What is your Poser Unit for the bump values? I see a value of 1 but is it for centimeters or inches?

Bump is way too high on the skin (wish I noticed BEFORE it took 4 hours to render)

Id love to see what you render!

Further tweaks to the dermal and epidermal layer.

The Diffuse layer is not strong enough, and hardly effects the final image, which I need to fix as it is there to add additional depth to the skins colour.

Images are : Final, Dermal, Epidermal, Diffuse, Specular
These were quick renders, definately not final quality

I am pretty sure normal map is 1 = full normal mapping not 1 unit of bump mapping.

I am absolutely loving this material in low light conditions, it just renders so well!

I have toned the SSS down further, do you think it needs even more toning down?

Maybe its just that the second render was quicker (lower quality?) but i prefer the softer feel of the first (but the colouration of the second). The hotter red at the terminator and edge of the shadow under the nose feels too much in that first one, but I like that the bump is softer.

love the monk hood & light - moody.

I wish Rendo allowed continual editing of your posts.

I love the hood too. works really really well on LRP I gotta say (I got sick of looking at his bald head LOL)

Wow. Lee Perry Smith as a Jedi! Where did you get the hood?

Renders looking most impressive!

The hood is A3D's free Dynamic Hood.  I cant remember where i got it from.  Material is from my Car Materials

Here is a rundown of what I have learned using the Custom_Scatter node

Surface Colour - The amount and colour of light that is reflected by the surface of the material. If you lower this, it is almost the same as increasing the mean_free_path parameter.  Lower colours mean more light makes it into the skin, which in effect increases the amount of scattering of the light.  Extremely low colours mean so much light enters the object that it starts to become translucent.
This setting is key for making the surface look soft.  Lower = Softer.  I use about the 170-190 mark

Scatter Colour - This not what is sounds like. This represents the amount each component of light scatters. for example 255,255,255 allows all light to scatter the maximum amount.  Whereas a setting of 255,128,0 allows all red light to scatter, half of green light to scatter and no blue light to scatter.
It seems that if the grayscale equivelant of your chosen color is less than 128 then this parameter inverts your colour for you.  For example, 255,200,200 gives the same result as 0,55,55.
However this "inversion" seems to be also activated when surface colour is low enough.  I have not figured out the relation yet.

mean_free_path -  this is how far into the object the light will travel before it begins to scatter.  Carefully managing this setting along with surface_colour seems to be key in getting really good results.  I generally use a setting of 0.1-0.3 with the above surface colour.   This setting increases SSS be forcing the light to have to travel further to get out of the skin.  Remember that the lower your surface_colour, the easier it is for light to enter the skin, and therefore more light is scattered.  I found if you drop surface_colour by 10%, you will need to drop this by double (20%) to keep the SSS effect while making the skin softer (to a degree)

pre-scatter color - this is the colour of the light right before it begins to scatter, which is almost always going to be your diffuse texture.  You can use a HSV node to slightly desaturate your texture, allowing the scatter to add some colour back in for you.

prescatter ambient - the strength of the light as it enters the skin.  I ignored this for a long time, and found that unless surface_colour was white, the end result always looked way too dark.  Now I plug a diffuse node into this and set it to just less than full white (around 220,220,220)  this gives the skin all the colour it lacks!

As I learn more and more about the custom_scatter node, I am seeing that multi-layers is not required and actually pretty much already done by this node all  on its lonesome.

Can I ask why the KS Specular is attached to the reflection node? Is that normal, because I thought that was ...ya know...a specular?  I don't do a lot of rendering in Poser, so I find the node setup interesting but that one thing confuses me.

ah, that is done simply because I ran out of diffuse paramaters to attach things too.

A note for those new to the poser material room

Reflection, Refraction and Alternate Diffuse are actually all diffuse parameters.  You can plug any diffuse or specular node into any of these and they will work just as if they were plugged into just the alternate diffuse parameter.

Alternate Specular is however different and will not accept any special diffuse nodes (like scatter nodes)

Interesting. I only ever model and rig at the office. Don't ever really get into the materials and what not outside of goofing around. So this has been a cool thread to follow.

THe image on the left has pre-scatter ambient enabled, and the one on the right does not.

Notice how much more red is the in the right image?  While some may think this looks more accurate, that is only until you understand that the light for this scene is a full strength spotlight with square fall-off only about 2 feet above his head.  In other words its a friggin bright light!

One thing I forgot to mention is that I have the diffuse texture connected to the diffuse node that drives the pre-scatter ambient.

Quote - Here is an example of with and without pre-scatter ambient.

 

THe image on the left has pre-scatter ambient enabled, and the one on the right does not.

 

Notice how much more red is the in the right image?  While some may think this looks more accurate, that is only until you understand that the light for this scene is a full strength spotlight with square fall-off only about 2 feet above his head.  In other words its a friggin bright light!

 

One thing I forgot to mention is that I have the diffuse texture connected to the diffuse node that drives the pre-scatter ambient.

So I was wondering about this. What does the less red shader look like in lower intensity lighting?

What I like is a surface with the colouration & tone of the lighter shader where the brightest areas of lighting fall on the face, but transitioning more gradually toward the shadow with the colouration of the second shader - If you get what I mean.

I'm guessing what you might need for an added level of realism is a control map that modulates the strengths of various layers at different parts of the body - for example simulating where there is more or less distance between skin and bone/cartilage etc, thus making the SSS more/less red but maintaining the general softness.

Just guessing.

Quote - Can I ask why the KS Specular is attached to the reflection node? Is that normal, because I thought that was ...ya know...a specular?  I don't do a lot of rendering in Poser, so I find the node setup interesting but that one thing confuses me.

Again I'm speculating here (see what I did there?), but as I understand it all specular is kind of a reflection (a particular focusing of the light that hits a surface based on it's roughness such that some of the light is returned to the camera with the appearance of shine). In terms of rendering we tend to seperate these responses, but for a realistic specular we'd expect the amount and colouration of surface shine to relate to an environment in some way. Usually we just suppose that it relates to a particular light, but if some of that shine is also derived from the environment it can make sense to use a reflection node in this way. Another way of thinking about it is that lights are also just another part of the environment.

What we want is to have the best of both specular responses. Ideally we'd have a little more control over the surface response to light coming from an environment via the reflection node. We could make another control map for the softness perameter of the reflect node to define smoother, more reflective areas of skin, for example where it's stretched over bone. EZskin is set up with a modulation of reflection softness (although not via a specific map).

I know it's not quite the reason given for the use here but it makes sense to me in these terms too.

Here is my latest shader, this is a single custom_scatter node combined with a clay node, finished off with microfacet and phong node for specular.
I think the specular could be increased a little, but otherwise I really like the look of this.

top left is simulating a single studio light that is very diffused
top right is simulating daytime outside
bottom left is simulating a close light (like a torch) under the face
bottom right is simulating night time

ive been following the thread with interest guys, some really interesting results , maybe you know whether there are any other shader setups that can be used with existing poser ready stock models, specifically v4. I have tried some of the SSS shaders that come with certain products, but nice as they are I'm looking for something less porcelain, maybe something more flawed?

I will be moving my shader above over to V4 tonight, as I only really render her so my intention was to always move it over to her.  In order to make V4 not look fake I will need to add some procedurals to break up her skin

can't wait to see the results of that :)  great work btw

this is made up of a scatter layer, diffuse layer, skin specular layer and finally an oily specular layer.

the scatter colour of the custom_scatter node is a marble node controlled by an fbm node. this gives subtle variations in SSS colouring and amount. Marble gives the added benefit of vein like patterns.  the skin texture in use here has a very uniform skin tone (though there is makeup on the cheeks and eyes obviously)

The makeup on the eyes, and the eyebrows are seperated out of the SSS and given a seperate clay shader to preserve colour.

Unfortunately the hair is not helping, I dont think I have any hair that looks truly realistic, they are always too straight

looking good, i've playing with shaders n morphs this am, results are getting more pleasing, I posted one in the realistic faces for v4 thread on page 7, i dont want to duplicate here, im running some more atm will keep you posted........

I need to work on the lips, the bottom lip is showing what looks like dry dead skin.  I believe this is being caused by the variation in surface colour of the custom_scatter node, which I should really get rid of for the lips.

still, in my (admittedly coloured) eyes this looks very realistic

Looking very good there templargfx.

I actually like the appearance of dry dead skin that seems to show on the lips. A bit on the nose too I think I see?

Are you sure it's not just in the photographic texture? Anyway, if it was me, I'd just tone that down a bit, rather than get rid of it entirely.

Thats the thing about the top layer of our skin... it's in the process of dying, and being shed.

Most people... even film stars... close up will have a vast number of imperfections visible... including flaking skin. Possibly more so film stars... they can often suffer from quite bad skin, due to all that make up and time under studio lights... I suspect ;)

For me, it's glimmers of such imperfections, that really help seal the deal, relative to my adequately suspending disbelief, when looking at a photorealist portrait. But yes, the balance there has to be just so, and no more, I guess...

Dry Dead or dying skin is another thing I am attempting to simulate here.

On top of the Marble node for the SSS colouring, I have a turbulance node controlling slight variations in the surface_colour paramater of the custom_scatter node.  this parameter is in effect what makes skin seem soft. Slight variations in this helps to further break up uniformity.

I will post a shot of the shader shortly, once my render is complete.

Quote - Dry Dead or dying skin is another thing I am attempting to simulate here.

On top of the Marble node for the SSS colouring, I have a turbulance node controlling slight variations in the surface_colour paramater of the custom_scatter node.  this parameter is in effect what makes skin seem soft. Slight variations in this helps to further break up uniformity.

I will post a shot of the shader shortly, once my render is complete.

Cool :)

Look forward to seeing that...

Left texture is diffuse, right texture is bump

This is not any worst than BB's VSS skin shaders.  It would be interesting, and enlightening, to see a complete workflow from start to finish of your project.  There is much we can learn from it.

by workflow do you mean a breakdown of the different layers one after another?

I wouldnt say the way I work has any type of flow to it lol, more like a whirlpool torrent :P

templargfx:

You could always save that shadder out as a material, add ".txt" to the end, then post it in a message as an attachement. Then one doesn't need to find all the connections to replicate the sahder?

Thanks for sharing.

lmk

For those who would like to recreate this shader, as it is, the blacks are black, and the whites are white. But, let me give you the RGB coordinates for the colors used.

PoserSurface - Diffuse_Color (251,251,251). Diffuse_Value is set to 0.0, so this probably doesn't matter. ks_microfacet (236,240,251). ColorRamp is white, (205,205,205), (49,49,49), and black. Custom_Scatter - Surface color (193,193,193), and the other values are white and black. Marble - Base_Color (122,60,39), and Veins (139,159,36).

All values not mentioned are black or white.

Again templargfx, thanks for sharing. :)

lmk

Ooops:

I missed a node. The Color_Math node (the second Color_Math node in the colomn beside the PoserSurface root node) has a second value of (151,151,151). That one was hard to see.

Sorry,

lmk

I would like to try out that shader. I'm quit frustrated with some aspects of EZskin at the moment. Please post that material so I can apply it with the VSS prop and give it a try?

I have made a further modification of the shader to add a little more yellow back into the skin

just as a matter of interest, one thing i have found very useful in the last update to ezskin are the presets, for sample, final and production render, not being a shader expert by any stretch, they have removed some of the guess work from my ezskin settings, one question i have is how adaptable is the shader above, ie do i have you use the ele shader as a base setup or will it work with any existing sss shader?

I have so far tried this material on the following characters :

Daz Elite Character - Maya

Daz Elite Character - Amy

Daz Elite Character - Lana

MRL's  Elena

P3D's Jennifer

The only adjustments I made were to the diffuse/sss combination node to increase or decrease the appearance of SSS according to the diffuse texture colour. (color_math node)

For Maya, who is dark skinned, I had to tweak it quite a bit, changing around some of the HSV nodes.  Not suprising as specular is completely different on dark skin.

VSSprop is not required for this, nor is the script that goes with it.  This is a "static" material, that requires no script to work.  Just apply it, change the textures to your own and render.

"Summer Day" lighting in a courtyard

Eyes are terrible.  Guess what I will be working on once Im done with the skin LOL.

Dont even start me on the hair :P

Attached Link: Latest Skin Shader

I softened the skin some more, slightly modified the SSS colour nodes and redid the specular for both skin and oily-ness.

While this render looks absolutely fantastic, I think its still far from realistic.  What do you think?

This I must say, looks alot more realistic than the close up image.

Thanks for posting the material file-going to play a bit....

Here's what I stopped with back in 2011-it's not the same as EZskin's. I was working on a Meg Fox Vampire at the time. :-) FoR A Halloween render I never made.

Quote - Heres a wider shot on some faster render settings.

 

This I must say, looks alot more realistic than the close up image.

Attached Link: Latest Shader in gallery

Attached is my latest version of this shader. I posted a gallery image that highlights the SSS.

and here we are with  the same shader back on Lee Perry-Smith.  I changed the diffuse/bump map and switch from displacement to normal mapping for bump. Other than those texture changes I lowered the skin specular by about 10%.

This shader is incredibly easy to switch to other caucasian characters!

You can see in the gallery image the effect that the SSS scatter colour nodes have on the look of the skin, if you look closely at the nose edges you will see veins.

I made slight adjustments to the texture strength for Project Human, and used the diffuse as the bump, other than that no settings changed.  I think Ive found the sweet spot on SSS colouring.

I wish their textures were higher res. Aiko's texture is manga stylized and Im suprised it looks so good.

Quote - Heres a link to the Lee Perry Smith model page.

 

i just find it a useful resource as the geometry & maps give such a solid base to aim at realism, given that it's derived from a 3d head scan.

Thank you so much for the link. I have been struggling myself with SSS and setups for skin in the material room.

I have been playing around with SSS setups that render fairly fast, which isn't as easy to do as it first seems. Some SSS setups wash out tattoos as well.

One thing that is missing from a lot off SSS setups is detail. SSS likes to wash out a lot of the detail. You can get around that by using other maps, bump, etc. But that can cause the render to take a lot longer depending on the size of the maps in memory. Just the body texture you see in this image over 200meg in memory, (8Kx8K). The head texture is 8kx8k as well.

With textures that big, it is much faster to use procedurals for bump, etc. This is even more important if you are using P9 (32bit) or a system with only a few cores.

This may not be the best SSS setup in the world, but it renders fast and still has a lot of detail. You may not get the same results at first because it is not set up to auto set the spot colors attached to the main texture. So you will have to play around with 2 spot shaders attached to the main texture to vary the results.

My units are in inches, so if you are using another unit you will have to adjust some things accordingly.

If you are using the skin shader and need red bleed from the SSS you will have to change the SSS node from Skin 1 to Skin 2. You shouldn't get a huge seam when doing so, if you do you need to play with the spot colors to hide it better. Moving the spot system to the other side of the SSS node changes that as well.

This is rendered with 4 lights, depth mapped shadows, envirosphere, and a wall prop.

Interesting.  Shvrdavid, would it be possible to upload the sample shaders for your arrangements?  It looks worth pursuing.

Sure :)