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SSS Study

63
By on Images

By theLuthier .

theLuthier writes:

I've spent the last month studying BI's SSS after being inspired by Ben Simond's 3-layer method. I want to make a professional-quality tutorial or perhaps tutorial series from what I've learned. So depending on the response I get here, I'll either start recording the tutorial(s) or realize that I've got too much more to learn Let me know if the result is worth tutorializing

Different lighting situations to test SSS. The clothes and skin reflection are Cycles.

Everything done in Blender aside from minor PS help with textures/post-pro.

Link

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

63 Comments

    • Jalik on

       Cycles does not support SSS for now, it's planned for future realeases, and by the way the translucent material isn't SSS.
      I think he used BI to render SSS pass and Cycles for the rest (diffuse, shadow, reflection, etc).

      Reply
  5. Ichigo Eru on

    that's ??? , checking my vocabulary please wait ... 
    it's an awesome super hyper great render , please make a tutorial :D

    Reply
  12. Marcus on

    Wow! Great skin, great hair/ beard, great texturing, great eyes!
    Please tutorial, please about the whole process!

    Reply
  14. Postrock on

    That may be the best Blender render i have ever seen. 
    I'm guessing you only need some background to make it to the next Release Splash Screen...

    Reply
  15. TheLuthier on

    Thanks so much for the post here! So many compliments..thank you so much =)

    To clear up any confusion:  The hair, skin SSS shader, and eyeball SSS shader are rendered with Blender Internal.  Clothing and skin reflections are Cycles.  By "skin reflections" I essentially mean "specular pass", but it's actually reflecting an environment instead of lights exclusively.  It'll all make sense in the tutorial =P

    Of which I will begin recording immediately.  I intend it to be of the highest-quality so perhaps expect the first in a month or two.  Thanks again for encouraging responses!

    Reply
  17. Kirill Poltavets on

    Really really great result!!!  Just yesterday I had thoughts about combining Cycles main features and BI SSS. So it's the amazing example of how it is.

    Reply
    • Denis on

       Same here: as soon as Cycles can rener human (or humanoid) characters, BI can go. Normal maps first, SSS next, and finally, the particle hair (preferably, dynamic and not going through the emitter mesh). Hope this GSoC will get it done.

      Reply
  21. 8-bit on

    I'm with the rest, a tutorial would be great.

    I would also love to see a tutorial fo the whole process however. The clothes, the hair, whiskers, etc..It's amazing looking character. And yeah, if it can get posted on blendercookie or some place like that where you could get paid for your time to put together a tutorial that would be even better!

    Reply
  26. Dewald on

    Very good work. Skin looks fantastic and so does the hair. The dramatic lighting really seem to work.  I like the style too. I agree that an complete tutorial will be a blessing as so many things are done really well.

    Reply
  30. theLuthier on

    A tutorial is definitely coming! Geez everybody, I didn't expect a response like this =)  And I hadn't planned on including the entire process...but I'll mull it over.  That of course would mean the tutorial would take significantly longer to produce...Thanks so much for the incredibly positive comments.

    Reply
  32. Narayan on

    yes, a complete tutorial (including modeling of the clothes) would be awesome.

    Love the details, like the tiny wrinkles on the windcheater where the stitches run (across the shoulders), the laugh lines, the permanent frown, the sunken cheeks, the shrunken frame and the down-turned corners of the mouth due to age.

    And the sharp contract of all that with the still-brilliant eyes.

    Those ears look familiar: Is he related to Suzanne? :D

    Reply
  33. CGI Trainer / Peter Drakuli? on

    Excellent result dare I say!...and-please rest  assured as for this- the result is 100% worth tutorializing!
    This rendering looks of really professional quality and the same,I'm sure,the tutorial is going to be!
    Peter Drakulić  

    Reply
  34. kABHIr on

    I would love to see a detailed tutorial on BI's SSS infact i'm waiting for someone to do a tutorial on this because i don't know how to achieve realistic results atleast like the one you made.

    Reply
  35. Luis Arizaga on

    Hi TheLuthier,

    I really would love to see this tutorial from beginning to end. Just to compare with my own studies and tests. Special how you combined the sss from BI with cycles reflection. Your skin mat parameters, and the final hair. ( It would be nice to see how were composited all the elements from different layers and blending modes).
    I'm working with Blender very strong. I'm doing a very difficult transition from 3dsmax (and the powerful mental ray). There're a lot of different tools and different ways to solve the same production situations in Blender. 
    It's more than an interesting issue to talk about for 3D characters with cycles.

    Here some nice info about BI and cycles also some example of sss combination.

    http://urchn.org/post/combining-blender-internal-and-cycles-in-one-render 

    Best regards,

    Luis Arizaga

    Reply
  37. Brian Lockett on

    I hope you do three things:

    1) Show this on CGSociety, CGHub, and/or CGArena.  (Seriously.)

    2) Keep making more awesome pictures like this (and continue to be one of those shining examples that show us more of what Cycles can do!)

    3) Consider sharing a tutorial of how you made this (or how you go about making something like this).

    Reply
  38. Zander Nicolic on

    I already praised this one on BlenderArtists, without reserve. Besides, I share the opinion by Brian, that you should make this work known widely, "also" to non Blender communities. This for the sake of Blender, as well as yourself.

    Reply
  46. theLuthier on

    Unbelievable.  This response is unbelievable! 

    @Brian Lockett:  I'm on CGHub and CGFeedback right now.  One response each =P  I hold little regard for CGSociety's forum, but if it helps Blender I'll post there and on CGArena today.  Cheers yes to Cycles, but cheers to BI as well! =)

    @Luis Arizaga:  I also came from Max (though I prefer Vray) to Blender!  I've felt your pain - hopefully the coming tut will help the transition a little =)

    Thanks everyone for the uber-encouraging comments!  The pressure's on now to produce a worthy tutorial series - I don't intend to disappoint =)

    Reply
    • Brian Lockett on

      I was only naming some suggestions when I said CGSociety. You don't have to put it there if you prefer not to--it's totally up to you, dude, and CGHub, CGArena and CGFeedback are already pretty popular.  Hey, man, for all I personally care, you can post this on a window of a subway car--just as long as it gets around! ;)

      Reply
  53. TheLuthier on

    Thanks one more time everyone for the overwhelmingly positive remarks!  Truly, truly humbling.  I'm discouraged to say that today CGsociety rejected the image for display in the Finished 3D Stills forum.  I wonder if it would have been different had I credited "Maya and Mental Ray" instead of "Blender" =)

    Reply
  54. bned on

    Every SSS study is welcomed since this is one of the most difficult things to achieve in Blender. Your results are really impressive - please make a tutorial and share your findings with us. I would be the first to watch it!

    Great job!

    Reply
  55. Anthony Pilon on

    Overall, I would say great image. The only thing offhand that could be improved are the ears; ears are very thin, and so have a lot of light scattering through them. What you could do is make a grayscale texture where the ears are white and everything else fades to black farther away, and then use it in the material nodes to mix with another SSS material--that has a larger scatter radius.

    Reply

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