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SUB-SURFACE SCATTERING IN VUE
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Sub-surface scattering,
called "translucency" in Vue, is the effect where light
is disperssed through certain translucent materials, like skin,
jade, candle wax etc. It's tricky to get it right for flesh but
does make a BIG difference to a fine render.
SSS= Sub-Surface Scattering |
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Points to note:
- Translucency is best when done at the correct scales! Try
to guage approximate real life size units and depths, skin is
only 1 to 3 millimetres deep, so you want to set the effect
to that depth on a human-sized figure, 1mm being the normal.
Wax maybe a few centimetres for SSS.
- The "Absorption Filter Color" setting is what color
the light gets turned into as it's travelling through
the object. For skin that's reddish to orange. For skin I like
RGB 227-115-75 which is a reddish orange, but play around and
find your own suitable colour :)
- Often I find, in Vue6, that "SSS" bugs when an object
is all one part but has several materials and one of them is
partially transparent, to be precise I find it bugs on Poser
people's heads, due to the eyelashes having a transparency map.
What I do to fix that is "split" the head object,
that seems to stop the bug.
- Increasing the Quality slider helps the look, but increases
render times a bit.
- Set "balance" to 60%
- Set "absorption" to 0.13 or more as needed.
- The "Scattering Filter Color" should be set to the
same as the "Overall Color" found in the 1st tab in
the Advanced Material Editor, "Color & Alpha".
This is the object's overall color. I have found problems at
times when the texture map of Poser people is set to a dark
background instead of white, ugh! It alters the over all colour
too dark and screws it all up, so I have to go and alter the
original Poser texture, so that areas outside the actual surfaces
are white. For example, I've seen body textures where the surrounding
colour of the map is dark brown, not white, so when the texture
is brought in, it fools the overall colour, which doens't know
the dark brown outer areas affect nothing.
- You can adjust the "Color Blend" to alter the skin
tone of Cacausian skin from tanned to pale using white.
- In the image below, you can see how the light bouncing through
the skin and leaving elsewhere, means that light is spread into
shadowed areas.
My thanks to Bruno on Cornucopia3D amd Xpleet on Renderosity
forums for all their help explaining their tips on SSS! :)
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I hope you find this of use! :)
All original art, writing on this site, copyright of Steven James, "Silverblade
the Enchanter" ©2008
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