Quote - Let me try to explain my opinion on this..

In 2006 you wanted as much detail as possible on the skin map. There was no SSS or IDL or GC or even HDRI. It would have been impossible in Poser and pcs of that time using Poser. Now,,, with IDL, etc... you do not want all that crap on the skinmap because you would be doubling up with it. The best way is to put it in with reflection and SSS,,, etc

If a lady in red dress walks into a white room, the whites pick up the reds through IDL and reflection... This is what I want... not for you,, I get it.

For you, you may consider stepping back in time a bit and use 2006 tech in your 2012 app for speed. IBL, rim/specular light, mainlight. Real Skin Shader. The one in the pic you like is no longer in his store. That was a total package.

I want all those features too, but the learning curve is too steep. Ideally smith micro should make it so as soon as you turn on IDL, it takes your existing scene and just enhances it with little to no effort from the user. That would make it a powerful solution since you don't have to mess around with nodes for days on end.

Node this, node that, enviro sphere, oh make sure the wall and this, that and this on it.  1000 renders later, still doesn't look right.......

Want SSS to enhance your V4's current texture? Turn it on and instead of completely changing the color of your figure, it should add subtle enhancements using SSS features.

Smith Micro needs to understand that most of their users don't want to manage all the crap you'd normally have to do in an app like 3D studio max or Maya.

What irks me is that I came up with a methodology yesterday, but as soon as I applied it to one of my main scenes, the entire render looked like complete garbage. So what works in one scene won't carry well to another scene which removes the ability to rapidly produce content.