I don't want to derail the other threads so I started this one.

Now, I may be missing the point here but I notice that a good many of the skin shaders are lighting dependent.  That seems fundamentally wrong to me because, real skin certainly isn't.  

Can someone please explain why these shaders are currently regarded as the dog's bollocks?  Apart from the obvious that they look good, which I don't dispute.  It's just that I don't seem to remember plugging a shader node into my head so that I'd look good in a certain light.  Not that I look good in any light but there you go.

I would have thought the ideal skin shader would be one that's a "one size fits all" solution, ie, a way to make a 3D model look as realistic as possible.

Don't mean to ruffle any feathers here; I'm genuinely curious.

Interesting question :)
I think it's much easier to make a shader look right in certain light then in ANY light.
I'm thinking about makeup for us wimminz for example, there's day makeup that looks good in daylight, but would look too weak in the evening, in the evening one typically puts on a bit heavier makeup (because the mood and lighting is different), and then there's TV and film makeup which is extra heavy, and also very dependent on the lighting they're going to use.

It may be kind of like people's complexion and what color looks good on them... not all colors look good on all complexion colors. I can see how similar concepts would apply to rendering too.
anyway, just my 2c :)

from what I have seen real skin is lighting dependant to a great extent. Sub surface scattering has a large effect on the color and texture of real world skin. skin is actually translucent. but even if that weren't the case. very few renderers are truely realistic in how they render surfaces so there is always going to be some shortcut solutions that may not make sense if you look at their real world counterpart.

Think photography and darker complected people. How many photoshop/photo manipulation softwares are out there to correct the lighting and reclaim detail lost to poor lighting.

You might not have the patience to render a truly accurate SSS shader. I know I don't. MentalRay has a 'physical' SSS shader that is supposed to be very accurate; but I've never used it because It takes eons to render. I'm not joking either, it takes a loooong time. That's w/o any advanced lighting. Throw in photon mapping, FG, and some decent AA... :sleep:

There's a 'fast SSS skin shader' that does a good job; but it isn't as physically accurate. Even that one is only 'fast' by comparison. It still takes about twice as long to render as a simple translucent shader w/ reflection. Which is really pretty fast considering everything that is built into the shader. It does translucency, fresnel reflections, multi-layered anistropy, 3 scatter layers, and some other goodies.

Quote - I don't want to derail the other threads so I started this one.

Now, I may be missing the point here but I notice that a good many of the skin shaders are lighting dependent.  That seems fundamentally wrong to me because, real skin certainly isn't. 

Skinshaders do not try to simulate skin. They try to correct the errors made by a raytracer while illuminating the skin.

The reason why these shaders are the dog's bullock (what is a bullock anyway?) is because skin doesn't respond to light like plastic or metal does as stated by wdupre. Translucency alone isn't sophisticated enough to reproduce multiple levels of a surface. Poser (6) SSS is a fair compromise but is really nothing more than a trumped up BDSF shader with no "depth" per se.

Regarding mental ray's physically accurate SSS shader, I can't attest to how long it takes because I could never figure out how to plug in the right numbers because I'm really not trying to render glasses of milk or catsup.

fast skin SSS, while not physically accurate, produces phenomenal results IMHO that are fast (can be used without raytracing), and subtle yet remarkable. Currently using Renderman because mental ray's motion blur is too slow. Pixar's SSS implementation is much less intuitive than mental ray's.

Quote - The reason why these shaders are the dog's bullock (what is a bullock anyway?) ...

We interrupt this thread to bring you an educational annoucement.

The original term used was "the dog's bollocks" (UK slang), a bullock (known as a steer in the USA) would (in some cases) be pleased to have any bollocks at all :lol:

This annoucement was brought to you by the letters O and U.
We now return you to your scheduled thread.

Bullocks (actually Bollocks) = testicle's. Bollocks is a slang term often used to mean bullsh*t, or "nonsense", or to generally express distaste. It can also be used to show admiration or to say something is "awesome" as in the "dog's bollocks".

Hope that helps, replicand 

Thanks for the info. You guys and gals in the UK should learn to speak English ;)

Anyhow, thanks for the information, people.