I'm trying to set up my translucency so that it only shows up on certain areas of the mesh, so I figured I'd use an alpha map. But I can't figure out how to get that to work. I've tried the operators, checking and unchecking "white is invisible" and inverting, but none of it seems to work. Anybody know what I'm doing wrong? What I want to do is only apply translucency to V3's ears.

Is this a workaround? Take Vic into the Vertexroom, select the ear polies and give them a new shader domain.

Hi TerraMatrix, I'm going to clarify some terms here because it's easy to get confused (at least for me) Subsurface Scattering - I think the effect your striving for is accomplished with Subsurface Scattering - that is if you're trying to get ears that "glow" when light comes from behind. It will require a little experimenting and unfortunately, can't be controlled with a texture map. The thinner the object, the more light that passes through. Transluscency - Transluscency is actually a shader function that you can use to imitate the color transmission through thin objects. It doesn't care how thick the object is. A big tropical leaf is transluscent because while you can't see through it, the light is colored when it passes through the leaf. Usually, but not always, Transluscency and Subsurface Scattering are used together for a more realistic effect. Alpha Channel - The Alpha channel in Carrara can be used to "see through" an object. (Yes, I know, technically it's transluscence if it's not completely "clear"). However, it won't create glows or varying light intensity as the object gets thicker. Typically, this is used to make parts of a mesh invisible and is either "on" or "off" although it doesn't have to be. Transparency - Works like the Apha Channel but allows you to have semi clear windows, decals etc., while still giving you the power of the Alpha mask to hid parts of the mesh or shader. Clear as mud? The power of the Carrara shaders is that there is multiple ways to do things - but that also makes them potentially complex. Post back with any questions you have. Mark

TerraMatrix.  This thread seems to be a bit of a repeat of your earlier thread"Okay.My Question..---"

I think you might end up with the similar answers, especially the comment of Shonners about things not working on ears as one would want.  My thought at the moment, following on Marks  info, suggests that specifically sellecting the ears (as my first post) and just applying  a bit of Transparency or Translucency within the shader may get the end result I feel you are looking for.

Playing around. Hope it helps.

I spent several hours trying many different variations inside the SSS channel, and couldn't get anything to look good. Then, before turning off the computer, I decided to scale V3 up 1,000 % (Making her a little over 10 feet tall). This made all the difference. The first image shows her with the default wax material applied to the face and scalp, and only approx. 13" tall. A small spotlight is directly behind the ear. The second is her resized, with the spotlight sized the same. She clearly appears much more organic, with thickness variation apparent within the ear, exactly as I wanted. Image three is the same, only I increased the size of the light to cover more of the head. Thank you Mark and bwtr for your input, it's much appreciated as always. It's funny how simple the answer can sometimes be.

Will that idea--like the middle one-- be applicable if the same say sss settings etc are applied to the normal skin shader?

Appreciate your follow through on this interesting idea of yours. And, as well, someone explaining WHY it works?

It sounds illogical but a theory could follow that reducing the polycount on a model may have a similar effect?

I don't know for sure if the method will transfer over to my usual skin shader, but I have reasonable expectations. If I had to guess why it worked, I would say it has something to do with how Carrara calculates the light. Before I changed the figure's size, her head was only a few inches in diameter. You could imagine the light waves (or particles, depending on how you look at it), whose size you cannot manipulate, as being much too big for her to look realistic. It wasn't until I brought Vic up to human proportions that she was in scale with the light in the scene. Does that make sense?

Funny thing, but that makes sense to me. Agent Smith, in the Bryce forum did an experiment with scaling up an entire scene and making note of how much better the same materials seem to map on the larger scene and the apparent increased detail in the materials. I know that the inner workings of Carrara and Bryce are quite different, but this may follow some common rule of logic and function in 3d software. It would be interesting to see if this is also true of other 3D apps.

Yep, it's the scale by which Carrara calculates it's SSS effects. Mark

I spent part of the day trying new settings. Unfortunately, it isn't quite as simple as "make her bigger."

Most of my tests had translucency (inside the SSS controls) set to 50%, but taking it down to 2% actually gave me better lighting through the ears. I don't understand why.

All of my previous images with SSS have had intensity set to about 25-30 percent, but in order to get realistic results I believe this needs to be much higher, so it's at 100% in these images. Without changing SSS color, though, you end up with a character that looks like a giant fetus, so to equalize this I've used a considerably darker color than before (on the HLS Wheel it's H: 99.68%, L: 14.99%, S: 29.99%.)

Perhaps this is too high, maybe 70% - 80% would suffice. I still haven't been able to achieve a blood red color within the ear, and am running out of settings to change. If I make the SSS color redder to get red ears, the whole skin is affected. If I correct this, the ears are no longer red (I realize not every shot of a cg character is going to be realistic with red ears, but I'd prefer to know that if a light is in the right place and bright enough, my shading is going to be fairly accurate and will produce good results.)

Of course this is partly due to the fact that I'm trying to give less-than-paper-thin surfaces the appearance of mass and volume. Perhaps my only option is modeling an interior mass for the ears, and possibly the rest of the body, and assigning it a seperate shader.

Here you see my latest results, with a distant light placed behind. Low render settings.

Here's a side-lit shot. Again, not very high settings, and with 100% intensity in the SSS channel, she looks a bit waxy. Also, eyebrows and make-up areas on the texture have been adversely affected, and the interior of the nostrils should be darker. Perhaps I will try excluding them from the SSS.

You have got the ear just right in the first of those two images.