misss tests

#941

AndrewRaZ: I had the same problem with the textures not updating. But if you turn them into mental ray’s texture map format, they will update and you don’t have to worry about rebooting Maya now and then. Ofcourse, that means you have to convert them everytime you update your textures, but if you write yourself a nice little bat-file everything will go much smoother :slight_smile: (but I’m rather jealous that RenderMan do this automagicaly) And then you get the true befinits of the texture map format as well…!

#942

I seem to be unable to find a suitable place to plug in my bump map texture to the misss_fast_skin shader. When i connect it to the bump map attribute of the shader it completely throws off the spec. of my image and changes the whole look of the light scattering across the object. Not just a subtle difference, but a completely new look.

I noticed that on the jennifer garner model (on the front page) shader network that artist posted in his thread that he had a seperate material where he plugged all his textures into along with his bump map. I was under the impression you just plugged all your materials right into the misss_fast_skin node…not a seprate texture node. Am I missing something here?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.:thumbsup:

#943

Pedalen: thanks for the *map tip. i use the format for rendering all my final images, and convert once i have texture files locked where i want them. when i’m editing though, i just use incremental saves of bmp files usually though.
as for the light list, is used to be that you had to connect them to the shaders for them to render lit at all. now you don’t, so i don’t know how maya handles it in the current version (7). i tend to try both methods, but lately i’ve been using mode 2 and leaving the light list blank (mode 2 means “use all lights except those in the list”) since i do a lot of multi-material models.

Redsand1080: i assume you’re referring to this image here, correct? if you look, the bump is connected to the mi_sss_fast_skin shader. the only difference is that it won’t automatically connect the bump2d node: you have to do that yourself. so where you click the checkerbox next to the bump slot, instead of going right for the file node, move over in your selection list to “Utilities” and select “bump2d” first. then from there, under bump depth (i think, don’t have maya open in front of me), click that checkerbox, and then select the file, and there you go. so yes, you were on the right track. interpreted the image wrong maybe i don’t know?

the Jennifer Garner skin shader actually looks pretty standard from what i’ve seen and what i’ve been working on. the only thing i see that i can’t figure out myself is the second from the bottom one with the falloff. i’m guessing that is reflection he spoke of.

#944

ZippZop~ your result is fantastic… could you post your render setting for the earlier render with the HDRI please? would much appreciate that!

great job

#945

…dear guyz, would appreciate some help here…where do i hook up the specularity texture in SSS Skin?..'cos hooking the specularity texture seems not working at all than leaving things at default…thanks in advance…

cheers,
lorely3000

#946

just hook it up to the specular weights. nothing special.

#947

i’ll do my best to remember off the top of my head. i had the hdri setup, a key light, a rim light. 0,2 sampling in the globals, mitchell filter, settings for raytracing were set to 4,4,4,4. final gather turned on with i think 500 rays. those were the basic settings, the rest was the shader which is really nothing special, just the maps hooked in and lots of tweaking of the maps, radius and weight values

#948

AndrewRaZ…thanks for your help…really appreciate it…

#949

has anyone ever run into this little issue… I’m working on a full character and am doing some test renders with the SSS shader… when i render a lot of times i’ll have too much SSS and it’ll look too soft, so once i start to dial that back down i’ll often get weird little bits of noise and graininess in the render, is that simply because the scatter radius is too small?

#950

yep

are you working in real world measuremnt

#951

well the character i’m working on now is huge in the scene, for some reason, i made him quite large when i modeled him. so my radius values are quite small along with my scale factor in the algorithim control, which is set to about .3

so basically, it is simply dialing those values correctly so that it doesn’t have too much SSS but also doesn’t have the grain and noise.?

if i was in real world measurements, which i’m not, how would that affect my values?

#952

From the help: front_sss_radius is the scatter radius in the front surface. Light will scatter this distance along the surface, in whatever units the model is made, divided by the scale_conversion parameter along the surface.

So I guess you could try multiplying everything by ten and see if that helps.

#953

Hey everyone. Im just getting started with the sss and wanted to know is there a way to put more than one sss in a scene say for two charcaters or for my case when I layed out my uvs I had different maps for the different parts of the character and so when I paint the map in photoshop for the face I can only have the face texture in the overall color slot and that means that the face texture will show up on the entire body. Any help would be great.

Thanks Dan

#954

it has been discussed several times in this thread. you have to link the lights to the shaders or set the light linking mode to 2, as well as connecting the lightmap to both shaders. do some reading, it will answer many questions, trust me. virtually everything people would want to know about the mi_sss shaders has been discussed in here.

#955

here is my latest test, i’m really not totally happy with it. i’m battling with trying to light it properly. Currently, i have an HDRI with 2 spot lights with mental ray area lights turned on. i find that it is getting too dark under the arms, which i have to color correct. also, i’m trying to find a way to make the wounds have much more specular, i’m having a little trouble with my maps and shader settings to get those to be more wet. i’m also still painting textures, but i wanted to show this to get some feedback on shader, textures and lighting…

#956

@ Zipp - Are you using reflectivity? or just the specular fakes? The indirect illumination has a tendnecy to make the SSS diffuse looking if there is no reflection. Maybe you can put some white “bounce” cards in there to get look you are looking for?

#957

no, i wasn’t using any reflectivity on the shader… i had tried, but i was getting a sort of noisy reflection as soon as i started to turn it up. i’m assuming its from the HDRI not being blurred. i have noticed if i use just HDRI with spec maps, i barely get any specularity. so i put those spot lights in with the area light enabled. you think i should pull those lights out all together, use the HDRI along with some bounce cards for reflectivity? what do ya think?

#958

Try it and see what you think, I tried it on my model and I liked the effect.

i was getting a sort of noisy reflection as soon as i started to turn it up. i’m assuming its from the HDRI not being blurred.

No, that’s not it. The grain is only dependent on the AA setting in Globals - raise it enough, and the grain goes away.

Cool model btw!

#959

Zipp: The only comment at this stage is that id say he looks a little washed out. Nice model though. Looking forward to seeing more of him though. Maybe a closeup of his head perhaps?

#960

my AA setting is set now to 0,2 with the mitchell filter…does yours usually go higher than that to get rid of that noise? i didn’t notice a huge difference between 0,2 and 1,3…should i push higher?