Well, This is as good as I can get, and I have a feeling it just not quite right. Have a look, and modify it as you see fit.
Anyone else is welcoe to jump on board here. I’m trying to make a sub-surface scattering effect using translucentcy control by light incidence, surface thichness, and some transparency with GI.
I feel stuck.
http://www.theladyandthelion.com/forumPosts/SSS.fxs
the objects are procedural, so there shouldn’t be any problems loading.
Thanks Stoehr,
I’m gonna open up a can of whip arse on these initial SSS settings - see what I can come up with. Thanks for posting the files .
Well this is what I’ve come up with so far for an SSS effect … it’s a simple object - could be a stomach or a fetus. I used Gradient_fresnel(camera) and noise in the translucency channel. I’m trying to emulate somewhat the experiments I did with G2.
LW/G2 experiments on SSS for comparison:
http://www.3ddmd.com/G2_test2a.htm
Looks good, and better than my ball.
I guess we’ll really know if the SSS is convincing when the camera moves around it. That’s been my problem, foreseeing the effect with camera movement.
EDIT: LOL, my 300th post! 
Not counting the 431 from my previous CGTalk pen name. And now I’m a know-it-all! I’m growing up, becoming more mature.
Thanks! It’s not true volumetric SSS by any means - so no OGO_Hikari effects for sure - but it is approximating G2 somewhat. There are some differences that I notice - such as the light source falloff and intensity diminishing as it nears the object - not what I would expect.
Here’s another test render - slightly different than the previous - I’m messing with Surface Thickness parameter on this one.
Congrats on being renewed once again into veteran status - you go boy!
Very Kool.
Gary, what are the render times.
Does the object have any internal surface or thickness.
Hey Julian,
The render times were respectable - about four to five minutes on a Pentium 3Ghz at 640 x 480 with Preview Progress enabled.
Antialias: Enhanced
Level: 3 Threshold: Default
Light Source: Enviro & Direct
GI Type: Monte Carlo
GI Samples: 3 GI Depth: 1
GI Intensity 0.5
The stomach object has no thickness - it’s a hollow “tube” but I did plug in a Multinoise channel into the Surf thickness parameter.
Really Nice Gary!
And tks sor showing us your texture tree.
Have you try your settings on a character face?
Merci bien! I could try the shader out on my devil head (avatar) but I’m afraid the effect would make him look hollow - like a doll’s head. We’ll have to find a way of varying the translucency so that it’s more intense on say the ears an nose - that’ll be my next project. I’m actually looking forward to the next patch.
Here’s the latest - with the ground plane moved down and antialiasing settings increased to smooth off the jaggies along the edges:
I’m now in the process of animating a light source going through the stomach object. Here’s frame 21 of the light source inside. The Multinoise (fbm) shader node is occluding the light source in random patches through the Surface Thickness parameter. I’ll post the simple animation when it’s finished rendering.
Hey, this looking good. Glad to see you take off on it!
Keep me (us) updated.
The spec is a nice touch. I’d recommend plugging a gradient into the spec color. This will bring out the surface “reaction” to the light, and bring out the oils.
Originally posted by Julez4001
Does the object have any internal surface or thickness.
Damn! Why didn’t I think of that?! Well, now I need to try.
Thanks Stoehr. I think my creative energy comes out in spurts - sometimes nothing for a while and then I just got to get it outta my system. I’ll have to try out your suggestion on the specularity, for sure.
Well, here’s an animated GIF
Super sweet.
Can you post the fxs scene file, if that wouldn’t be a problem.
I knew you were gonna to crack it.
but with 3ghz …you getting some respectable times with it.
it would double for me.
Advertisement: You know the feeling - a storm is brewing in your stomach. Get instant relief with volumetalux …
Hey Julian, I joined your forum - looks really cool. I’ll give you a call soon - my fiancees mother is in town this weekend though.
You working on MLK (Monday)? I want to come over and you walk me thru that setup. Its fantastic…bet you are just letting that thing render over night.
Actually, the renderings took about two minutes per frame on that last little animation. That’s at 320x240 with Adaptive SS antialiasing. I recently created a wide box and applied the same shader - tweaked some of the settings. Looks like lightning at night.
Well, here’s my latest derivation of the preceeding images. I modified the stomach object to make it appear more embryo like. It’s not accurate - but it does give us something to try the shaders on. Here, I played with the Weightspot nodes tied into two Metaeffector effectors. One effector is subtracting from the other and is tied into the Thickness parameter via a Multinoise node in order to create an eye object.
The effectors seem to be surface based and not volumetric. So, the same result could probably be achieved with image maps - but it was interesting to play with. Now that I think about it, a grey scale image map could probably be used to vary the translucency or, in this case, the thickness parameter as in G2 tests:
http://www.3ddmd.com/G2_tadpole.htm
That will be the next experiment:)
Oh … the above image rendered in 2 min 40 sec at 640X480, AA Enhanced Level 4, Light source: Environment & Direct, GI Type: Monte Carlo, GI Samples: 3, GI Depth:1, GI Intensity:0.5.
This is on a PIV 3.2Ghz, 800mhz FSB, 1GB RAM HP laptop.
Hey Gary, this is excellent stuff! :buttrock: I’m following this thread with high interest! Any chance that you would share the project file(s), so we could examine this a bit closer…?
M.