I'm starting more detailed experiments with the Cycles nodes, particularly the Glossy Bsdf. I've known even from FireFly that soft specular reflections are the key to realism. But there are multiple implementations of these in FireFly and even more in Cycles. Since they're wildly different, it follows that they're not all physically correct - if they were they'd produce the same results.

Which means - lots of judgement calls about what looks right and what doesn't.

Obviously everybody wants a great skin shader but I can't yet produce a believable procedural leather that is better than what I produced in FireFly years ago. My trusty Blinn node has been reprogrammed for FireFly and I do not get the results from it that I'm used to, so I have to find an alternative.

Here I tried various leather shaders, and just for grins tried to make the skin look OK. Didn't happen. But the leather looks decent. I'm sure that this will take practice. It's like being an expert pianist and then try to play the oboe. I know the notes, but can't make the sounds I want.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)