SSS shaders on Poser models

scottidog2

More models are being released with "SSS shaders" requiring Poser 9+.
How does one deal with such shaders in Carrara 8.5?

3drendero

Would like to know this too.
Not that there is a lack of characters and skins that are just as good or better in Carrara, but as a way of showing that Carrara can render as well as or better than Posers, to all the non-believers.

3drendero

As an example, renderosity has a 40% wishlist sale, the no 1 character GND4:Athletic has separate poser9 SSS Materials, can those be used in Carrara with some manual hands on work?
NSFW: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=63124

" Promos are rendered using the up-to-date Poser 9 shaders that make use of subsurface scattering and raytraced reflection/refraction. Users of Poser 4-Poser 8, and D|S, can use the GND4 Classic shaders included in the pack, but results will vary from the promos."

Headwax

well being the proud ownber of poser 2012 which I bought for cloths sims only I don't know nuffin about sss,
from my scant knowledge, if poser is doing sss by virtue of some wizardry in it's materisl room - then probably no, you can't use it incarrara

from the runtime site

There's a button in the side menu of the materials room that will create the SSS node and plug it into the alt diffuse. It will be connected to the first node that was plugged into the diffuse (ie. a texture map) and the diffuse will be set to 0. There are several parameters that can be adjusted on the node, but I've found it quite easy to use - will try to get a screenshot up later!

so it seem sthey are gibving you a texture map ...

then you could always try dropping it into the sss part of the shader room in Carrara and use an operator on it to fine tune the result,
you could also use fenricks desaturation modifier to change colour saturation etc

Andy or Joe will come along soon and tell you the truth tho :)
msybe with pictures and no typos

gypsyangel

AFAIK, they don't work in Carrara. Not the Poser shaders. I'm still adding a non shader option to my characters to be used in Carrara and other programs that don't use the same shader set up as Poser.
Here's one of my M4's with the SSS skin shader on. I did this image for today's Talk Like A Pirate Day....

But the SSS shaders for Poser don't translate over to any other 3D program that I am aware of. That's why I have different SSS shaders for DAZ and Poser. I was just looking at that with one of my latest characters.

I now put in 5 different mat options:
Poser
SSS Poser
D|S
SSS D|S
Non Shader.

It's getting to be quite the production to do mats any more. They used to be easy with Poser 5 & 6.

wetcircuit

It has been suggested that SSS maps can be used in Carrara via MULTI SHADER MIXERS. This is two complex shaders that are blended with a mixer channel. SSS map goes in the mixer, and your two shaders are identical except one has SSS turned up and the other doesn't. (see pic)

I haven't tried it myself because I don't really like the look of SSS, it cancels out too much of my skin surface detail, and I'm pretty good with shaders so if I want a specific translucent look I can fake it very well in the glow channel where I can control it 100% without changing my light rig.

Tugpsx

Here is a link to a good start at simulating the effect in Carrara.

http://www.shonner.com/drafts/procedural_skin_texture.htm

3drendero

Thanx for the answers, it looks like there may be a way to rebuild theSSS poser 9 shaders to Carrara, but definately a way to get similar results.

evilproducer

So you're aware, Carrara Pro comes with some high res. skin shaders for M4 and V4. Some even use the SSS channel. You can find them in the Shader Browser. The ones that use SSS have GI (Global Illumination) at the end of the file name.

To use them, select the model from the figure's hierarchy in the instances pane, then select the Shading tab at the top of the screen and drag shader icon from the Browser and drop it on the multi-colored ball at the top of the screen above the list of shading domains. Let Carrara chug away for a minute or two, and viola! All the domains are changed!

The SSS shaders will look better with Indirect Lighting enabled in the render room. It will take longer to render as well. It's also a good idea to remove any unused master shaders to save on system overhead.

3drendero

Guess that I need to try the built in v4 shaders again, the renders I have done look bad, because I am a noob, but also renders from others, look far from the poser 2012 renders, for example:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=63124

The goal is to demonstrate that Carrara can render like poser pro 2012.

DustRider

Real life has kept me away from 3D for a few months, but I'm slowly working on SSS shaders for Carrara and DS for a Genesis/V4 character. Like Holly mentioned, SSS tends to wash out skin details, It seems to really wash out the effects of bump maps on the skin making it very difficult to get good specular highlights without making the skin look like plastic. I found that adding in just a bit of procedural noise to the highlight channel really helps to give a better skin vs plastic effect.

I haven't gotten around to trying a multi-channel shader for SSS yet, but that should help. Most of the SSS setups for poser use the texture map as the SSS map, not a "blood" map like is used in DS. Using the base texture map in the SSS channel would go a long way toward reducing the loss of detail. It may be possible to get better control of the translucency effect (which is really what the blood maps are doing) by using a blood map in the translucency channel (in either color ot gray scale) to provide a bit more control/enhancement for SSS effects (since that's what sss really is).

Just thinking out loud, I don't know if any of this would really work.

In my gallery over at rendo the image entitled "The Sorceress" uses SSS in Carrara (sorry, I can't direct link or post it here cause it contains nudity, but you can get to my gallery from the link in my sig line below). It's not as good as people are getting from Poser, but I'm at least getting closer to the effect, without making the skin look too much like wax. Wit this shader I did use a combination of SSS and translucency (without a map), it did seem to help a lot, and there is a lot more control of the translucency effect.

I've also experimented with not using a blood map in DS (the early Elite Textures used blood maps for SSS). I think I'm getting close to decent results in DS as well. If your interested in seeing the DS version of the same texture, the "Bridget Practicing Her Craft" images show my progress so far, though I think the specular highlights are just a bit to high.

Because SSS effects the light and color being "emitted" from the surface, any changes to SSS also seem to affect specular highlights quite a bit in both Carrara and DS. I haven't played with SSS in Poser yet so I'm not sure if it has this same relationship - that's on my to do list when real life gives me a break.

3drendero

This is the best I can do, since I have not read any manual or have no photography skills, there should be a lot of room for improvement.
Scene used: http://www.sharecg.com/v/28074/gallery/7/Material-and-Shader/V4-Skin-Shader-kit-and-Lights-for-Carrara-6
Character: V4 Delphinia, using the Carrara 8 V4 hires Candy GI shader and Basicwear for V4
Software: Carrara 8.1
Render target: GND4:Athletic at http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/the-girl-next-door-4-athletic/63124

1MoreThreadDeleted

I am not sure how to post an image let me see if this works.

Both have SSS. One have a red color SSS and the other an aqua/cyan color.