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.