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@Arnold C. what makes you think i dont get it with absorbation and scatter? the problem is that i did use the recommended scatter minus settings.
the point is that translucency does NOT work with the minus settings.... check my ball render...and the shadow - impossible, the red just get^s lost!.... we ALL here always used minus scattering..
that's why the nostrils looked mostly like dark holes and the shadows around the nose are way to hard!...... just NOW setting to plus scatter there is finally the redish(yellow light which i searched so long in my and YOUR renders
actually i must MASK now the nostrils.. because to much red light there, inside...
Just now i can paint translucency maps which work!... i dont known if that is a bug or not that the light does not shine trough translucency with minus scattering - my Logic says it is bug in iray - BUT.. jag's way works!
Jag11, could you please post a screenshot of your settings, etc.?
At one point I was contemplating getting the Anatomical set and setting up actual skull geometries... A simple geoshell runs into the problem of thin surfaces inverting (I've run into this problem with other transparent/emitting/etc experiments)
Currently, I think most of this is overkill, but I find it fascinating and keep watching to see if there's something big and transformative. I mean, among other things, lighting plays a big role in this -- there are many scenes where translucence has little to no impact because the lighting makes the skin behave almost entirely opaque.
and overthinking again - no it is absolut correct that translucency light does NOT shine trough nose and ears with minuscattering..
it returns to our backlight .or in other words.. it did never soften and color the shadows on our renders...and that was the big missing thing when you aim for photorealism..
It started with minus settings from Mec4d.. and all the others which overtake it and recommended it..... including myself...
Heureka - thanks jag
i need a beer - how could i overlook this so long
it works perfect without shell...
Everybody - which showed to liveless renders - hard plastic look..... this is the solution... you did never get enough scattered light from translucency - all you must do is set a plus scatter.. and adjust a little bit..
Yeah, the freebie IG skin essentials have positive scatter. They are worth poking at.
As long as you set your SSS Amount and Scattering M. Distance and have either Translucency Weight or Refraction Weight to something >0, you'll always have scattering if Transmitted Color is anything but 0 ,0 ,0 black and your material is not a metal. You still seem to connect them together, but you can have absorption without scattering. That's why. But maybe I just understand you wrong.
The scatter minus setting was there to simulate lightbeams being reflected from the hypodermis back to the surface. It's a cheat. Which also didn't work that well. And couldn't take into account that skin tissues and fluids are actually forward scatterers. jag11's geometry shell solution might seem to open up new possibilities to more accurately mimic the different skin layer's optical properties, including the reflective hypodermis.
The IG skin essentials use thin coat. Anyone have thoughts about that?
No Arnold - light which travels trough a ear.. should create a red shadow! it dosent! because the light NEVER goes trough with minus scatering based on skin thickness...
We all had this wrong - i got furstrated to the point that i said translucency is a cheat paramter - like translucency 30 years ago in renderman! It is Not - it works perfect on plus scatter.
That's why I always set my ears, or more precisely, the ears of my figures using a positive value. Not much of a hypodermis in ears.
Now I don't have time for discussions. Need to get back to reading...
well well - skin is skin .. and in the face there is No nose?
You don't need a skull, skulls/bones are wrong. Light never reaches that deep, it's reflected from the hypodermis.
we have just ONE scatter - if you want a livelike face.. you need a soft effect... and that comes from translucency.. and for that you must use a plus scatter ...
Iray is limited we got warned
Depends on the face...
And skin's not skin... there are parts of the human body where there's no hypodermis layer apparent. So there you won't get the "reflected-back-to-surface" effect.
>>Don't you dare to mock our Iray, heretic!...<<
Iray's just fine, it's the Iray Uber lacking some needed layers to work properly for mimic that weirdness called "skin".
the point is that when you use a plus scatter - with low absorbation you cheat the skin model - but not the final render.. because it scatters back.. just from the inner backside of the head instead of a skinlayer.... it looks the same at the end.. including correct shadows and nostril lines..
as to me - i saw that allready on my render - it is the big improvment for my results i was looking for. the last missing thing - getting rid of those hard nose and chin shadows!..
it softens also the Bump - actually the problem that a realistic bump looks to hard (because of shadows in pores) is gone too.
you can make two renders - one set for the skin minus scatter - and another for the translucency plus scatter - then mix it in photoshop
There's more than one way to skin a cat, this is still art after all.
I mean my method I generally double up the diffuse texture as translucency, add a random pinkish color and have my transmitted color a dark red/orange. But when backlit the ears glow and the neck doesn't. And when frontlit with a single point light has the shin hs slightly softened shadows (it has a little less front-scattering than I would like, but as I generally use soft lighting, it would have a pretty negligable effect any way.)
So I'm not worried about how perfectly physically correct it is (its not) especially since I think at this point the realism is more inhibited by things like the face not getting wrinkled and stretching with expressions than that perfectly perfect material setting
@j cade... yes absolutly agreed...... it is possible to make a good render with any settings and the correct light..
But i try to create models which work in every lightsituation and environment - ... for animation as example...
What i mean it is really difficult to create a skinmodel and shader setting which works in every situation.. that's why i test so long... a single render can fast look good with some adjusting and correct light and some creativity.
I've pared my methodology down mostly to 2 tests strongly backlit and strongly frontlit slightly from the side. I've found that if when backlit the ears+fingertips (well for Caucasians) glow but the neck arms etc don't and if when frontlit shadows aren't harsh and the nose doesn't glow. The skin setup will work in pretty much any situation.
Its also nice since, because both of my tests only use 1 area light the test renders are super quick
I tested it with different light settings and behaves consistently also tested on dark skin and guess what? it works without adjustments.
That's correct, that's the the offset I use for GS. Some times GS figures don't behave like it should and -.25 is too much, lower it down to .15, if you use the GS approach remember setting opacity to 100, by default it gets created a 50% and for ears you need one translucency mask.
That is correct. My first attempts I was using Michael 4 skeleton, it allowed me to improve skin appearance but sometimes light finds holes that ruin overall look, that's the reason I use GS.
Right now I'm in my son's pc. But took this from my gallery.
I'm using the PBR Specular/Glossiness base mixing. Diffuse and Tranclucency color both share the same diffuse map. Base color effect, scatter and transmit. Translucency map at 21%. Glossy specular map pixel ranges from 0.32 - 0.58. Glossiness 0.87. Glossy Layered Weight map pixels from 0 - .005. ior 1.4.Lower dermis at .1 cm sharing translucency map w/full glossines.
My finalized skin settings such as they are. Features tiled bump maps on the topcoat plus custom very detailed normal maps, for things like the lip and under eye wrinkles. I still need to adjust the roughness map, and up the tiling for the torso's tiling bump, but its good enough
If I want microhairs for slighly better rim glow I'll gust go back to rendering in blender.
it is as Mec4d said... balancing luminance is the most important thing....
why jag's way look so good is amazing but it does ....
that's where i am on my way - texture and settings right now...(lips and eyes at work...)..
@j cade
I do like your mesh/morph... but she looks way to "hard"... that's on what i tested and work so long... to get a smoth, silky , translucent skin which still shows details and works in different lights - hard and soft....
so that i know how to make my textures and settings for future models - learning while doing... but i want the best possible, photorealsm which i can get out of iray..
@timmins.william
I did not find a reason to use top coat yet for skin.... except if i want cheat "physic" and do my own fresnel custom curve....
The promos of IG skin essentials do not look really "IRAY" to me... i expect better resullts - but maybe the content(maps are good? i dont know.
Much better. No light leaks.