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Diffuse Strength + SSS Strength = 100%?

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  • Joe CotterJoe Cotter Posts: 3,259
    edited May 2013

    The thing about SSS I have found from my limited experiments is that it adds a blur effect to whatever is in the Diffuse channel. I have mitigated this some by adding the Diffuse map to the sss map area, along with whatever color (adjusted some for the added map) I want to add to the channel but I have to do further experiments to see clearer the exact effect and that I'm not just causing the render engine to do a lot more work for something I could get much quicker another way. Also, most of my experiments recently have been with the original US as I wanted a baseline to compare against US2. I plan on moving to US2 for my real work and that will totally change some of what I'm doing.

    Post edited by Joe Cotter on
  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,344
    edited May 2013

    Szark said:
    Interesting thread

    zilvergrafix said:

    as far as I know, the only champion of SSS in DazStudio is the user known as LATICIS, his render about SSS on deviantart proves that.

    It only seems that way as He has made his findings public and he can do a lot of testing and with help from others ;) I thought I knew a lot about this subject due to my testing over the years and only recently have I started to get a handle of things. But some aspects I found I know very little when I started to get deeper.

    I always thought the SSS shading rate was better higher than being low , opposite of the render setting shading rate.

    Never heard of the 100% balance between Diffuse and SSS until recently and I am still unsure if that is correct for Uber Surface etc. As some have already mentioned that the skin texture maps we use have SSS burnt in given the nature of how they are made so in essence everything is a cheat. I honestly don't think there is one hard and fast rule when it comes to this, yes there are guides lines that we could use to set up Uber Surface form the get go and then tweek as required.
    Laticis certainly does impressive work. There are others, too: certainly DimensionTheory (with his Interjection products), RawArt has a good (free) tutorial here, etc.

    The sum of 100% is good science (I think, anyway), but it doesn't seem to correspond with how things work in DS. Or LuxRender...I did do a couple of quick tests in Luxus. So probably it's due to the skin maps as you say, Szark...that sounds logical.

    Post edited by Scott Livingston on
  • SzarkSzark Posts: 10,634
    edited December 1969

    Yeah I am no expert on this by a long shot but I have been learning this for sometime and it does seem logical to me. If someone made a skin texture set and shader that made everything work like it does in the real world then cool but they don't, this is why Avatar had seven layers of skin materials to get the right realistic look we don't have the luxuary in Daz Studio. Even specular in Daz Studio is a cheat as most of us know in the real world spec and reflectiveness are one in the same.

    I just wish I had a computer that could test these ideas out.

    I did test a SSS scale of 0.10 and got the mesh showing through but I didn't drop the SSS shading rate believing higher is better. When I get a new computer I will be testing this to destruction and see where it leads.

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,344
    edited December 1969

    Speaking of Avatar, this article might be of interest: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/04/science-of-light-diffusion-brings-gollum-to-life.html

    In my opinion it's pretty cool that we DS users have access to SSS in the first place (and for free!), given that it was revolutionary, cutting-edge technology just a decade ago (with the release of The Two Towers in 2002).

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