Mi SSS fast skin maya shader Tutorial

[ronaldomiranda]

That´s amazing! thank you for this great tutorial.

I´ve tried to use some custom shaders, like dirtmap and SSS, and I confess is not really simple

Could you share this link on Maya Render section?

Who knows you can do a tutorial for dirtmap in the future... lol

Thanx!

[Lemog]

When you explain, that seem very simple Gilles :thumbsup: great tut my friend :applause:

[gpepper]

Thanks Laurent !
I spend my time understanding the way to do things in 3D and then explain it to everybody, that's only my job !
:deal:

[pitiwazou]

thx for this tut

sur l'image 2 du tut tu as l'image sss qui est sur c: ou on peut trouver cette image plz ?

[gpepper]

sur l'image 2 du tut tu as l'image sss qui est sur c: ou on peut trouver cette image plz ?

En fait, ce n'est pas une image, c'est le chemin où MR écrit la lightmap. C'est ce que je met en régle générale, mais ça peut très bien être le chemin du dossier de ton projet. C'est au choix...

This is not an image, this is the place where MR write the lightmap. It can be written anywhere on the HD. You just have to choose where it will be...

[pitiwazou]

let's rock !!!

ca amrche nickel thx man ;)

[pitiwazou]

une petite question ^^

de quelle maniere tu connecte ce shader au shader d'un perso qui a deja ses maps etc ?

merci ^^

[gpepper]

ça dépend, tu veux le connecter à quoi ? A la transluscence ? Par exprérience, j'ai remarqué que ce shader ne supporte pas trop le layered shader de Maya... Il faut plutôt utiliser le mix8layer si tu veux faire des mix de shader...
Mais avec les option de scatter que ce shader propose, il y a quand même moyen d'avoir un bon résultat pour un humain !

Where and why do you want to make connections with another shader ? By experience I see that this shader don't like layered shader from Maya very much !
Mix8layer is the good way to build a complex shader with the MISSS ans another shaders...
But the MISSS Fast Skin is complex enough to create good human skin shader... In my point of view...

[pitiwazou]

en fait c'est pour l'assigner à mon alien qui a déjà des maps et un shader blinn.

[popol]

si tu utilise le misss fast shader le plus simple a faire pour tes maps est la suivante:

Color map -->Dans le slot diffuse color ainsi que dans le slot épidermal scatter color.
in the diffuse and the epdermale scater color

Ambient occlusion --> Si tu veut utiliser un shader du type dirtmap ou celui fourni par Mental image tu doit le mettre dans le slot ambient du misss fast skin ans que dans le slot ambient du shader fast lightmap.
In the ambient slot both in the misssfskin and the lightmap

Specular map --> Tu click et drag sur le slot overall weight (située dans l'onglet specularity du misss fast skin)
in the overall weight
Bump map -->Tu click et drag sur le slot bump dans l'onglet bump shader, Il est bon d'utilser un node bump 2d ou bump 3d
In the bump slot (under bump shader), it's better to use a bump node.
Il faut cocher la case inluding ind illumination (dans le shader misss flightmap) pour que fnal gathering sot pris en compte.

If you want to use fg you need to check including indr illum in the f lightmap .

A propos de l'optionscale conversion, si ton model est petit tu doi augementer ta scale conversion, en fait une valeur basse te donne un rayon de scattering large et une valeur élevée un petit rayon de scattering
About scale conversion, if you've got a small model you need a high value
Low value ->Large scatter radus
highvalue->Small radius


+ d'info http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=1972833&postcount=388

Tu peut aussi utiliser une depht map pour faire varier le rayon de scattering et tu peut bien sur mapper le slot subdermal color pour introduire quelques varitions.

You can aso use a depht map to introduce some varation in the scatterng radius

http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=1934561&postcount=320
http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost.php?p=1934564&postcount=321

Pour ce qui est d'utiliser le shader misss fast avec le mix 8 layer drag le misssfskin dans le layer 1 blend mode -> add et base color -> couleur noir.
Ne pas oublier la lightmap dans le shading group !
You can use the mix layer with the missss f skin
Drag and drop the msssfs in the layer1 slot blendng mode add
and put a black color in the basse color
Une autre option est d'utliser plusieur nodes misss fast en les superposants (explication dans futur tutorial)
You can also layered multyple m sss fast shader to get more control

Je prepare en ce moment mon site web et j'y glisserai un tuto sur le sujet (avec les tuto sur maya fluids tout en fr):)

Sorry for my bad english

[pitiwazou]

merci pour ces explications ^^

j'avoue que j'ai un peut de mal, mon shader est avec du displace donc je ne sais pas si ca va bien ensemble.
en emme tps, vaut il mieux créer notre shader final a partir de celui ci ou on peut greffer l'autre shader sur celui ci ?

[popol]

Je crois que pour utiliser pleinement ce shader il faut l'utiliser comme base pour ton skin shader

tu peut utilser le mix8 layer pour par exemple ajouté un phog pour les speculaires mais perso te conseille de partir sur le misss fast.

Pour le displacement mets ta texture dans le slot dedié > ajoute un dsplacement approximation (dans mental ray approx editor). Et ca devrait marcher.

[pitiwazou]

ok thx

jvais tester ça !

[popol]

Encore une chose si tu veut vraiment conserver ton shader tu peut utliser le shader diffusion ou misss physical et rendre ton perso en pluseur passe.
Tu assemble ensuite toute ces passe sous totoshop ou autre.
Il te faut une pass color, diffuse,sss et specular

Si tu as des probleme avec le displacement (ou autre)mail moi ygranier@gmail.com

[pitiwazou]

ben tout fonctionne nickel chrome, merci beaucoup, emme le displace ^^

par contre avec tous mes essais, je n'arrive pas à diminuer l'effet latex du shader.
tu sais quels sont les parametre à modifier ?

thx !

[popol]

peut tu me montrer un rendu ? cela facilitera le diagnostic:) ....

[gpepper]

Bah oui, balance un rendu !
Par contre, mettez lez traductions en anglais, c'est quand même un forum Anglosaxon !

Let us see some render of your alien to judge what's the problem !
Please translate in english, we are on an english forum !

:)

[pitiwazou]

ok voilà un rendu, je veux que ca fasse moins latex, j'ai beaucoup cherché mais le tps de rendu est ennorme avec du diplacement en plus.

ok, there is a render, I want a skin less latex, It's dificult to test this shader whit a displacement mapping because the render time is too much long :(


http://www.pitiwazou.org/mes_wips_forums/autres/alien_018.jpg

[gpepper]

Yeah, cool render ! :)
I think it's hard to find the parameter like this, because a lot of thinks had to be tweaked and it's different on every model.

take a look at that tut (http://www.lamrug.org/resources/doc/sss-skin-tutorial.pdf) it should help you a little...

It's the best source have ever seen on that subject. And it really helps to understand this shader...

[pitiwazou]

thx man ;)

[MilitaryT0m]

// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: c:/sss //
// Error: (Mayatomr) : mental ray has stopped with errors, see the log //
// Info (Mayatomr): Aborted //


that is the error maya is giving me when i try to render with what u did.... what does this mean and how do i make it work?

[DimitrisLiatsos]

My friend i found your thread again and posting some experiments i did .....

I have tweaked all that is in the post ..nothing more...and on the right u can see the result so far...I think i am close ..or i have dillusions? :scream: :bounce:

http://www.integra.gr/images/cgtalkimages/gso/Daira03SSS02.jpg

[Russell]

Okay, I finally got this tutorial to work but now, I can't find the right settings to get the SSS look I'd like. Can you all look at my render and tell me what you think I might need to do? I've included my settings as well for the work I did. Thanks.

Russell

[Russell]

Ooops... forgot to include... Sorry.

Russell

[gpepper]

increase the scale conversion to have less sss over all the surface of the head... It should be better...

[Russell]

I think it worked! Judge for yourself... :)

Russell

[5parts]

im just wondering, this misss is only available on maya 6.0 to download on on alias's site, but what about maya 6.5? it just comes with it? and what are some options regarding this and maya 5 (besides upgrading...).

[gpepper]

im just wondering, this misss is only available on maya 6.0 to download on on alias's site, but what about maya 6.5? it just comes with it? and what are some options regarding this and maya 5 (besides upgrading...).
yes it comes with maya 6.5... no need to install it...
with other version, this is a different way to do it...

[Russell]

Okay, maybe this is jsut an anomoly but it can be remedied, I'm sure. Can you explain why around the edges it seems more pink. my Scale Conversion settings are at 45.00 and the Fall Off is at 2. Thanks in advance! :)

Russell

[5parts]

Something else im wondering about this shader: on highend3d, there is also a tut on this specific shader, and it goes on to warn us about this shader having artifacts when its reflected on another object. did any of you guys notice anything going on in the eyes of your characters? or anyother reflection issue with this.

[gpepper]

I don't know I don't test it yet...

[gpepper]

Okay, maybe this is jsut an anomoly but it can be remedied, I'm sure. Can you explain why around the edges it seems more pink. my Scale Conversion settings are at 45.00 and the Fall Off is at 2. Thanks in advance! :)

Russell
To have better result you should paint texture in photoshop to localise your sss...

[Russell]

To have better result you should paint texture in photoshop to localise your sss...

Forgive me and I hope I don't sound like an idiot but... how do you do that? :)


Russell

[gpepper]

U have got to do your texture UV, then do a snapshot of them ... Then in open it in photoshop and paint in white (or black, it depends on your soft 3D) areas where sss must be visible... Then when it is done, U can put that texture in the weight slot of the different Scatter... :)

[Jozvex]

Something else im wondering about this shader: on highend3d, there is also a tut on this specific shader, and it goes on to warn us about this shader having artifacts when its reflected on another object. did any of you guys notice anything going on in the eyes of your characters? or anyother reflection issue with this.

Hi, I wrote that tutorial. It's not a reflection issue, it's that the back of the SSS objects aren't always calculated properly because the shader only cares about making things look good from the camera's point of view. So if another object is reflective and you see the back of your SSS object in the reflection, it may look really artifacty.

So character eyes should be fine.

[Russell]

Jozvex,

Care to chime in on my dilema; i.e. the "I haven't a frickin' clue how to use the UV Texture Tool" dilema? :)

Russell

[5parts]

hum...your best bet would most likely to look for tutorials on uv mapping. learning-maya.com has some, i beleive a couple can be found on these forums so you could always try searching here, or just google it.
Then if you have any questions more specific, im sure you can find help here.
for your convinence :
http://learning-maya.com/texturing.php#uv

5parts

[Russell]

Cool! Thanks, Mr. Parts! I'll pour through the links there. Thanks a bunch! :)

Russell

[poly-phobic]

how about a quick overview of the mix8 layer shader also?
i know it seems quite simple.. but im having a hard time getting it.

[gpepper]

how about a quick overview of the mix8 layer shader also?
i know it seems quite simple.. but im having a hard time getting it.

Yes it should be cool ! when I will have time !
:thumbsup:

[poly-phobic]

:).
thank you. i [and many others im sure] await for it.

[goktugg]

thanks `mate for this tutorial.:)

[greeny]

i've been dealing for a qhile with this shader and the documents provided by Paolo Berto, both siggraph '04 and sss_bonus tools, and i couldn't make it work...

good luck and thanks!!

[gpepper]

i've been dealing for a qhile with this shader and the documents provided by Paolo Berto, both siggraph '04 and sss_bonus tools, and i couldn't make it work...

good luck and thanks!!

Thanks ! But it works !

[Kurl]

A propos de SSS, zieutez un peu la vidéo suivante :
http://www.master-zap.com/sss/skin-shading-demo-new.mov
> Ca vaut le coup d'oeil "Hulk à Ibiza" assure grave!

Sinon, j'ai Maya Unlimited 6.5 et viens d'installer où il faut Maya Bonus Tools 6.5,
avec les infos d'userSetup d'origine et les plus-ins activés. Maya démarre bien; pas de messages d'erreur... mais pas mal de fonction des Bonus Tools plantent comme l'Edge Path Selection Tool, le Toggle Face Display... et plein d'autres avec les messages d'erreur suivants :

Par exemple : "Edge Path Tool"
// Error: -onc "optionVar -iv QT_edgePathAutoComponentConvert 1; \
//
// Error: Unterminated string. //
// Error: -onc "optionVar -iv QT_edgePathAutoComponentConvert 1; ...

Autre example : "Toggle Face Display"
// Error: Cannot find procedure "doMenuComponentSelection". //

J'ai fait plusieurs réinstallations, il est mentionné nul part que je dois rajouter quelque chose au userSetup concernant le path. J'ai comme l'impression qu'il n'est pas sourcé. Enfin si vous avez une idée du comment faire, elle est le bienvenue. Ca commence à m'énerver :-) Merci d'avance

[BigCurly]

Hi, I'm using this shader on one of my characters and can get everything to work except for the bump. Whenever I apply a bump map and render all of the shading goes flat and is just filled with noise. I have no idea whats going on, so if anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it.

[Alt-ligury]

At first I want to say Hello to everybody here! It's the first time i'm posting on this forum & My english is so bad (I'm french) Scooze! :applause: (sometime it's funny!)
______________________

Hi, I'm using this shader on one of my characters and can get everything to work except for the bump. Whenever I apply a bump map and render all of the shading goes flat and is just filled with noise. I have no idea whats going on, so if anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it.


______________________
Yeah, I have the same probleme with the bump shader, and I dont see what's wrong on Hypershade, even when I use 3D bump & 2D bump node, nothing changed at final render exept more noise when I type bigest bump value in property windows :sad:
______________________

Ouais en gros, j'ai un peu le meme probleme à savoir que rien ne se passe quand je me sert du bump avec misss meme en rentrant des valeurs de dingue ou en utilisant un node bump (3D ou 2D)

[kev1n]

http://img203.echo.cx/img203/8475/pretresss7ht.th.jpg (http://img203.echo.cx/img203/8475/pretresss7ht.jpg)

this is my try not tweaked a lot ... thanks

for the french user, please speak english.... I'm french too

[Matt4068]

hi, i did your tutorial but my sphere just came out green :/ any idea why this is?
i will post the mb file in a min

[Matt4068]

hi, i just did this tutorial but my sphere came out green :/ anyone know why this is happening? perhaps ive not got something you guys have, heres a link to the maya file;

http://www.hl2.co.uk/hl2/downloads/attempt.mb

[Karbonara]

Hi

Great thread about the wonderful SSS_skin shader here.

I've been working with the shader quite a while now, but recently ran into a pretty disturbing problem.

Problem:
Had a head, where I was happy with the shader settings, but now I've had to add the actual body to it, combined into the same mesh, different UV set, but both skin shaders share the same lightmap (because otherwise a seam between the two sets appear).

Everything works, except for the bump disappearing when I render the whole mesh.

I've figured though that the bump probably is there, it's just that the spec becomes bigger (probably due to the size of the new mesh). Where I before had a fine play of light on the lips, with wrinkles - I now have a big, soft specular blur - no details at all.
Since second specularity takes care of the finer details, I fiured that might be it - but where do I change the specularity's focus?

[gpepper]

hi, i just did this tutorial but my sphere came out green :/ anyone know why this is happening? perhaps ive not got something you guys have, heres a link to the maya file;

http://www.hl2.co.uk/hl2/downloads/attempt.mb

HI again !
I catch your file and looked what's wrong. Everything is good but the light is not. I didn't use any ambient light in MR it works bad. The best thing U havr to do is to use spot lights. It works well and it is faster to render cause rays of the light go in one direction... Then U can put a lot of those light in your scene but to have best results, 3 lights one which is the sun, another which is the back light, with a very high value and another light with a small value which is the bottom light.
look at this:

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/light_set.jpg

Check this file it is your file with my lights: THE FILE (http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/attempt2.mb)

here is the result:

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/ball.jpg

[IlCattivo]

First of all, thanks for a great thread!

Everything works fine fore me except when I apply the bump, it's like the mesh becomes flat-shaded. Someone knows whats wrong?

[IlCattivo]

Solved it. Instead of adding a 2D texture directley into the bump shader I first added a bump utility.

[gpepper]

Yes it is the way to do it...
Sorry not to answer to all your question but I have few times these days. But I think now, all the people who shared prolems and solutions give this thread more !Thanks ! :thumbsup:

[kylda]

Nice tutorial.One thing trouble me is that,maya render pass dose't work on this shader.How can I serperat specular pass?
I seach the forum and some one recommend CTRL_BUFFER shader or renderpass plugin.I tried them,but didnt work.. :sad:

[gpepper]

Really ? I still didn't use this shader with render pass. I know that There's no alpha too... Maybe there are tricks to do that but I don't know them yet. Take a look to the Lamrug forum, maybe you could find some answers...
Lamrug Forum (http://www.lamrug.org)

[mirkoj]

Hi,

I have problem with miss_fast_skin in maya, it doesn't have solid (white) alpha chanel?
I need to render character with miss_fast_skin for compositing with live video but I run into this problem. Where and can I change this objects material alpha chanel to bi white so I can composite it? I hope somebody can help me? :)
Thank you!

[gpepper]

rerender it with a lambert and compose it with the alpha of that render... I think it is the solution... :thumbsup:

[mirkoj]

yup, that was my first idea but I was wondering if there is another option so I don't need to render it twise. Dead line for commercial is near :))) But it will be on time. Thanks! :)

[kylda]

gpepper,check render global-mental ray-custom entities-pass custom alpha channel,and you get alpha channel.

[gpepper]

gpepper,check render global-mental ray-custom entities-pass custom alpha channel,and you get alpha channel.
Ok, thanks I will test that !
:thumbsup:

[mirkoj]

yup, it's ok now, alpha chanel is good.
Thank you, yue saved me from double rendering!

[Surly Bird]

Apologies for asking if this has been covered elsehwere, but I'm trying to use the fastskin shader and also use a displacement map (like I can with a Phong shader). I'm new to the skin shader and there doesn't appear to be an obvious way of plugging the displacement. I've been reading as much as I can on this topic, but I'm not having much luck with this particular problem.

Can anyone help this poor soul? :)

Thanks.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit: I've gotten pretty good results using the Bump2D utility. Don't know if it's true displacement, but looks very close.

Edit Edit: Looking at a few quick renders I can see, no, it's definitely not a displacment
as the silhouette has not changed. I guess that's why it's called bump2D not displacement. I'll keep trying.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Surly Bird

[Noodlz]

thank you friend :thumbsup:

[gpepper]

Apologies for asking if this has been covered elsehwere, but I'm trying to use the fastskin shader and also use a displacement map (like I can with a Phong shader). I'm new to the skin shader and there doesn't appear to be an obvious way of plugging the displacement. I've been reading as much as I can on this topic, but I'm not having much luck with this particular problem.

Can anyone help this poor soul? :)

Thanks.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit: I've gotten pretty good results using the Bump2D utility. Don't know if it's true displacement, but looks very close.

Edit Edit: Looking at a few quick renders I can see, no, it's definitely not a displacment
as the silhouette has not changed. I guess that's why it's called bump2D not displacement. I'll keep trying.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Surly Bird

Where did U plug the displacement map ?

[Surly Bird]

Where did U plug the displacement map ?

Well, I didn't really see a hook to plug the displacement into the shader. I did use displacment map as a bump map and got a fairly nice effect, but it's really not true displacement.

I have to say this is my first time to really attempt at setting up a skin network. I guess I was looking for a "Displacement" option similar to the very obvious displacment channel in a Phong or Lambert shader. I'm sure you can do it, I just don't think it's obvious.

Did that make sense?

Great tutorial, by the way.

[gpepper]

The displacement map might be plugged in the displacement slot of the the shading group in the mental ray section.

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/displace.jpg

Then U can put your file in the displacement...

But this is not the only thing to do. In MR U sould use the approximation editor which "helps" U to have a better displacement, or subdivision level...

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/approx.jpg

This window appears:

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/approx2.jpg

Click on create, then click on edit and this window appears:

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/aeedit.jpg

then in preset choose "fine view high quality" and approx method " length/distance/angle"

Don't forget to select your geometry and in the AE click on "assign" !

I have to say that I don't find the good result yet cause I didn't use it very much... But I should work on it soon cause I have a character to do before the end of the summer... So let's see... maybe I will post my work on this thread to tell you what is better to do with MR displacement...
But to have better result, put again your file in the bump and the two things should do better than the only bump...
Oh, it's gonna take a long time to render ! :p

[Surly Bird]

Very Cool. Thanks so much. I'll give this a shot on my project when I get home tonight.

I've gotten pretty awesome results already using the Phong Displacement on Subdivs using the approximation editor (great breakdown on how to use that, too), so I'm excited to see how it works with the fast skin shader. Man, what a shader -- more options than a salad bar at The Sizzler. My render times haven't been too bad with a Phong, Lambert or Blinn shader, but You confirmed a fear of mine, though, on the render times using fast skin. :( I'm not looking forward to that part of the equation. Oh well, I guess that's the price for beauty.

Merci beucoup for all your help, monsuier gpepper.

[gpepper]

-- more options than a salad bar at The Sizzler...

:bounce: I want it !


I've gotten pretty awesome results already using the Phong Displacement on Subdivs using the approximation editor (great breakdown on how to use that, too), so I'm excited to see how it works with the fast skin shader. Man, what a shader -- more options than a salad bar at The Sizzler. My render times haven't been too bad with a Phong, Lambert or Blinn shader, but You confirmed a fear of mine, though, on the render times using fast skin. :( I'm not looking forward to that part of the equation. Oh well, I guess that's the price for beauty.

Merci beucoup for all your help, monsuier gpepper.

De nada ! :)

I think there should be a way to tweak the parameters to have a good result and less time to render...
I've seen a tut done by meats meier on Zbrush and Maya but his parameters are too heavy for my computer !
Turtle gives me the best result for the moment and it takes less time to render than MR...

[Gopher3D]

HI everybody,

First, sorry for my english I'm french :/ (but don't 'touch' me lol)

Here a quick test of my model with SSS (modeling always in progress sorry) I need advice because I'm not happy with it yet. the render is just based on SSS, no color map nor good specular (just a little bump map).

SSS effect is mainly set on the ears and a bit on the nose as you can see :



http://c.olive.waika9.com/infographie3D/sss_white.jpg



This test is ONLY based on SSS so if you could give me comments only about it that would be greate Thx.

Perhaps I can share my settings if anybody is interested or want help me.

I'm just asking a question about SSS and bump map too. I have a model with Bump mapping but I need a very high value to see just a little 'bumpy' effect with fast skin shader but if I connect a Phong or Blinn or another 'classic' shader I obtain the same effect with very low value. It's not very important but it's just to understand. Any technical reasons welcome Thanx

gpepper: I'd alraedy said to you on Mayalonge but thanks again for these useful tricks !


P.S :As you can see it's my first post on CG talk but I hope that won't be the last... :)

[gpepper]

HI everybody,

First, sorry for my english I'm french :/ (but don't 'touch' me lol)

Here a quick test of my model with SSS (modeling always in progress sorry) I need advice because I'm not happy with it yet. the render is just based on SSS, no color map nor good specular (just a little bump map).

SSS effect is mainly set on the ears and a bit on the nose as you can see :





This test is ONLY based on SSS so if you could give me comments only about it that would be greate Thx.

Perhaps I can share my settings if anybody is interested or want help me.

I'm just asking a question about SSS and bump map too. I have a model with Bump mapping but I need a very high value to see just a little 'bumpy' effect with fast skin shader but if I connect a Phong or Blinn or another 'classic' shader I obtain the same effect with very low value. It's not very important but it's just to understand. Any technical reasons welcome Thanx

gpepper: I'd alraedy said to you on Mayalonge but thanks again for these useful tricks !


P.S :As you can see it's my first post on CG talk but I hope that won't be the last... :)

Strange this white color overall... Do U put any texture in any slot ? Did U change the color of one of the slot ?
What U told about the bump map seems strange to me because it appears that the bump map use to be higher when U use SSS...

[Gopher3D]

Not any texture (except bump map and bad specular) But yes I'v changed the color of some slots (overall ambient etc.) to give this white effect.

Gopher

[Gopher3D]

Here another render (better modeling but sss not good on the shoulers I think) :

http://c.olive.waika9.com/infographie3D/Dame_blanche_sss.jpg

Don't hesitate to tell me what you think.

gpepper : I don't understand for bump map but it's not really important.


Sorry for my english...

Gopher

[gardogg]

Thanks Laurent !
I spend my time understanding the way to do things in 3D and then explain it to everybody, that's only my job !
:deal:

I'm really impressed with that! Your students are very lucky to have such an intelligent and dedicated teacher.

[gpepper]

I'm really impressed with that! Your students are very lucky to have such an intelligent and dedicated teacher.

Thanks ! But this is the only way to teach, for me...

[dhruvsm]

on the second image 'mentalray texture1' atrribute....in File Texture Attributes section just below the map size there's a map button named 'Image Name' for loading file texture......now my query is that.....what does this texture means and if it is exporting or loading...???....cause if i don't link anything, it's says error in MR output..and if i link any file there (image file, is it correct?)...tehn it says file already exist and ask for over write...??....what does this exactly mean and and is the actual procedure...even ur sample file has something..sss...which it says mising....

i'll be very greatfulll ...thanks a lot.......otherwise it is great.....

[gpepper]

on the second image 'mentalray texture1' atrribute....in File Texture Attributes section just below the map size there's a map button named 'Image Name' for loading file texture......now my query is that.....what does this texture means and if it is exporting or loading...???....cause if i don't link anything, it's says error in MR output..and if i link any file there (image file, is it correct?)...tehn it says file already exist and ask for over write...??....what does this exactly mean and and is the actual procedure...even ur sample file has something..sss...which it says mising....

i'll be very greatfulll ...thanks a lot.......otherwise it is great.....

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/map.jpg

do U mean that ? The place where the lightmap is written ?

[dhruvsm]

yeah,...it's that 'image name'-----c:\sss......reload texture thingy!!....can anyone help...!!?...when i'm doing this tut....i cann't find this file or i don't know what file to link from here.....in confusion.....

[gpepper]

yeah,...it's that 'image name'-----c:\sss......reload texture thingy!!....can anyone help...!!?...when i'm doing this tut....i cann't find this file or i don't know what file to link from here.....in confusion.....

Ok, U don't have to point to any texture... This is only a path that U write to tell MR to write the lightmap at this place... The only thing U have to do is to write any path in this place... write anything U want... Most of the time I write c:/sss... But U dont have to browse to find any texture !
Just write something like c:/sss or d:/sss if U have a drive D or write c:/ssstest... Anything U want...

[dhruvsm]

thanks gpepper...i'll try to do that..thanks a lot...:-) ...

[CharlesVarenne]

Hi, I get a problem with the fast Skin shader. I already post this thread on other website but because I really need a quick answer I am posting here as well.

When I put a Bitmap in the diffuse color for example of a SSS shader, and when I reload my map I have this message.

// Info: (Mayatomr.Custom) : misss_fast_simple_maya1: unconnected light array parameter found "lights", perform light linking
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/Maya/textures/Displacement/TeteDoc-Dis.tga //
// Info: (Mayatomr.Nodes) : place2dTexture12.vertexUvOne: unsupported type of connection, current plug value used instead
// Info: (Mayatomr.Nodes) : place2dTexture12.vertexUvTwo: unsupported type of connection, current plug value used instead
// Info: (Mayatomr.Nodes) : place2dTexture12.vertexUvThree: unsupported type of connection, current plug value used instead

What happen then, is that Maya upload my Map in the thumbnail, but when I do my render Maya kept my old file and doesn't update it. I try to break the wrong connection but seems not to work either.

I don't understand what's wrong plz HELP I am struggling so much this is really annoying.


-Here's a second error I don't understand how to solve it...When I put a Bitmap file (doesnt matter if its .map .tha .tiff etc...) in the diffuse color of my SSS shader I get an error:

select -r file1 ;
showEditor file1;
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/Maya/textures/Color/TeteDoc-Color.tga //
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/Maya/textures/Color/TeteDoc-Color.tga //

[lapinbily]

salut all

any one eventually knows a reason why a specific polymesh does not get sss ? at some point sss did not work anymore on it .. i tried a lot of stuff to get it working again

when i put some standard objet beside it it works fine ...

i am pretty sure the model is buggy but i cannot figure out why

here is the pix :>

http://www.mssvfx.com/gui/pix/Guilhem_Garcin_Head_WIP_01.jpg

btw: gpepper c est cool de voir un prof donner du sien come ca :)

[gpepper]

Hi, I get a problem with the fast Skin shader. I already post this thread on other website but because I really need a quick answer I am posting here as well.

When I put a Bitmap in the diffuse color for example of a SSS shader, and when I reload my map I have this message.

// Info: (Mayatomr.Custom) : misss_fast_simple_maya1: unconnected light array parameter found "lights", perform light linking

Take a look at the light linking in the lightmap. by default parameters is set to 0. it takes all light in the scene. set to 1 takes only the linked light, set to 2 takes all the light except the linked one...

let it set to 0...


// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/Maya/textures/Displacement/TeteDoc-Dis.tga //


I already have this problem. It solved it self. Maybe the name of your file is strange. Don't put special letters, space or capital letters...


// Info: (Mayatomr.Nodes) : place2dTexture12.vertexUvOne: unsupported type of connection, current plug value used instead
// Info: (Mayatomr.Nodes) : place2dTexture12.vertexUvTwo: unsupported type of connection, current plug value used instead
// Info: (Mayatomr.Nodes) : place2dTexture12.vertexUvThree: unsupported type of connection, current plug value used instead

I had this problem too. A part of your uv are not good. Check your uv to prevent overlapping...

-Here's a second error I don't understand how to solve it...When I put a Bitmap file (doesnt matter if its .map .tha .tiff etc...) in the diffuse color of my SSS shader I get an error:

select -r file1 ;
showEditor file1;
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/Maya/textures/Color/TeteDoc-Color.tga //
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/Maya/textures/Color/TeteDoc-Color.tga //

Give your file different names...

I don't know what is really the problem, here was my solutions, but Maybe it would not work...

[gpepper]

salut all

any one eventually knows a reason why a specific polymesh does not get sss ? at some point sss did not work anymore on it .. i tried a lot of stuff to get it working again

when i put some standard objet beside it it works fine ...

i am pretty sure the model is buggy but i cannot figure out why

What did you want to mean by polymesh ?

btw: gpepper c est cool de voir un prof donner du sien come ca :)

Thanks ! but at this time I'm pretty much busy ! So I couldn't answer to all the questions quickly...

Cool Demoreel Gui !

[lapinbily]

by polymesh i meant mesh made out of polygons :) guess it was 3dmax's terminology .....

do you know any limitations to the use of sss in tems of polygon structure ?

pretty quick to me :p

thx for the demoreel :beer:

[gpepper]

by polymesh i meant mesh made out of polygons :) guess it was 3dmax's terminology .....

do you know any limitations to the use of sss in tems of polygon structure ?

pretty quick to me :p

thx for the demoreel :beer:

Ok !
I just know that Mental ray doesn't like poly very much. Convert it to mesh it should decrease your render time too...

[lapinbily]

what do you mean ? convert it to subdiv ? to nurbs ?

it is already a polygonal mesh .. i dont get it sorry

i'll export it in .3ds then import it again .. :shrug: and call my local marabout, the famous docteur m'boussa , he'll fix this in no time

thx for the help anyway :thumbsup:

[gpepper]

hat do you mean ? convert it to subdiv ? to nurbs ?

it is already a polygonal mesh .. i dont get it sorry

i'll export it in .3ds then import it again .. :shrug: and call my local marabout, the famous docteur m'boussa , he'll fix this in no time

thx for the help anyway

ahah ! M'boussa !
Ok I found strange that U talk about max because I saw the name of maya on your site !
So what was the problem ?

[lapinbily]

aaarghh unfortunaly dr. M'boussa is out helping the goverment with the riot issues .. too bad for me .. i dont still know what is wrong but i will try to do some voodoo stuff like bringing my mesh into max or burning lots of incent ..

yeah max why not ? like a lot of people i started CG with it .. thats how i met dr Mboussa by the way ; he was very helpful in handling max :hmm: mouahaha

[lapinbily]

got it

the normals were reversed ........

:bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:

[CharlesVarenne]

Great THANKS a LOT I will Try THAT:thumbsup: :scream: .

[CharlesVarenne]

Hi I still get my UV problem

// Info: (Mayatomr.Nodes) : place2dTexture12.vertexUvOne: unsupported type of connection, current plug value used instead

Do you know any script or plug which allow me to check if my UV is clean or not..cause I dont see any error or overlapping. Or can it be some other problem???

[gpepper]

Did it do the render ?

[CharlesVarenne]

I don't understand...now its working...with my new model with no overlapping and even my old one with overlapping... MR is still telling me he has some problem with connection etc... But now he is updating my map when I am doing the render. :eek: I dont get it at all !!!This is really annoying... Does it means that it is working even if the model has a bit of overlapping and if he has too many MR cant update the map when it renders!!! This is completly nonsense and very annoying to find out the problem and trying to correct it. Can you tell me a bit more about your case, cause its driving me crazy!!!

[alancamara]

Hi Pfeiffer, great thread, congrats mate.

I had the sss bonus tool on the my computer, but I had several problems and lost all my stuffs and specially the SSS bonus tool folder and I'm not get to find the website where i did the download. My Maya is 6.0, thanks mate. :thumbsup:

[akin]

http://www.akinyaman.com/images/p17.jpg

http://www.akinyaman.com/images/p19.jpg

thats a WIP called The Pirate (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=292615&page=1&pp=15) that l m workin on these days, l come over to make the skin more like a skin, so dive in to the sss skin matter, here is the firt test


gpepper (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=33317) most thanx goes to Gpepper for his fine tutorial about sss

[gpepper]

Thanks all ! ;)
Alan, I will try to find it but I didn't find it on the alias site...

[leftyfallat]

If anyones interested, I threw together a quick tutorial on texture maps for the misss_fast_skin shader. I'm not an expert with this shader, but hopefully there's some helpful info in there.

http://richfallatjr.com/SSS_tutorial/sss_tutorial.htm

[FDPC]

Hi all,

Thx for all tuts!

But i have a little blem with my bump: When i use it... my Spec and shadow bug, look.

Without Bump: http://flopy.13.free.fr/images/sssNoBump
With Bump: http://flopy.13.free.fr/images/sssBump

If u have an idea, will be good, thx.

I would like repair it before continu to set my SSS shader.

[Mag_42]

Hi,

I've been working on a character with the MI Fast SS skin shader and I've got the skin to a point where I am happy with it but now I need to add make-up

the character is female and needs to have heavy white make-up on her face

I was wondering where best to put the make-up map.. in the diffuse .... or in the epidermal.

ideally since it goes on top of the skin perhaps a third layer :) maybe i need to make a new phenomenom

And how much would heasonably heavy makeup like this negate SSS type effects.
I know there would still be some.

So I'm just wondering if anyone has any particular tips for adding a make-up layer on top of the normal skin layer

thanks

[FDPC]

so, i found the solution to my problem... i missed my bump node 2D :blush:



@Mag_42

sorry, but my little english cannot understand exactly that u want to do...

[Dire-Wolf]

Hello. I was wondering if anyone could help me out.

I am trying to use this skin shader and everything is going good so far. I checked pass custom alpha channel so now I have an alpha channel. That works. What doesn’t work is unchecking premultiply. When I do, shader gets very bright and grainer and really really gross. Now somehow, it started to work, but i dont know what I changed to make it work. I didn’t save the maya file:eek: , but I do have a saved image with premultiply off and the color and brightness of the shader is fine. I don’t know how it worked that time, or how to get it to work again.

I thought the problem was pass custom alpha channel because I didn’t have that checked and didn’t notice that it had no alpha but when premultiply was off. It got bright and blown out. I turned on pass custom alpha channel and it seemed to work and it did, but it doesn’t work anymore and I don’t think it was the pass custom alpha channel, but I don’t know what I did to get it to work.

It almost feels as if it was completely random flook that got it to work and not something I actually did.

Has anyone ran into this problem before?

I have tested this with new scenes and fresh shaders (the one posted here) and no matter what I do now, the renders all have blown out highlights and over all messed up color.

So here is my question. Has anyone used this shader posted on this forum with premultiply off and gotten it to reliably work? What key did I turn by accident to make this shader work?


If you don’t know of a way to get it to work, do you know of an alternative way to get a good alpha channel in one render pass?

I am unsure if getting the premultiply to work was something I accidentally did in the shader itself, or in the render settings.

[alancamara]

Thanks all ! ;)
Alan, I will try to find it but I didn't find it on the alias site...


Hi Pffeifer, thanks friend, but i not found, thanks mate :cry:

[Dire-Wolf]

Hello. I also Am Having another problem. Everything works fine (except for the problem a page back) but after a little while working in maya, mental ray wont render the shader anymore. No matter what i do, Maya Wont render the file. If i take everthing and export the file to a new file, everything works, but its only a matter of time before maya wont render it again. One momen I was rendering, and then the next time i hit the render button after changeing the camera angle, it gave me this.

// Error: (Mayatomr) : mental ray has stopped with errors, see the log //
// Info (Mayatomr): Aborted //


I cant find the log file.

It only give the error when i render with the misss shader. everything works fine when I use a diffrent shader.

[gpepper]

Hi Pffeifer, thanks friend, but i not found, thanks mate :cry:

Sorry Alan, I didn't find it too ! The only thing you have to do is to buy Maya 7.0 ! :argh:

[gpepper]

Hello. I also Am Having another problem. Everything works fine (except for the problem a page back) but after a little while working in maya, mental ray wont render the shader anymore. No matter what i do, Maya Wont render the file. If i take everthing and export the file to a new file, everything works, but its only a matter of time before maya wont render it again. One momen I was rendering, and then the next time i hit the render button after changeing the camera angle, it gave me this.

// Error: (Mayatomr) : mental ray has stopped with errors, see the log //
// Info (Mayatomr): Aborted //


I cant find the log file.

It only give the error when i render with the misss shader. everything works fine when I use a diffrent shader.

Looks a bit strange !
Do u have some texture attached to the shader ? what are their extension ? Your model is made with poly ? did you delete the history ? is the path of the lightmap right ?

[madart]

Hi,

I've been working on a character with the MI Fast SS skin shader and I've got the skin to a point where I am happy with it but now I need to add make-up

the character is female and needs to have heavy white make-up on her face

I was wondering where best to put the make-up map.. in the diffuse .... or in the epidermal.

ideally since it goes on top of the skin perhaps a third layer :) maybe i need to make a new phenomenom

And how much would heasonably heavy makeup like this negate SSS type effects.
I know there would still be some.

So I'm just wondering if anyone has any particular tips for adding a make-up layer on top of the normal skin layer

thanks

I found your question/problem interesting. So, I would say that it would depend on exactly how heavy or covering the make-up is. I would use the diffuse color and diffuse weight maps. Also I would make changes to the spec maps and reflectivity and maybe even bump.

If you're talking about a thick covering white cream like a geisha or thick and covering like theater make-up, then there's hardly any skin showing at all through the make-up. If it's modern everyday make-up, then there's quite a bit of skin translucency showing. Best bet is to apply some make-up to your skin and see how much it negates the SSS-effect.

Powder, blusher, eyeshadow all negates the SSS-effect quite a bit, especially eyeshadow.

Maybe up the sub-dermal and back-scatter values somewhat in the "made-up" areas. Make-up really just affects the very top layer of the skin.

[Dire-Wolf]

[/url]*update. I fixed it. It was a really simple and embaraceing problem.:D

Anway, could anyone helpme out with my first problem on post #[url="showpost.php?p=2877028&postcount=104"]104 (http://member.php?u=33317)?

[hain3d]

Hi all,

I've read the Mi SSS fast skin maya shader Tutorial, and it very useful for me, but I have some questions:

Could anyone tell me how to make the shaders for eyes, eyelashes, eyebrows, hair an cloth shader of headscrarf to render with Mental Ray?

I'm now working in a girl's head project rendering with Mental Ray. The question is Mental Ray or Maya shaders bring the best result when rendering with Mental Ray, and how to make these shading networks. I've used Mi fast skin SSS shader for skin and eyeball's inner object. What about the cornea with good env reflection? I can not make the right Mental Ray shader for that, and more : the eyelashes, eyebrows, hair, cloth... I admire the way to make the shaders of Final Fantasy's characters, especially the eyes, although the artists render with Renderman. But I think Mental Ray also one of the best render tool.

Thank you very much,

[Wingless]

Hey everyone. I finally got the plug-in installed, and tested it with the following dragon scene. It worked and looked cool, so I started trying to make the shader from the start with Gpeppers tutorial. Sadly, I cant make it work. :(

When it shows how the Hypershade shall look in the end, mine looks like this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v665/Redeem/hypershade.jpg

When I try to render it, I just get a black area, nothing can be seen. If I have rendered something else, with the normal render, and then render the fast skin model with Mental Ray, the render window just opens up with the render from the model I rendered earlier.

I have followed the tutorial exactly as its shown. What is wrong? I use Maya 6.0.

[gpepper]

Hey everyone. I finally got the plug-in installed, and tested it with the following dragon scene. It worked and looked cool, so I started trying to make the shader from the start with Gpeppers tutorial. Sadly, I cant make it work. :(

When it shows how the Hypershade shall look in the end, mine looks like this: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v665/Redeem/hypershade.jpg

When I try to render it, I just get a black area, nothing can be seen. If I have rendered something else, with the normal render, and then render the fast skin model with Mental Ray, the render window just opens up with the render from the model I rendered earlier.

I have followed the tutorial exactly as its shown. What is wrong? I use Maya 6.0.

Ok. Is it possible to have a screenshot of the graph network of the misss fast skin Shading group ? I wonder if the lightmap is connected to the lightmap slot of the SG...

[Dire-Wolf]

I still have not found a way to get mental ray to render an alpha when I turn off premulitply, but anyway, I have another question. Transparencies. This shader descent seem to work well with objects that are transparent and are placed in front of the object with the shader. An example would be eyelashes that rais up from the eyelid partially covering the skin around the eye. The eyelash is made of one peace of geometry and has a texture and transparency map to fake the eyelash. The skin behind the eyelash is very smudged and looks like a preview render.

I happen to have a texture connected to the shader. It is connected to overall color. It is a psd file with a psd Maya node. This would be the skin shader. It doesn’t matter what type of transparency is obstructing the textured misss shader, it won’t render the texture properly. To test this I placed a box with full transparency placed on it and it really blurred and distorted all the textures.

Has anyone ran into this problem? I know how to work around my problem with alpha maps, it just takes more time, but I cant seem to find a work around for this problem that dissent involve modeling every eyelash separately.

[pigbelly]

// Warning: (Mayatomr.Shader) : mentalrayTexture1: referenced writable texture file "C:/sss" already exists, overwrite //
// Error: (mental ray) : cannot create file C:/sss //
// Error: (mental ray) : C:/sss: can't create file (The data is invalid.) //


this is from the file I downloaded..

/Tommie

[gpepper]

I still have not found a way to get mental ray to render an alpha when I turn off premulitply

In mental ray render globals, turn on alpha in custom pass.

but anyway, I have another question. Transparencies. This shader descent seem to work well with objects that are transparent and are placed in front of the object with the shader. An example would be eyelashes that rais up from the eyelid partially covering the skin around the eye. The eyelash is made of one peace of geometry and has a texture and transparency map to fake the eyelash. The skin behind the eyelash is very smudged and looks like a preview render.

OK, I understand. But this shader doesn't seem to be really transparent. When you will activate the alpha channel, look at it, there is no transparency...

I happen to have a texture connected to the shader. It is connected to overall color. It is a psd file with a psd Maya node. This would be the skin shader. It doesn’t matter what type of transparency is obstructing the textured misss shader, it won’t render the texture properly. To test this I placed a box with full transparency placed on it and it really blurred and distorted all the textures.

I don't have the answer. It looks strange too.

this is from the file I downloaded..

The file is from maya 6.5. If you are using Maya 7.0, create all the scene by yourself.

[Dire-Wolf]

Regarding the alpha... I know about custom pass alpha, the problem occurs when I try to turn off premulitply so I can get a workable alpha. I don’t see the use of a alpha map if it’s not going to help me to composite the render without a seam around the edge. If I am the only one that has this problem could someone let me know?



Regarding the problem with transparencies, can anyone confirm or deny if they also have a problem with the textures if the transparent object obstructs the model with the misss shadier on it, or this just a problem with my setup or whatnot.



Thank you for everyone’s help so far.

[alancamara]

Ok everyone.
This is the link to get the sss_bonus tool for maya 6.0 I was finding this like a crazy hehehe

http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/community/downloads/bonus_tools/index_maya(down of the page)

(down of the page)

best
Alan Camara

[gpepper]

Ok everyone.
This is the link to get the sss_bonus tool for maya 6.0 I was finding this like a crazy hehehe

http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/community/downloads/bonus_tools/index_maya(down of the page)

(down of the page)

best
Alan Camara

Happy to know that you finally found it Alan ! :buttrock:

[moree007]

I've been looking for a solution for adding layers to the SSS shader.

I found this mental ray shader called "JS_MultiLayers".

Has anyone else heard of it?

I downloaded it here:

http://www.pixero.com/downloads_mr.html

I was hoping to somehow layer a photoshop layer shader on top
of a SSS shader. But so far, I haven't had any luck.

[gpepper]

I've been looking for a solution for adding layers to the SSS shader.

I found this mental ray shader called "JS_MultiLayers".

Has anyone else heard of it?

I downloaded it here:

http://www.pixero.com/downloads_mr.html

I was hoping to somehow layer a photoshop layer shader on top
of a SSS shader. But so far, I haven't had any luck.

Maybe test the Mix8layer by francesca Luce... Maybe U will find it in the search section of our Cgtalk !

[alancamara]

Hey Gilles,
how I said there, really the scale factor was 5.000 and I did change to 30.000. This is enough?

About the indirect light, are you was talking about a spot or a direct light behind the head, is this?

I posted the one picture about this that I'm talking. Thanks mate :thumbsup:

http://www.alancamara.kit.net/sss.jpg

[gpepper]

Hey Gilles,
how I said there, really the scale factor was 5.000 and I did change to 30.000. This is enough?

About the indirect light, are you was talking about a spot or a direct light behind the head, is this?

I posted the one picture about this that I'm talking. Thanks mate :thumbsup:

http://www.alancamara.kit.net/sss.jpg

When I was talking about indirect lighting, I mean Final gather... The light your pointing at is called "back light" I think...

[alancamara]

Of course :argh: back light. thanks mate :thumbsup:

[chayground]

Hi Dire-Wolf. you said that you had problems with:

"// Error: (Mayatomr) : mental ray has stopped with errors, see the log //
// Info (Mayatomr): Aborted //"

and then later that you'd fixed it and that it was "It was a really simple and embaraceing problem."

Could you tell me what you did to fix it please?! I'm new to Maya and I'm getting exactly the same thing in the same situation.

Thank you.

[Dire-Wolf]

I had my lights turned off. hehe. Specifically, they were in a layer that was unchecked. I didn’t post my solution because it was quite embarrassing. :scream:

Its possible that you are using maya’s default light setup and haven’t added any of your own, although i am not sure if you would get this error or not.

[chayground]

hehe. I think that was probably what the issue was with mine too. It went away by itself (probably when i put some lights in and turned them on!)

Thanks

[alancamara]

I need help, please.

I've been worked with model and I've a problem

I modeled the head poly by poly(is important), no attach any geometry on this model.

Why sss don't be active on the head and is active on the ear? Some adjustment? Normals, scale? Please help me.

I've using the same shader sss both the head and ear.

Thanks

http://www.alancamara.kit.net/clown.jpg

[leigh]

I need help, please.

I've been worked with model and I've a problem

I modeled the head poly by poly(is important), no attach any geometry on this model.

Why sss don't be active on the head and is active on the ear? Some adjustment? Normals, scale? Please help me.

I've using the same shader sss both the head and ear.

Thanks

http://www.alancamara.kit.net/clown.jpg

That effect on the ear is called backscattering, and the strength of that effect is controlled largely by the backscattering weight value in the shader. But you wouldn't want that effect on the rest of the head, because it would make it look tiny and hollow. This is the most common problem with people using SSS shaders - they totally overdo it and the final result is incredibly unrealistic. SSS is a very, very subtle effect.

[gpepper]

I need help, please.

I've been worked with model and I've a problem

I modeled the head poly by poly(is important), no attach any geometry on this model.

Why sss don't be active on the head and is active on the ear? Some adjustment? Normals, scale? Please help me.

I've using the same shader sss both the head and ear.

Thanks

http://www.alancamara.kit.net/clown.jpg

Looks strange Alan ! I didn't have this problem ! Check if your normal face are in the right direction.
Are you using Maya 6 ? Because, as I can remember, sometimes ther is a bug on it with MISSS. THe first test I've done on it, I was used to close all the surfaces to have a great effect. Try not to let any hole, in the eyes, and around the neck. Test it again...
I would like to help you by looking at your file but the problem is that I'm using Maya 7.0 and I still don't have Maya 6.0 anymore...
In any case, redo your shader, maybe something is wrong, or some part of the shading group is not really attached to the geometry...

That effect on the ear is called backscattering, and the strength of that effect is controlled largely by the backscattering weight value in the shader. But you wouldn't want that effect on the rest of the head, because it would make it look tiny and hollow. This is the most common problem with people using SSS shaders - they totally overdo it and the final result is incredibly unrealistic. SSS is a very, very subtle effect.

Yeah, your right leigh. But I think, in this case, Alan is looking for a solution to make this %£#king SSS work ! Oops, I said "%£#king", sorry...
I think, Alan is a great artist and he will find to best way to use this cool effect.

[alancamara]

Hi Leigh thanks for your interesting to help me, I already annotate this tips. I think that you don't understood my question maybe cause my english, I think that my english is the worstest english on all of cgtalk (or on earth).

Really the problem was on the normals as Gilles spoken. I did reverse the normals and fixed this. Thanks again

Hi Gilles How are doing my friend? Yes you're right I did reverse on the normals and now it's ok.

About %£#king SSS "sorry" I'm doing %£#so bad%£# "sorry again" hahaha

thanks my friend

Alan

[gpepper]

Hi Gilles How are doing my friend? Yes you're right I did reverse on the normals and now it's ok.

About %£#king SSS "sorry" I'm doing %£#so bad%£# "sorry again" hahaha

thanks my friend

Alan

you welcome Alan !
It is a great pleasure for me to help you ! ;)

[fishinocean78]

thank you
where to turn on the scatter indirect illumination,i can not find it.

[gpepper]

thank you
where to turn on the scatter indirect illumination,i can not find it.

In the lightmap shader attached to the shading group, there is an option "include indirect lightning". Just click on it ! :)

[sirap]

Help!!

I'm getting this problem

API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"

In the output window..

and this "Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: C:/sss" when I open the hypershade.

I'm using maya 7

[gpepper]

Help!!

I'm getting this problem

API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"
API 0.0 error 301095: while defining texture "mentalrayTexture1": redefinition of texture "swatch::mentalrayTexture1"

In the output window..

and this "Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: C:/sss" when I open the hypershade.

I'm using maya 7

This is an error that I have too. But it seems to work well so don't matter ...

[sirap]

oh, but I couldn't seem to find the texture in hypershade...so that's a problem right?

[gpepper]

oh, but I couldn't seem to find the texture in hypershade...so that's a problem right?

The Mentalraytexture 1 is not in your hypershade ? You didn't create it ?

[sirap]

I did, I clicked on this :

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/lightmap.jpg

and filled in this :

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/map.jpg

but after that I get those errors I posted earlier

[gpepper]

I did, I clicked on this :

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/lightmap.jpg

and filled in this :

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/map.jpg

but after that I get those errors I posted earlier

Ok it will work if you connect then this texture to a lightmap shader connected to the lightmap slot of the shading group...

[sirap]

I'm sorry..I don't understand :P

I don't have the mentalraytexture 1 in my hypershade..probably due to that error..so I can't really connect anything :P

EDIT: Or is it that I should connect the lightmap shader first, then create the texture?

[ZippZopp]

how do you get a usuable alpha with MISSS? any object with the MISSS is black in the alpha channel. I've gone into custom entities in the render globals and turned on pass custom alpha channel. any thoughts?

[darkjedi1929]

hey guys...
I noticed something wierd....

in the Mental Ray Texture Node, try giving the filename as "sourceimages/sss" and it does not work. However, change it to "C:\sss" and it happily starts working. What the heck? Is this a bug or what?

[gpepper]

I'm sorry..I don't understand :P

I don't have the mentalraytexture 1 in my hypershade..probably due to that error..so I can't really connect anything :P

EDIT: Or is it that I should connect the lightmap shader first, then create the texture?

If you follow the tutorial, it will work.
First create the sss shader then click on its lightmap slot and create the mental ray texture. Then connect a lightmap shader to the lightmap slot of the shading group of the sss shader:

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/light.jpg

and then, reconnect the mental ray texture to the lightmap slot of the lightmap shader:

http://gpepper.free.fr/tut/sss/text.jpg

how do you get a usuable alpha with MISSS? any object with the MISSS is black in the alpha channel. I've gone into custom entities in the render globals and turned on pass custom alpha channel. any thoughts?

That's it ! this is the right thing to do.

hey guys...
I noticed something wierd....

in the Mental Ray Texture Node, try giving the filename as "sourceimages/sss" and it does not work. However, change it to "C:\sss" and it happily starts working. What the heck? Is this a bug or what?
Not a bug, if you want to write it to a special location, give it the right path...

[darkjedi1929]

oops sorry. my bad.:blush: guess I ought to have given the full path to my projects sourceimages... heh heh

[ZippZopp]

any ideas why the script editor is giving me this???

// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/project/sourceimages/head_clr_01.tif //
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/project/sourceimages/head_backscatter_01.tif //
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/project/sourceimages/head_spc_01.tif //
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/project/sourceimages/head_bmp_01.tif //


it still renders, but the script editor keeps popping this up whenever i do anything with the shader which is making maya lag.....what is that error?

[gpepper]

any ideas why the script editor is giving me this???

// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/project/sourceimages/head_clr_01.tif //
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/project/sourceimages/head_backscatter_01.tif //
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/project/sourceimages/head_spc_01.tif //
// Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: D:/project/sourceimages/head_bmp_01.tif //


it still renders, but the script editor keeps popping this up whenever i do anything with the shader which is making maya lag.....what is that error?

This is one of the message which is seen the most when you render with SSS. Don't know what it is but the shader seems to work when you have this message, so don't matter... Myabe if you convert your file in .map it would work better...

You work at Luma pictures ? I've seen the cool work you've done in Underworld evolution ! Great Job Luma ! :thumbsup:

[ZippZopp]

hey thanks! glad you liked the work on Underworld Evolution! that is a weird error message, maybe i'll try converting to iff or map.

one other quick question for ya. it seems that sometimes when i set this shader up my bump map refuses to work. almost like it is hit or miss. had it working all day, the scene got messed up so i made a new scene, set the shaders up again and now the bump map just won't come through, have you ever had that happen? i set it up the way i always do with that shader, make a file node, plug that into the bump2d node and then plug that into the SSS bump.

[XingWei]

where do I connect my color, bump, specular map?

[gpepper]

hey thanks! glad you liked the work on Underworld Evolution! that is a weird error message, maybe i'll try converting to iff or map.

one other quick question for ya. it seems that sometimes when i set this shader up my bump map refuses to work. almost like it is hit or miss. had it working all day, the scene got messed up so i made a new scene, set the shaders up again and now the bump map just won't come through, have you ever had that happen? i set it up the way i always do with that shader, make a file node, plug that into the bump2d node and then plug that into the SSS bump.

No, not really...
You have to plug the bump node to the bump slot of the shader. make sure that it is plugged to the normal camera of the shader...

[gpepper]

where do I connect my color, bump, specular map?

You can connect color to overall color. But most of the time, I connect my diffuse to diffuse color and to epidermal scatter color...

then U can connect few different map to the another color slot of subdermal and back scatter... try to keep a nuance of the color already set in the default color of each slot...

The bump map must be connected to a bump node before being connected to the shader. Then U will connect the bump node in the bump slot of the sss shader...

The specular map can be connected to the overall weight. But U can do several maps if you want to set your own primary and secondary specularity. You just have to know that the primary specular is the biggest specular over the skin it is very large but not very shiny. and the secondary specular is very shiny, more than the primary but not as large as the primary...

Voilà !

;)

[XingWei]

how can i make a bump node?

[gpepper]

how can i make a bump node?

The bump node is in the hypershade in general utilities. Just maintain middle button and drag it to the workspace of the hypershade. Just connect it to the bump slot of the shader and then connect the file to the bump node...

[XingWei]

should i use the bump 2D or bump 3D?

[gpepper]

should i use the bump 2D or bump 3D?

if it is a map, use the 2d...

[XingWei]

thanks alot ,,

[XingWei]

does anyone know how to set a transparency attribute for skin shader in maya?

[gpepper]

does anyone know how to set a transparency attribute for skin shader in maya?

Do U mean, to have transparency in the alpha ?

[XingWei]

Do U mean, to have transparency in the alpha ?

hm, no i meant how to tweak the transparency of my skin shader, i only want the specularity.

[gpepper]

Do you mean that you want the sss effect to disapear a bit ?
In this case, check the algorythm control and increase the scale factor...

[XingWei]

no i want to be able to see-through the shader

[gpepper]

This shader is not really transparent.
I think one of the sss of MR have transparent abilities, but not fast skin.
The shader might be the MISSS PHYSICAL
Maybe you can find some cool tutorials there :
http://lamrug.org/resources/physsstips.html

[madart]

How about making a specular render pass? Would that help?

[gpepper]

How about making a specular render pass? Would that help?

Making a specular render pass to give transparency ?

[XingWei]

how can i make a specular pass?

[JacquesD]

Quite interesting thread! I finally found some times to check on this miSSS shader.
Though I'm very new to Maya in terms of shaders, that's the one I'm really interested in right now. The tutorial is quite helpful as I could get results rather quickly... however there're still some areas where I have some problems.

By assigning the color textures to the 'Diffuse Color' & the 'Subdermal Scatter Color' slots, I can barely see my texture color at render time.

The other thing which I've been looking for these past 2 days is... a good tutorial about how to work with displacement maps and miSSS... haven't found any where It was explained clearly. Anybody knows where I could find one ? Thank you.

The ripper.

[madart]

Xing Wei, If you have Maya 7, it's quite easy to make separate passes.

Do the following

1. Select the object(s) to be rendered

2. Go to the Layer editor usually below the Channels box.

3. Select the radio render button

4. Create a new layer from the selected object.

5. Right click on the layer go to presets and then Specular.

6. Click on the "R" in the Master Layer so that you don't render the whole object.


I gave Xing Wei this suggestion as, he/she said that he/she only wanted the specularity.

gpepper, just rendering the specularity can give the illusion of something being transparent, when you use the pass in a composite image.

Xing Wei, I hope this helps and sorry about not knowing which gender you are :)

[gpepper]

Quite interesting thread! I finally found some times to check on this miSSS shader.
Though I'm very new to Maya in terms of shaders, that's the one I'm really interested in right now. The tutorial is quite helpful as I could get results rather quickly... however there're still some areas where I have some problems.

By assigning the color textures to the 'Diffuse Color' & the 'Subdermal Scatter Color' slots, I can barely see my texture color at render time.

The other thing which I've been looking for these past 2 days is... a good tutorial about how to work with displacement maps and miSSS... haven't found any where It was explained clearly. Anybody knows where I could find one ? Thank you.

The ripper.

Hello Jacques, Nice to see you there ! I'm really happy that this tutorial helps you !

About your problems of diffuse, There is to way to put the diffuse map. The one you talked about but in this case you have to change some parameters in the weight of each "layers" (diffuse, epidermal, subdermal, back scatter, etc) to have more influence or less of each map used...
If you just want a basic diffuse, put your diffuse map in the overall color... But you won't be able to have some cool effect only rendered with each layer...

About displacement, the best I have seen was on Zbrushcentral... But I think you have done some cool gorilla soon, haven't you ? Done in ZB with a render in XSI ? Why would you like to work with Maya ? XSI is a really cool tool, isn't it ?

Xing Wei, If you have Maya 7, it's quite easy to make separate passes.

Do the following

1. Select the object(s) to be rendered

2. Go to the Layer editor usually below the Channels box.

3. Select the radio render button

4. Create a new layer from the selected object.

5. Right click on the layer go to presets and then Specular.

6. Click on the "R" in the Master Layer so that you don't render the whole object.


I gave Xing Wei this suggestion as, he/she said that he/she only wanted the specularity.

gpepper, just rendering the specularity can give the illusion of something being transparent, when you use the pass in a composite image.

Xing Wei, I hope this helps and sorry about not knowing which gender you are :)

Thanks Madart ! I think this is the right solution even if, at this time, I didn't test it with the SSS shader.
I didn't know this technique to use the specularity to fake transparency.

[XingWei]

thanks alot, i am a guy haha...

[leigh]

By assigning the color textures to the 'Diffuse Color' & the 'Subdermal Scatter Color' slots, I can barely see my texture color at render time.

The subdermal texture should have very saturated colours and details, and this should help to bring out the colour of the flesh (or surface, whatever it is). The diffuse layer, especially for skin, should look almost dead for best results (with human skin, that is).

The other thing which I've been looking for these past 2 days is... a good tutorial about how to work with displacement maps and miSSS... haven't found any where It was explained clearly. Anybody knows where I could find one ? Thank you.

There isn't really much to it... you just create a Displacement shader in the Hypershade and plug it into the SSS shading groups displacement node.

[gpepper]

There isn't really much to it... you just create a Displacement shader in the Hypershade and plug it into the SSS shading groups displacement node.

You have to put of on the geometry's parameters in the attribute editor the feature displacement in the displacement map slot. Then create in the approximation editor a displacement and subdiv approx .
the texture that you use as a displacement have a parameter in its attribute editor called color balance. the alpha offset must be 2 time less than the alpha gain in negative. To put this automaticaly when you change the alpha gain, enter this expression in the alpha offset slot : = -filenodename.alphaGain / 2

If I have time I will put some picture to explain it better.

[JacquesD]

Hello Jacques, Nice to see you there ! I'm really happy that this tutorial helps you !

About your problems of diffuse, There is to way to put the diffuse map. The one you talked about but in this case you have to change some parameters in the weight of each "layers" (diffuse, epidermal, subdermal, back scatter, etc) to have more influence or less of each map used...
If you just want a basic diffuse, put your diffuse map in the overall color... But you won't be able to have some cool effect only rendered with each layer...

About displacement, the best I have seen was on Zbrushcentral... But I think you have done some cool gorilla soon, haven't you ? Done in ZB with a render in XSI ? Why would you like to work with Maya ? XSI is a really cool tool, isn't it ?


Thank you gpepper... without your tutorial, I'm not sure I would have known where to start!
Yes I tried that 'overall color' but it didn't really give me what I'd like.
Could you please give me the link to that tutorial on ZbrushCentral ? Thank you.

Yes I did that attempt on the gorilla but in fact, it was rendered in Lightwave... not in XSI. The fur was rendered in Maya using ShaveAndHaircut and the bridge between both was done using PointOven. That's why I don't know nothing about displacement in Maya. I once tried using a script called 'Zatt' or something but my problem now is to connect it the right way to the miSSS shader.

The ripper.

[JacquesD]

The subdermal texture should have very saturated colours and details, and this should help to bring out the colour of the flesh (or surface, whatever it is). The diffuse layer, especially for skin, should look almost dead for best results (with human skin, that is).



There isn't really much to it... you just create a Displacement shader in the Hypershade and plug it into the SSS shading groups displacement node.

Thank you Leigh... I thought I'd have to increase the contrast and saturation of the texure but didn't know where to drop it... I'll try just as you suggest! Thank you.

About the displacement... I think it should be that simple but you know when you're very new to something like the hypershade and have a Lightwave background in terms of texturing, that's not that simple to find your way in there... that's why a couple of pics always help understanding the way that works. Besides as most of my displacement maps come from Zbrush, It seems you also have to add a expression as Maya doesn't seem to work with gray base level displacement map. Anyway, I guess I'll figure it out one way or another.

The ripper.

[gpepper]

Thank you gpepper... without your tutorial, I'm not sure I would have known where to start!
Yes I tried that 'overall color' but it didn't really give me what I'd like.

You welcome !
Usually I put the same map in diffuse and epidermal. The diffuse map. Then I put another map which have some orange nuance in the subdermal slot. Than a map with red nuance in the back scatter map...

Look here a cool view done by Alan Camara:

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showpost.php?p=257817&postcount=6

The entire thread:

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=032516


Could you please give me the link to that tutorial on ZbrushCentral ? Thank you.

yes, sure :

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=25542

Yes I did that attempt on the gorilla but in fact, it was rendered in Lightwave... not in XSI. The fur was rendered in Maya using ShaveAndHaircut and the bridge between both was done using PointOven. That's why I don't know nothing about displacement in Maya. I once tried using a script called 'Zatt' or something but my problem now is to connect it the right way to the miSSS shader.
The ripper.

Ok the displace shader have to be plugged to the displacement slot of mental shading group option:

http://gpepper.free.fr/cgtalk/displacetoshader.jpg

Then, follow the link I gave U on ZBcentral. It helped me a lot to do good displacement !

[XingWei]

Thank you gpepper... without your tutorial, I'm not sure I would have known where to start!
Yes I tried that 'overall color' but it didn't really give me what I'd like.
Could you please give me the link to that tutorial on ZbrushCentral ? Thank you.

Yes I did that attempt on the gorilla but in fact, it was rendered in Lightwave... not in XSI. The fur was rendered in Maya using ShaveAndHaircut and the bridge between both was done using PointOven. That's why I don't know nothing about displacement in Maya. I once tried using a script called 'Zatt' or something but my problem now is to connect it the right way to the miSSS shader.

The ripper.

hi the ripper, can you tell me how to install the shave and haircut render license?

[Lyr]

no i want to be able to see-through the shader

There are a set of miBase shaders that fall under a category labeled sample compositing. You can get transparent sss using these shaders. I highly suggest you read the mental ray manuals.

[JacquesD]

Thank you again gpepper, finally got some times to get back to learning this miSSS shader.
I start understanding the way it works now... I can add displacement or bump maps. There're still a couple of things I'm not sure I understand... if you apply the miSSS shader to more than 1 material, do you have to use a lightmap for each of them or can you connect the same to each material in the scene ?
Also... when using the MR IBL (only) with FG, I still get some light on the head where it should be occluded (ex: inside nostrils)... am I missing something ?
I also continuously get this message 'mentalrayIbl3: light not found for light linking, ignored' what does it mean ?

I don't have much time right now but will try to post a little test soon.

Thank you.

The ripper.

PS: I'm not sure I understand what you need XingWei... there an installation help file on Joe Alter website explanning how to install it... besides, that depends on whether you have bought an 'Floating License' Pack or a single 'Node Lock License'.

[gpepper]

if you apply the miSSS shader to more than 1 material, do you have to use a lightmap for each of them or can you connect the same to each material in the scene ?

The same lightmap can be plugged to each material and MRtexture too...

Also... when using the MR IBL (only) with FG, I still get some light on the head where it should be occluded (ex: inside nostrils)... am I missing something ?

If you are using any FG, you have to click on "include indirect lightning" in the lightmap shader...
ARe you using any light with it ? Be aware that you have to put the shadows in raytracing...

I also continuously get this message 'mentalrayIbl3: light not found for light linking, ignored' what does it mean ?

This is just a message which tells you that the IBL cannot be used as a light when you what to plug a light in the light linking of the shader...

I don't have much time right now but will try to post a little test soon.

Cool ! We will be happy to see some of your work with Maya ! :thumbsup:

[JacquesD]

Thank you gpepper!
This is my first attempt... that's an old model, the bump map sucks, I have uv problems but I could finally start rendering something. That's the vey beginning but I can feel that with lots of tweakings and tests, I might be able to have some fun.

http://www.tkio.net/Images/Web/miSSS_test_000.jpg

The ripper.

[popol]

really nice Jacques!:cool:

the result is really good but it's look a bit like wax, you can maybe play with the scale conversion (for small object increase the scale conversion) to decrease the sss.
You can also use depht map to control the sss.
You can also but a ambient occlussion shader In the ambient slot both in the misssfskin and the lightmap.
for the weight option i usually set them to to 0.5 or 0.6


ps : the cat on your web page is incredible!!!can you tel me more about this one?

[gpepper]

Looks cool Jacques !
As Yoann said, he looks like a waxman a bit. The scale conversion is important, for sure. Having a specularity map and a reflected map, give better result too. But your first attempt is already great !
Welcome in the maya user community ! ;)

[JacquesD]

Thank you popol... that sounds very interesting... could you please show me how this works? I mean...

-'depht map to control the sss'

-'ambient occlussion shader In the ambient slot both in the misssfskin and the lightmap'

Regarding... the cat test... tell me what you want to know... it's modeled in Modo and the fur is Shave in Maya. It's pretty much WIP... the fur needs a lot of work and he looks dead to me so far. I have lots of ideas about how to improve it but what I need is... the time! :)

The ripper.

[JacquesD]

Looks cool Jacques !
As Yoann said, he looks like a waxman a bit. The scale conversion is important, for sure. Having a specularity map and a reflected map, give better result too. But your first attempt is already great !
Welcome in the maya user community ! ;)

Thank you gpepper... I'll work on these for sure!

The ripper.

[popol]

about scale conversion
Subsurface scattering, by it's very nature, is extremely scale sensitive.

As an analogy, imagine a hypothetical shader that made a material transparent for X units of depth, and then opaque? I.e. if you had X set to "10" and your object was 200 units large, it would look as if it was only 190.

Imagine then if X was set to "10" and your object had a size of 3 would you expect to see anything?

You must always keep proper scale in mind for SSS. However, if your object is small you should increase scale_conversion, not decrease it!!

Technically, it's a divider for the radii...so lower values make the scatter radii larger. Higher value makes scatter radii smaller. Small objects need smaller radii => higher value.

If that sounds backwards, it may be easier to think about it as a scale factor for the model before the shader is applied, so to speak. Is your model tiny? You need to "scale it up" before applying the shader, so you use "scale_conversion" with a big number to make it "virtually bigger". Scale_conversion below 1.0 makes the object "virtually smaller".

If your object is way too tiny for the scatter radii, of course you get ''splotches'' because you are only getting one or two samples actually hitting the object at all.... the shader is attempting to place 100 samples in a ten mile radius around your characters face, you'll be lucky if one of them hit!

Personally, I say: forget scale_conversion... think. For normal skin for a normal human, the epidermal scatter radius should be about half the width of a finger. The subdermal and back scatter radii (and depth) should be ballpark-ish about half the length of your thumb. Measure these distances on your model, fill in these radii manually in the proper units. This way you ''know'' what you are doing.


ok
-'ambient occlussion shader In the ambient slot both in the misssfskin and the lightmap'

you can found the ambient occlusion shader in the hypershades (in the MR tab), symply drag and drop this shader in the ambient slot of the misss shader and in the ambient slot of your fast lightmap.

Zap again
The indirect lighting is gathered by the lightmapping phase, and only if the "indirect" parameter is on in the lightmapping shader.

If you want to do some other kind of indirect lighting, this works too (and I do this myself a lot). You can map any shader to the "ambient" slot of both the surface and lightmap shaders. This shaders contribution will then be treated as extra light.

And this additional light will also be scattered (if it is linked to the lightmap shader, not if it's not).

Case in point; I routinely use ambient occlusion myself rather than final gathering. So I map the ambient occluson shader with an appropriate color or map in it's "bright" slot to the "ambient" slot of both the lightmap and surface shaders, and this will take care of my lighting.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2112579&postcount=508

-'depht map to control the sss'
The "depth map" was simply mapping a grayscale texture I painted to the subdermal scatter radius - nothing else. Where there is more flesh (cheeks, biceps, pecs), you need more subdermal scattering, and where there is less flesh and a lot of bone (forehead, ridge of nose, cheekbone, elbows) you do not need so much subdermal scattering.

this is a simple grayscale map that allow you to modify the subdermal scatering radius, its look like the following picture (done by master Zap)
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~zap/hulk/nice-hulk-scatter-r.jpg

ok now some links for you
maya master class from paolo berto about misss
http://www.jupiter-jazz.com/wordpress/wp-content/data/tr4kv2/html/chapter2-SSS.html

Master Zap's skin tutorial .pdf file at
http://www.lamrug.org/resources/skintips.html (http://www.lamrug.org/resources/skintips.html)

CGTALK

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom...y_id=2915&page= (http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=2915&page=)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=508 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=508)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=509 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=509)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...0&postcount=328 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...0&postcount=328)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=329 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=329)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=330 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=330)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...6&postcount=288 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...6&postcount=288)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=108 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...9&postcount=108)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=112 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=112)
Highend 3d
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/#274 (http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/#274)
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/misss/ (http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/misss/)
LAMRUG
http://www.lamrug.org/resources/skintips.html (http://www.lamrug.org/resources/skintips.html)

Oh and about the cat, can you tell me more about how you "style" the hair, about rendertime, and your render settings?
thanks in advance ;)

[JacquesD]

Thank you popol... really cool stuffs!

Give me a couple of days for the Shave thing, I'll do a quick tut which explain basically the way I work.

The ripper.

[cbernardo]

Hi, Gilles,

Thanks a lot for this tutorial, is really great!!

[]s
carlos

[cellos]

I've downloaded the sss.mb file from this tutorial and then applied it in one of my models, it renders fine when I click on the render current frame icon but when I try to batch render the scene, no image is produced, I mean the image is blank. Anyone knows why this is happening and how do I fix it?
Please check the rendered stills on the WIP section of my website http://www.threecellos.co.uk (http://www.threecellos.co.uk/)

Thanks,

Marcello

[gpepper]

I've downloaded the sss.mb file from this tutorial and then applied it in one of my models, it renders fine when I click on the render current frame icon but when I try to batch render the scene, no image is produced, I mean the image is blank. Anyone knows why this is happening and how do I fix it?
Please check the rendered stills on the WIP section of my website http://www.threecellos.co.uk (http://www.threecellos.co.uk/)

Thanks,

Marcello

Did you do it with batch or dos render ?

[cbernardo]

Hi,

If you render a Misss with Maya Software the image appears blank.

There's some iamge formats that doesn't work with me. You generate a IFF or TIF or other?

[]s
carlos

[gpepper]

Hi,

If you render a Misss with Maya Software the image appears blank.

There's some iamge formats that doesn't work with me. You generate a IFF or TIF or other?

[]s
carlos

Misss is for Mental Ray...

[cellos]

I'm using mental ray in the render globals, I am not rendering it with maya software. The scene is rendered within maya, not in dos. The thing is that any scene that I try to use sss is not being batch rendered properly. :scream: :sad:

[gpepper]

I'm using mental ray in the render globals, I am not rendering it with maya software. The scene is rendered within maya, not in dos. The thing is that any scene that I try to use sss is not being batch rendered properly. :scream: :sad:

Is there any light in your scene ?

[cellos]

yeah there are 2 lights. Someone told me that the problem might be related to the mental ray libraries and environment variables and advised me to reinstall maya. I'll try to do that and see how it goes.

[gpepper]

Don't forget to use Raytrace shadows with your lights...

[Superpiccolo]

I seem to be having some grainy issues when rendering with this shader. This is what I am getting (cropped from the original):

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/2140/rendgrainuy4.png

Is there some option I need to adjust to help clear this grain or is it a hardware problem or something?

EDIT: I seemed to have issues with the scale of my actual mesh. I upsized it a little and that fixed the prob. ;)

[Dark_Avenger]

Hello all. First of all I want to thank you all people who makes of this forums the most valious CG wisdom source in the world. :)

Well I have some doubts about the limitations of this material. I pretended to achieve really realistic skins with it, but, if its true what I have been told, the problem is that it is suposed to use without Global Iluminnation, am I right? When I´ve tryed to render it using GI, It just doesnt work render crashes. What happens if you want to use a character with SSS skin shader in a scene with GI? If its just suposed to be a fast way to get realistic skin without using GI or FG, which shader will you use then? cause I dont know any with so many options for skin simulations like SSS Shaders. Im a bit confused about this, so if someone could explain me a bit it would be great.

Thank you all!

[gpepper]

Hello all. First of all I want to thank you all people who makes of this forums the most valious CG wisdom source in the world. :)

Well I have some doubts about the limitations of this material. I pretended to achieve really realistic skins with it, but, if its true what I have been told, the problem is that it is suposed to use without Global Iluminnation, am I right? When I´ve tryed to render it using GI, It just doesnt work render crashes. What happens if you want to use a character with SSS skin shader in a scene with GI? If its just suposed to be a fast way to get realistic skin without using GI or FG, which shader will you use then? cause I dont know any with so many options for skin simulations like SSS Shaders. Im a bit confused about this, so if someone could explain me a bit it would be great.

Thank you all!

You can use this SSS with GI. The only thing to do is to activate the "include indirect lighting" option in your lightmap.
If it crashes this is probably a problem of your texture, if you use any texture...

[jaykushwara]

I've been following/ using this thread for awhile now - it's an awesome resource ! Thanks for all the time and effort here ! If it wasn't for GPepper, Jacques, PeteZ and the rest I would have given up long ago on MiSSS fast skin !

According to the tut, the lightmap size is recommended to be twice the render dimension width and same height as render dimension. With settings like that, or 1024x1024 I get decent results for closeup renders of a head at 640x480. As soon as I pull back for a mid to long shot render of the head I get subtle vertical dark artifacting on the skin. If I increase the lightmap size it seems to improve but makes for a longer lightmap generation time. Does this make sense ? Or might there be another cause for the artifacts ?
Also using FG with image based lighting.

[goktugg]

thanks again! ~gpepper (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=33317)
this is my trying

[caulfield]

whenever I try this workflow, the new mentralray texture appears with a cross through it ( a big red one! ) and I get the warning message "Error: (Mayatomr.Output) : file error: c:/sss"

Any ideas? This is killing me!!

By the way, thanks so much gpepper for this thread! You are the man.

Funny thing though - I tried the adjusted scene which you made form matt4068's file, and while my mentalray Texture still had a cross through it, and I still got the warning, I did get the SSS!

The scene I'd tried previously was one I downloaded directly from your first post in this thread.

[mcyorian]

is possible to save this network as a shader?
how can i do that?

[stormfrog]

Great tutorial! Althou, it seems Maya 2008 does all this setting up automatically. Thanks Autodesk! Still, this tutorial clears things up a great deal.

Btw, I dont want to be nag but I think one of the forum rules say we must stick to english in the international forums(?). I believe its a good rules because I feel left out when I cant follow your discussion :).

[stormfrog]

Very odd problems with this shader.

I set it up and did some pree-renders. Everything worked just well. I tweaked it a bit and and added another skin shader since I had two different geometries with different UV layouts in my scene.

Now things starts to get really wierd! Suddenly when I press render... nothing happends. MR just sits for a bit then... nothing, the same blue background that the Render View has as default. Its the same result as trying to render the Misss fast skin shader with no (default) lighting, that is - it produces nothing.

Okey! My scene is broken, so I remove the skin shaders and add a completely new and try... still nothing. I assign default Lambert material. It now renders 1/15 of the area and stops ... it doesnt report errors or anything. If I draw up an area and make an area render it still only renders that small part.

Ive tried it in Maya 8.5 with the same result.

Anyone knows what is wrong here???! Im desperate!

[stormfrog]

Dunno if it has anything to do with it. Small objects seems to work with the shader when I set it up, but as soon as I import the object I am going to set it up on this happends.

The object is fairly huge with 20Mb textures @ 4000x4000 (Material and Bump/Specular maps).

*growl*

[gpepper]

You probably have to high resolution textures. MR doesn't like much than 2048 maps or transform it in .map.
If you add no light in your scene the SSS does not work, MR renders it btu you don't see anything beacause there is no light to see it and you don't see any alpha because you have to check the alpha pass render of custom entities in MR parameters...

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