Advanced Subsurface Scattering Techniques in Maya and mental ray
This tutorial covers the full range of Maya's fast subsurface shaders, with a detailed examination of how to make human skin and render it in mental ray. Software required: Maya 2012, NUKE 6.3 .
What you'll learn
This tutorial covers the full range of Maya's fast subsurface shaders, with a detailed examination of how to make human skin and render it in mental ray. We will begin with a clear definition and explanation of the complex lighting behavior of subsurface scatter. Then we will examine how the set of 10 Maya shaders are used to simulate this lighting effect. Detailed examinations of all subsurface scatter shader variables are demonstrated with examples in a variety of lighting conditions. The last set of lessons goes deeper into creating shader networks for human skin. As we learn about the behavior of skin in light, we will create two complex shader networks that combine the fast_skin_maya shader with mia shader in order to use the strengths of each. Also, we will cover rendering these shaders out in passes so all layers of skin, epidermal, sub-dermal, diffuse, back scatter, and more can be opened in NUKE layers and modified separately. Infinite, 3D Head Scan by Lee Perry-Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at Infinite-Realities - http://www.ir-ltd.net/ Software required: Maya 2012, NUKE 6.3.
Table of contents
- Defining Subsurface Scattering 6m
- Overview of All the SSS Shaders That Maya Provides 11m
- Example of misss_fast_simple_maya Shader with Sun and Sky 11m
- Comparison of the Three Main fast_sss Shaders 10m
- Example of SSS with IBL Environment 10m
- Rendering sss_skin with Render Passes and Displacement 12m
- Compositing Separate sss_skin Render Passes in NUKE 12m
- Texturing the sss_skin Shader 13m
- Color Bleed and Wavelength Dependent Scatter 13m
- Combining sss_skin with mia Shader 11m
About the author
Clearly the Visual Effects lifestyle has been a lifesaver for Jon Tojek. “Why is this, you may ask?” After years of hard work to earn a bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering at UW Madison, his lack of passion for designing CPU’s was replaced with a long rewarding career of filmmaking, teaching, and creating visual effects for Hollywood films and commercials. Starting in the late 90’s demoing Alias Power Animator, he worked for SGI during the birth of Maya, helping west coast film clients in... more