What is the current Chaosgroup reccomended shader as the last version of Vray(3.60.04)? Vray skin or AlSurfaceShader?
Do they really differ in terms of setting up the different maps such as diffuse, subdermal(is it still needed?) and specular? And if so,
can you point some examples, some scenes, or some papers(not the Vray manual) to understand clearly the process of shading skin, which
is up to date?
V-Ray Skin Material will be deprecated in V-Ray Next since it’s very rarely used, almost all users prefer AlSurfaceShader.
The material will not be removed completely, it will be there for backward compatibility and could be initialized via MaxScript.
Does this mean in V-Ray Next the AlSurfaceShader will be the main skin shader going forward or there will be a new shader introduced for that?
Alshader hands down 
Its main usage is skin. It works 80% only with diffuse, is really great shader!
I don’t know if we’ll have a new skin shader in the official version of V-Ray Next.
I don’t think we can name any of the shaders as a MAIN skin shader, both FastSSS and Alshader will be available in V-Ray Next so it’s user’s choice/preference to pick to right shader for the job.