Maya 5.0 and SSS

[CLAW]

You can fake it in some cool ways. Also there's a trick to render SSS with mentalray using photonmaping.

[Tocpe]

How do I render SSS with MR and photonmapping?

[CLAW]

its not real SSS, just a simulation.

http://www.motiondesign.biz/sss_start.html

[Tocpe]

hmmm, so is there any way to do real SSS in Maya (even on a Mac?) :shrug:

[CLAW]

nope, but get Lightwave and G2, thats a nice combo.

[Tocpe]

wish I could, but we've already committed to Maya...

[CIM]

Maybe you should commit to Windows or Linux.

Originally posted by CLAW
nope, but get Lightwave and G2, thats a nice combo.

G2 doesn't do "real" subsurface scattering either, so who cares? As long as it looks nice and doesn't take ages to render. :)

[Tocpe]

Maybe you should commit to Windows or Linux.

Believe me, I would if I could, but it's not my decision. :cry: We're Maya on macs...

[CLAW]

Don't cry mate, Maya on mac is not that bad after all, and it will be improved in the future.

One cool thing you can do to simulate SSS in maya very fast is to use the volume fog shader. Connect it to a materials incandescence and tweak the volume shaders parameters, works pretty nice.

[Tocpe]

Anybody have any new info on this thread? Is true SSS or even fake SSS in Maya 5.0 on a Mac an impossibility?

[Lyr]

Well ofcourse it's not impossible, a solution just hasn't been written yet.

[Tocpe]

hmmm, well maybe we can use this thread to figure out a solution.:shrug:

[CLAW]

as soon as I get my hands on a sss shader (source) for Mentalray, I try and compile it for the mac.

[Tocpe]

sweet! That would be great!

[rock]

TocPe,

Every single picture in the galleries from LightEngine3D website looks like candle wax than human skin. All of them. So if you do skin, it's better to fake it with whatever techniques. If it looks like skin, no need for SSS.

[CLAW]

I don't agree with that totally! Sure, Stahlbergs skin-shader looks okey, but with SSS used in the right way it looks much better!

[BigSky]

Hiya,

Here's a nifty little network which will go some way to solve your problem. Check it out. It's not user freindly, but if you understand the hypershade, you'll sort it out.
The guts of it is the preShadowIntensity attribute from a light to drive it's little fakery.
Use the gamma node (Z) to drive the "thickness" of the object.
Use the ramp for colour and wrap (with the normal channels, of course).
...You could use another ramp from the normal camera out to the blend colours to get a little more wrap control.

Although this is utter workarounditcity, it's great for a lot of things, and renders as fast as a very fast rendering thing.



;)

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