I know absolutely nothing about creating my own SSS. In most of my renders, if a character didn't come with their own custom SSS, then I use EzSkin.

What's a good place to go to learn how to create my own SSS network so that it can be legally distributed with any skins/characters I might do?

Do people just run their skins through EzSkin and distribute the nodes from that?
Is it as simple as just adding in the single SSS node?

Any  help is appreciated.

In the very early days of Scatter in Poser (about 3 years ago), BagginsBill (BB) has done some research comparing the Subsurface Skin (with embedded specularity) node and the Scatter node (with Blinn specularity as a side arm). He found the latter by far superior, and he performed extensive research on it later on. Quite respectable.

Most of all that has landed in EZSkin and EZMat, and details can be found in the various forum threads at Rendo and at RuntimeDNA, if you're willing to plough them through.

My personal note on all this is that Scatter is quite a closed subset of the Custom_Scatter node, and one can gain a lot by mastering that one in detail. But it's a pretty tedious one, BB himself never really got into it, and it took me a few weeks to get on top of it.

So the choice is yours. Either take the fast and easy, but somewhat limited lane using EZSkin and the solutions established in the forum threads, or take the tough route which holds unlimited possiblities - in the end.

When SSS came on the scene I was amazed at the results and I remember the BB threads of the time both before and after the release of the new Poser version.

While I do use Ezskin on accasions my two central characters use much of what BB built up as the threads developed.  I know I will never have the understanding that BB has but it is nice to have an understanding at what is going on and how SSS can be modified.  I also allocate the scatter groups consistantly across my characters to avoid the blue fringing with adjecant areas.  This allows me to do a copy and paste if required and just change the image maps.

Quote - What's a good place to go to learn how to create my own SSS network so that it can be legally distributed with any skins/characters I might do?

What do you mean by "my own SSS network". Did you think there are 2500 networks that all do the same thing and you just pick which one is "your own"?

Quote - Do people just run their skins through EzSkin and distribute the nodes from that?

Pretty much. A skin shader is a color map, a subscurface scatter (diffuse and/or scatter-type nodes) calculator, a surface reflection (specular and/or reflect nodes) calculator, and some component(s) that decide how much of each effect to combine via addition.

Every meaningful combination of these of these has been demonstrated by me, first, in comparison and contrast threads or demonstration threads and one could say they are all "mine". But anything I put in a thread is and has always been free for everybody to copy, sell, use.

The best shader setup (best being a general consensus that this setup is the most realistic, useful, flexible, and easy) has been incorporated with much sophistication into the EZSkin application and I cannot for the life of me see why you would not use it.

The exception would be if you're trying to make a special non-photoreal shader (NPR) such as my Vargas shader. (There's that "my" again.)

Here are some links.

http://forum.runtimedna.com/showthread.php?63200-SSS-on-Human-Figures

http://forum.runtimedna.com/showthread.php?64789-Which-node-SubsurfaceSkin-or-Scatter-Blinn

http://forum.runtimedna.com/showthread.php?67635-Custom-Scatter

As to the scatter node, aRtBee teesingly implies that there is something interesting and unique waiting to be discovered there. I would not at all agree that "BB himself never really got into it". I can use it in place of scatter perfectly well and I know how to adjust it to do things the regular scatter cannot. But I found no real value in it. The unique things it can do vs. the scatter node are mostly irrational behavior. As I wrote before:

"I tested it a lot - it doesn't do what I want, because the fundamental algorithm (which SM did not invent but rather adopted) is flawed, IMO. So - it is only good at doing what Scatter already does, and so I don't bother too much with it.

I have used it a couple times, as there are some minor things it can do differently than Scatter. But the biggest thing you'd want to do is have a really long scatter with a proper attenuation color, not a reflection color. It doesn't do that right - the algorithm is a bit of a hack, and it involves incorrect math, again IMO."

Over many months, I occasionally would get it out again and come up with a situation where I thought it was uniquely useful. But each time, either its flaws became exposed, or I found a way to do the same effect with the scatter node. So it sits in my "dust bin" of nodes, along with the new skin node and the ks_microfacet node. These are all perfectly usable, but, for me, they offer no benefit over scatter + reflect + blinn. After I decided that, I deeply studied the blinn and reflect even more and cannot come close to that pair for realistic specularity. (as compared to the skin node or the ks_microfacet)

Specularity is as much important to skin as the subsurface part - if you only get one half the equation correct, then your setup is half wrong, and half wrong is pretty much useless. (Or it's traditional Poser - depends on your point of view and whether you find me irritating or not and whether you're unable to learn things)

Sorry in previous post I meant to say it was about custom scatter node. I only just started my coffee this morning.

Quote - What do you mean by "my own SSS network". Did you think there are 2500 networks that all do the same thing and you just pick which one is "your own"?

I was under the impression all of the nodes connected to each other as a whole made up a 'network' (ie procedural network). I'm by no means trying to create my own custom SSS brick. I'm aware that they don't all do the same thing. I'd like to learn what brick does what when it comes to SSS. Unless I've completely gotten SSS wrong (which is highly likely lol), and scatter is the only 'required' brick for SSS and everything else like blender/hsv/etc are just icing on the cake.

Quote - The best shader setup (best being a general consensus that this setup is the most realistic, useful, flexible, and easy) has been incorporated with much sophistication into the EZSkin application and I cannot for the life of me see why you would not use it.

Oh I definitely use EZSkin. I just wasn't sure if the resulting node structure was ok to distribute. The license mentions distibution of the software itself (I took that to mean the script), but never mentioned the node output.

If redistributing the structure that's output from EzSkin is all on the up and up (for  commercial and non-commercial purposes), then I'd rather not try to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

Thanks for those links! I'll be sure to take a read through them.

Quote - I'd like to learn what brick does what when it comes to SSS.

Yes. Well my point was this (although I did not even come close to making the point clearly): Once you learn how skin behaves, and what the nodes do to help you simulate that, and you study all the learning material I've posted to explain why this node and not that, or why they are combined this way and not that, you would end up deciding that the network I posted is the only one that works right. And so, there could not be one of your own, because by the time you learned how all this works, you'd toss anything that isn't mine away (because it works differently and you want it to work the same) and there'd be nothing left to be called your own.

As for the right to use the resulting shader network from EZSkin - that's already established. I made that network. EZSkin is redistributing it (legally) and has no bearing on the copyright, since that right (to copy this network) is, in fact, mine. Similarly, the right to convey that right (that is to say, who gets to say who can redistribute the shader and when and where) is also mine.

Have at it!

Quote - scatter is the only 'required' brick for SSS

It is. Or - you could use Custom_Scatter but nothing would be better for skin - it's just more customizable (you don't have to choose the Skin 1 or Skin 2 preset).

As I said earlier, the rest is specularity, not scatter, and the rest is just as important. There is a new skin node (Subsurface Skin) that combines both the scatter effect and the specularity effect (as far as I can tell it's Scatter + ks_microfacet) in one, but it's not the best, IMO. (Because it's missing Reflect and because ks_microfacet is not my favorite) Feel free to use it, if simple (one node) is your goal. But it's not the best by any measure other than node count.

Thank you! You've helped greatly.