Does indirect lighting affect SSS textures the same way that distant lighting does? Or does SSS ignore indirect lighting in scenes? If it doesn't, what tips do you have for realistic images of SSS objects and indirect lit scenes?

Hi Shonner, The SSS shader does accept indirect and environmental lighting. HDRI maps work wonderfully on SSS objects. Bounced light from a spotlight or distant to an object with SSS works fine too. At least that has been my experience. ;) Mark

Seems like the lighting. Maybe try diff three point. Ambient may also need adjusting. What kind of settings do you have for sss? Someone w/ better lighting experience particularly w/ skin could jump in. Is that the skin shader?

I used three lights at 100% brightness. Ambience was turned off.

I will post my SSS settings when my next render finishes. Now for a dumb question: Does an object's highlight/shine affect a lit scene?

The main skin is a procedural shader using the noise channel as a mixer with a prime skin color (for a slight freckle look up close). The noise channel is used for bumping the skin as well.

I'm working on a decent highlight/shine for her skin, which I forgot to do all this time. The lip/nip areas are seperate objects from the main body.

Message edited on: 11/27/2005 20:55

I reduced the C5 Skin Shaders shininess to nil because, for me, it was far too glossy. Have you tried using the C5 shader and doing various modifications to analyse the effects? I note your transparency is nil. It looks like some may help?

I don't know if transparency is supposted to be used with SSS for humans. I'll check it out though. I used a highlight of 17% and a shine of 3% on her skin.

You know it seems like some trans is worth playing around with. Might help to have another layer w/ the translucency or some kind of transparency and a texture. It seems a bit like a hen's egg (too opaque). The shine doesn't look bad to me. The texture is, of course gonna make a difference. The pig is a bit too translucent. I do think the areola is a bit big tho and the texture/color a bit off. I am sure that is something you will tweak tho.Fun stuff.

Shonner. For the starting point of skin, what better than Skin Lab2 from www.lavers-place.com. I forget where I originally downloaded it from (free) but it is a wow resource which will benefit from SSS. Basically it's a great big layered Photoshop psd which you can modify as required. Very clever. It's not at that site? Will find where.

Message edited on: 11/28/2005 01:05

And Skin Hairy 1. psd. Both before my very eyes and can not find the source!!!

Let me know if you find it. I'm curious what the texture looks like. For now I'm using Carrara's procedural shader abilities which are world famous by now. But I'm thinking I should have used Anything Goos for her skin instead of what comes with Carrara. AGoos seemed to have better control of matching generated splotches with their bumps.

I'm rendering Athena in my kitchen right now, so it's too late to change out skins.

Message edited on: 11/28/2005 01:21

www.lavers-place.com comes up empty. Care to post the file for all to share? :D

The two .psd files total 27.2MB unzipped. How can I give access to them other than sending via e-mail? Can this size be put onto here?

Maybe as a freebie...zipped. Give credit of course. Seems like on a 3d forum that kind of size isn't an issue.

Its www.lavers-place.co.uk Looks useful, thanks for the link.

Could always send via chat too. Looks useful. Someone grabbed the domain...could have been a hijack.

yeah..nice.

Glad the site was found. On the Readme it was just .com. If I find the source of Skin Hairy I will post.

Looks like same thing in skin lab that you have in skin hairy. I think the colors are a bit off in places, but great find.

Message edited on: 11/29/2005 01:57

Thanx for the updated link! :D

The skin looks great, but the nipples ring false to me.Like the texture is too small or something. It should have some of the same bump mapping of the rest of the skin, but with extra for the nip and surrounding area.

I can't get SSS to work with the nips yet so that their texture/color blends with the rest of the body's skin. I had some luck with Anything Goos and will post them later. Eric, if you're listening, is there a way in Anything Goos to tell it to ignore certain perimeter edges instead of acting on all of them on an object? Like having only one end of a tube be Gooed rather than both ends of it?