretty sure it's the materials one since it's meant to be watched first.
I don't use denoiser other than for preview renders, for the final render I switch it off, I hate how it obliterates the details.
The fundamentals of rendering I think it's the only one of the fundamentals that was never updated, perhaps because Blender change so fast when it comes to rendering that it goes outdated too quickly? I'm not sure, but here's the link to it, perhaps at least 70% of the knowledge in there is still valid?
This is great insight, as always! Thank you both for the tips. I agree... I don't like denoising on my day editing job either, so it makes sense. Even on the preview if feels a tad too strong.
I'll play with the settings, and definitely watch that fundamentals class. The classes here have so far being a lot more about the principles than just the tool (which is phenomenal!).
I know in animation we usually add some noise as a final step make it less perfect and fake. Would it make sense to NOT denoise to begin with? Or is it best to have a noise-free image, and then stylize?
Unfortunately, render noise looks pretty different from camera noise or film grain (it's much more sharp, harsh, and in the wrong places), so it's usually preferred to denoise the render and then add in some fake noise in post that better mimics real grain. That also helps with getting all layers of the final shot to match if you're doing some compositing with film or multiple renders.
That's interesting! I didn't play enough with it yet to see the difference. Thank you for the insight, @jlampel !
