[Half Life]

I set up a basic scene that has 2 similar objects. On the left is a plane with a Thin SSS material applied with the virtual thickness set at 5mm and on the right is the same size plane extruded to 5mm thick with a regular SSS material applied with the same settings... you can download my base test scene here:

http://www.spotoarts.com/jason/thinSSSt ... %20SSS.mxs

Then I subjected them to several different lighting scenarios (rendered to SL20):

Here is a standard atmosphere with sun


Here is a standard atmosphere without sun


Here is a skydome (bluesky)


Here is a skydome (bluesky) with sun


Here is a black skydome with sun (space)


Here is a standard atmosphere with sun converted to an EXR and used as IBL


Best,
Jason.

[3dtrialpractice]

wow.. so basically the best thing to do with Thin SSS is to turn all lighting into IBL! but wat a difference it makes between thin sss and extruded geo... this test makes me NEVER wish to USE THINSSS as it is crap compared to SSS on extruded geo!..
I would figure that the two would look VERY similar but they dont.. and this is definatly something they must FIX!

BTW.. what process did you use to convert your sun illumination to a exr (how did ya creat the IBL panoroama)?

[Half Life]

Thin SSS has some real advantages for certain things not the least of which is the ability to map the scattering and thickness... but yes for normal SSS effects it does seem very subpar, or at least it needs to be explained more thoroughly as to what the settings do so differently from regular SSS.

I wouldn't be so quick on the IBL thing -- notice that on all the other light-sources the reflectiveness of the smooth surface is shown via the reflection on the ground-plane, but in the IBL it is completely absent for the Thin SSS and very faint for the regular SSS... so IBL doesn't look like the fix either.

In Studio you can "save" out a HDR or EXR of your "Physical Sky" in the "Environment" panel just under "Type".

Best,
Jason.

[3dtrialpractice]

In Studio you can "save" out a HDR or EXR of your "Physical Sky" in the "Environment" panel just under "Type".

ahh i use maya plugin so I never saw that option I'm guessing its a mx studio only option or is it avail in maya plugins somewhere?

[3dtrialpractice]

bummer jsut tried to do the save as HDR in studio(never us it as i love maya plugin).. I was hoping that it would bake all the scene lights and environment into an HDR..but it only saves the sky

so I guess to back the lights I will have to place a camera at center of the scene and render out a few wide shots and stich into a panorama manually.. unless there's and better way to do it..

[Richard]

Wow halfy! That is a very descriptive test.

Material wise the IBL is so clean but yeah no reflections - hmmm?