skin shader a la Alsurface pleaseeee

[sharktacos]

Vlado are you planning on also porting the other parts of the ALsurface, like transmission and attenuation for translucent materials, or the metal/dielectric Fresnel modes?

[jstrob]

Vlado, +1 for adding VrayALMtl, or at least the scattering models in it. They are very good, and vastly superior to VrayFastSSS2 at least in the few comparisons I did.

I think VrayScatterVolume to be the best general purpose SSS method for most materials except skin, so it's important for RT GPU to support it. Other renderers like Octane or FStorm do it, and it's very fast. How about adding it to VrayMtl as a translucency method? This way we don't need to create a VrayBlendMtl.

I had this old model/shader from the 2.4x days which was kind of a pain to get even something I'm ok with, so I decided to make a comparison of different SSS methods we have in Vray today. Also was a nice test for the new VrayALMtl. I know neither the model or the render are realistic or pretty (it's a test anyway) but it's good to look at something else other than skin.

-Eugenio

Cool tests,

In my experience for dry food like cookie and cereals the translucency work great. We can control the colors and it renders very fast. for example there seems to be a bit too much red in the scattervolume and SSS2 in some place like if a small red led was inside the cookie. The Alsurface could look almost the same with some tweaks in this case but just take a lot longer to render. For skin the Alsurface is the best by far.

[sharktacos]

Does Maya have an equivalent to the VrayScatterVolume material?

[vlado]

For me that blueish fringe (if that's what I think) may be more physically acurate but it's most of the time blocking me to get the result I want to get.

<shrug> This doesn't make FStorm any more physically accurate. You need the blueish tint if you want to get realistic skin (and some other real-world materials). Also, you can certainly use a combination of absorption/scatter that produces no tint by keeping the absorption colorless.

My guess is that the alsurface SSS shader is probably more like the FStorm SSS don't you think so?

Not at all. Look earlier in the thread where Luc and I discussed this and I posted some examples. After all, the alSurface shader tries to emulate the results of VRayScatterVolume by using approximations in order to avoid doing the actual multiple bounces inside the material.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

How about adding it to VrayMtl as a translucency method? This way we don't need to create a VrayBlendMtl.

It's possible, certainly... will think about it.

Nice tests, by the way!

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

Does Maya have an equivalent to the VrayScatterVolume material?

Not yet. I was not sure if people will find it useful. Do you want us to add it?

Best regards,
Vlado

[sharktacos]

Not yet. I was not sure if people will find it useful. Do you want us to add it?

Best regards,
Vlado

Hard to say since I have not tried it Maybe you could put it in the material plugins... or on Github?

[vlado]

Attaching the scene file.

Cheers!

Thanks, I've uploaded a new release with the fix. Sorry about that. Note that the issue is maybe present in the Windows version too, just for some reason it wasn't apparent.

Best regards,
Vlado

[spyzor]

That's really cool !
Thanks Vlado

[arnol2x]

Thanks, I've uploaded a new release with the fix. Sorry about that. Note that the issue is maybe present in the Windows version too, just for some reason it wasn't apparent.

Outstanding!! Works great so far. Thanks, Vlado!

[FSGFX]

Vlado should the alshader also work with maya2017.?

[jstrob]

<shrug> This doesn't make FStorm any more physically accurate. You need the blueish tint if you want to get realistic skin (and some other real-world materials). Also, you can certainly use a combination of absorption/scatter that produces no tint by keeping the absorption colorless.

Not at all. Look earlier in the thread where Luc and I discussed this and I posted some examples. After all, the alSurface shader tries to emulate the results of VRayScatterVolume by using approximations in order to avoid doing the actual multiple bounces inside the material.

Best regards,
Vlado

Ok good to know. I still have more testings to do. In fact the only thing that matters for me with SSS is the ability to control color like 3 colors: the skin, the blood and skin with light through it and have a realistic blend of those 3 elements. I can get that with alsurface and also fstorm sss. But not with sss2 and skinmtl. Translucency is good to control color but the blend itself doesn't look realistic for skin. I should make a video to explain exactly how hard it is to control color with some shader and how easy it is with others.

for scatter volume I didn't test it that much cause it's so slow to test it. But in fact I had no trouble with color for that one so that bluish tint may not be what I thought.

[vlado]

I can get that with alsurface and also fstorm sss. But not with sss2 and skinmtl.

I've been told quite a few times that sss2 is actually pretty straightforward to use for skin in the majority of cases, just slap some textures, adjust scattering and you get something usable out of it. Of course, the alSurface shader tends to be somewhat more realistic. For materials like orange juice and transparent plastic, VRayScatterVolume is generally easier to control, especially in the fog+scatter colors mode. As for FStorm, let's talk again when it implements textures for SSS and when we can make more meaningful comparisons.

Best regards,
Vlado

[vlado]

Vlado should the alshader also work with maya2017.?

Yes, it seems to work fine for me.

Best regards,
Vlado

[jstrob]

I've been told quite a few times that sss2 is actually pretty straightforward to use for skin in the majority of cases, just slap some textures, adjust scattering and you get something usable out of it. Of course, the alSurface shader tends to be somewhat more realistic. For materials like orange juice and transparent plastic, VRayScatterVolume is generally easier to control, especially in the fog+scatter colors mode. As for FStorm, let's talk again when it implements textures for SSS and when we can make more meaningful comparisons.

Best regards,
Vlado

With colors that are close the the presets in SSS2, it works very well. But the problems arise when you try to get precise colors other than those.