I hadn't really noticed it too much myself because it tends to not show up quite like that in my renders, due to a shallow depression along the breastbone that my morph of V4 has (whether or not that is terribly realistic I can't say).

exempli gratia:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1364153&member

Yes your morph helps hide it. I still shows up to me. That is something that should be banned, that and painted on highlights. That is still the leftover of P4 mentality. The problems show up more with the better lighting and renders.

Nice render by the way.

Thankee :biggrin:

the-negative: i find quite the opposite.  if i'm doing a full body shot with clothes, then it doesn't matter so much.  but even from a distance, if you can see the body and it's a uniform color instead of natural variation, all sss, fake or otherwise, will do is make it look like another type of plastic or maybe wax.  i've just spent several hours over 2 weeks tweaking lighting and skin shaders on a simple scene just to see if i can get a decent match to a bg photograph (it's kind of hard since there's nothing to cast shadows in the photo).  that is, i spend a lot of time on light and skin materials.  i'm not systematic or sensible about it, or i'd be better, but i work at it.  i still find that if a texture doesn't have variation on the face to show softer and smoother skin around the eyes with more pores showing on the forehead and nose, it tends to look fake. same goes for the neck (variability of sss), arms and elbows (variation in tanning, and elbow wrinkles), legs and knees (paler on the upper inner thigh, darker wrinkled knees), and especially feet and hands.  and that's the large details, not the miscellaneous variations in color, scars, freckles,  and other marks that everyone has on their body.   

i can paint all those in after the fact, but it's a lot better if i'm just using a texture that already has all that.

vektor - i assume from your post that you'd prefer to keep your lighting and shader as trade secrets, but as someone who has tried (if mostly ineffectively) i have to ask if about them.  did you use ibl?  i know that i haven't been able to get the softness your images show in poser (it's no problem in d|s with pwSurface), but the closest i've come is accidentally with ibl lighting. if it's ibl, is there any special source "image?"   second, are you using the fastscatter node?  if you are, have you changed it somehow?  i've never seen it behave that well. 

hoping you share some of your technique...

Hmm, I didn't consider about full body details, since I'm much more of a potrait guy (no big boobs swaying around here).
Still, I despise how overwhelmingly obvious the "realism traits" are in quite some textures:  big freckles, big (scale and magnitude) displacement till the age of 45, and the lips. Maybe it's me again, but some improvements seem to bring the uncanny valley to the next level. Textures won't look convincing until the shader and lighting react like it does in real life (or those contrasted catwalks, who knows.)

Vektor's "Princess" images are more akin to what I'm mentioning (without the smaller spots and subtle freckles though). It might appear to be full of makeup and a "perfect" skin, but as far as dodging that "Poser/D|S" look, it suceeds, no doubt.

/Semi-OT. :D

*(click for larger version...)*

CobaltDream, here's a shot of Princess' body using the same skin, same lighting, (even tho the lighting was only set up for her face,) same pose, etc. Granted it's not finished, let me know if you think it looks like plastic or wax.

Matching background plates is a completely different animal, and an art unto itself. In a way, that's why I do these skin-tests. Once I get the skin nailed-down in a controlled environment, I can put it in any scene, confident that I know that it will react to light correctly for the most part. Then it's just a matter of doing the lighting and maybe some slight tweaking. That way, if it's off, I know it's the lighting, not the skin, rather than chasing my tail. You tug something here, it pulls something over there, repeat, ad nauseum...
I feel it does help to be systematic about it. But, then, I'm anal-retentive, so that part of it comes naturally to me. 8op

All of the adjustments you mentioned, (variability of SSS around the neck, variation in tanning on arms, wrinkles on the elbow...) are all very valid details, and can be addressed fairly easily by customizing your own texture, bump, diffuse, and specularity maps, especially with nodes, and especially if you know what you're looking for and want, (which it sounds like you do).

And, no, I'm not one of `those guys'. I don't keep trade-secrets. I know how frustrating that can be, and I don't understand it. "I don't want anyone to be able to make renders as pretty as me!" That's ridiculous. That's not how I operate, or how I've been taught to operate. I go to 3D meetings every month with guys from Autodesk, Rhythm&Hues, you name it, where all we do is sit-around and share how stuff is achieved; our own as well as feature-film. Sorry. Off my soap-box.
Truth-be-told, I don't have any trade-secrets! All the stuff I'm doing seriously comes from just trial-&-error. Hell, I'll point you directly to the tutorial I used as a platform for these skin-tests - it's free on-line - but I hardly think it will answer all your questions. It's far from a "Make Skin Look Real" button. It's based on an alien, and my first render after going thru this tutorial looked like @$$.
I'm currently using mental ray. I didn't intially post in this topic to illustrate what skin could be achieved in Poser, specifically. I was just responding to the OP that the texture alone doesn't necessarily matter so much as what you're doing with it. I happen to be working with Victoria and the DAZ hi-res textures at the moment, so I decided to post to illustrate that point.
But please don't let that dissuade you: all of these principles are possible in Poser and D|S as well. I wish I had time to go do it in Poser and D|S, but I don't. I'm sorry. We've all seen it, tho. They're perfectly capable.

No, the lighting is not image-based, but I'm confident that the skin might look even better if I did use IBL, and I do plan on using IBL for the most part when I do start putting her in scenes. So if that's the case, why didn't I use IBL for the skin-tests? Wouldn't that make sense? No. Cuz, again, there's not enuf control with IBL.
All of these shots use 2 lights. 1 for general lighting, 1 `blown-out' light for hot-spot and translucency checking.
Remember that the "softness" that you're talking about can be a result of several different things, including the softness of the shadows, the quality of anti-aliasing, ambient-occlusion, and depth-of-field. (I'm not using the last 2 in mine yet, tho.) All of which can be adjusted in Poser. Keep in mind that SSS softens bump-maps as well. I'm sure the fast-scatter node is capable, but if it's easier for you to use pwSurface, (where, let's face it, as you mentioned, it's not a problem,) then do that.
I've also added a bit of reflectivity to her. No map. She's just reflecting the blue background right now. It can add a nice extra element, but you gotta be careful with it.

Take a look around. Find the people who are selling the products that sport realistic, no post-work renders, and purchase their product, especially the ones that include the lights and set-ups used in their renders. Take them apart, see what they did, and incorporate it into your own stuff.

I sure hope all this helps.

he!  that's so funny.  in the back of my head, i was thinking that it reminded me of "globulous."  that's the tutorial that i was trying to use to do stuff in d|s.    in d|s, pwSurface has a single sss layer and translucency.  at the time, this is best i could do for an asian skin shader (no tex, iirc- the eyebrows are transmapped).  which is not yet vaguely acceptable.  i figure i'll revisit it again when i actually have more stuff done.  2 spots- 1 backlight, 1 main light from above.   i think i'm going to find that first of all i should work with more light in the scene; i think i'm trying to use the material too much to make it lighter.  second of all, i think i'm going to find it best to have an sss map.  i don't know a thing about how that would work or how to make one, and i'm (unfortunately) not anal, or i'd be more methodical.  and actually figure some stuff out.  as it is, i'll flail around until i achieve something or other. ;D

i've been thinking about the reflection technique,  based on that tutorial.  i've never tried it though.  i can see why it would be useful. 

no, i don't know of anyone who's done anything like what you have in poser or d|s.  the only place i've seen "soft" edges even vaguely akin to that is in the promotionals of an hdri light set for poser 7.   in default poser, there's only a really faulty and bad version of the backside sss (see many posts on the topic, especially bagginsbill's- he suggests avoiding the fastscatter node).  the translucency node also works incorrectly and strangely (see rdna node cult forum). so in poser, sss needs faking with nodes.  while many have come up with wonderful and effective skin shaders,  absolutely none have achieved the soft translucent quality in that image.  i've seen bagginsbill get close to the pwSurface jade, but that looked opague compared to your skin.  basically, you can get photoreal that's very opague, but i've yet to see anyone achieve the soft translucence of light actually scattering inside skin (or stone, or plastic, or liquid).  i'm not even vaguely saying it's impossible.  it would just be a lot nicer if poser just implemented proper translucence and sss. 

and that tutorial showed me what i had always felt had been missing in the existing poser solutions: the epidermal scattering.  not all lit edges are overexposed.   a good example of the look effect i'm thinking of  is that "Globulus and friends" example, especially the top of his ear.  after the strong red of sss, that thin pale layer.  since i love light like i do, i'd love to use something that allowed me to combine those different layers of scattering.  but i'm sure i can do a lot more than i have with the tools i already know and use.

thing is, i haven't seen one person using poser or d|s accomplish what i want.  i've seen it in works done with higher powered 3d apps, but not with poser or d|s.  i've seen tons of solutions that amaze and astound me.  but none with the particular features i want.

on your work... i have to admit that as much as i love it, it does look more like a facsimile of skin to me, because of the lack of variation in tone, tanning, etc.  but that's just my preference.  thanks so much for sharing your knowledge- some people find asking about their techniques insulting and prefer you go through the same work they did.    i didn't want to offend you just in case. 

you've definitely helped.  i feel much better equipped to approach a pwSurface solution again.  in poser.... i just don't understand enough of the basic math involved with sss to even begin.