For those working on SSS implementations/interested in SSS

ben_o · Post by **ben_o** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 6:38 pm

Found this on CGtalk.com:

Sub surface scattering tutorial + source code
http://www.rendermanacademy.com/docs/SSS_depthmaps.htm

(I can't attribute the link as I have accidentally closed the tab with the forum thread in. Suffice to say it's a relatively new post, and you can look it up on CGTalk.com

It's a tutorial + sourecode on implementing Subsurface scattering in Renderman+Maya. I hope that this can be helpful to whoever is trying to get subsurface scattering to work, as this is apparently a fairly decent 'finished' example. (not to say that the SSS renders I've seen here and on Elysiun aren't good, just that I thought it would help...

)

Ben

Frapl · Post by **Frapl** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:18 pm

Is anyone working on SSS for Blender?

Money_YaY! · Post by **Money_YaY!** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 3:45 pm

Frapl wrote:Is anyone working on SSS for Blender?

Nope

bertram · Post by **bertram** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:36 pm

Money_YaY! wrote:
Frapl wrote:Is anyone working on SSS for Blender?
Nope

This is not quite correct!
RayWells is experimenting with it:
http://wiki.blender.org/bin/view.pl/Ble ... llGIAndSSS

Money_YaY! · Post by **Money_YaY!** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:40 pm

bertram wrote:
Money_YaY! wrote:
Frapl wrote:Is anyone working on SSS for Blender?
Nope
This is not quite correct!
RayWells is experimenting with it:
http://wiki.blender.org/bin/view.pl/Ble ... llGIAndSSS

cool, looks like school caught up to him though ...

Toon_Scheur · Post by **Toon_Scheur** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 12:04 am

Besides, the renderman academy paper isn't real SSS. It's just a trick...... even more, it looks more like a translucency thing.

And yes, there are people working on SSS for blender. I know of 3 guys already (work independantly though).

I think that this year SSS will be very real for Blender. But I don't think that's hot anymore..

There a more cooler stuff out there. The distributed ray tracing is far way cooler than SSS. SSS won't be used as often as distributed raytracing.
And than there is smoke and fire simulation, and water simulation. PDI said that the hardest scene to overcome in Shrek was when the hooded guy poured milk in a glass.
Blender doesn't have a volume renderer system to make all this possible. So basicaly we need a grid/ voxel system

joeri · Post by **joeri** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 12:07 am

For the milk material a little SSS can be very helpfull.
But I guess fluid effects are nice too.

bertram · Post by **bertram** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 12:36 am

Toon_Scheur wrote:But I don't think that's hot anymore..

Pardon? Ahh, yes, at least the raytracing-mirror-stuff isn't hot anymore, too. But it's quite commonly used until nowadays

I've seen "The Incredibles" yesterday and it looked to me that there is a pretty damn lot of SSS not only in skin shading but also in a lot of plastic material.

harkyman · Post by **harkyman** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 2:47 am

For skin, SSS is absolutely necessary. Well, that is if you want to skin not to look like crap.

I've been working on an idea for doing non-raytraced SSS that would be extremely fast. Fast enough to do in animations on Blender's internal renderer. Maybe when I'm sick of BlenderPeople for a night, I'll make a doc and some enterprising soul can code it.

Money_YaY! · Post by **Money_YaY!** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 5:00 am

harkyman wrote:For skin, SSS is absolutely necessary. Well, that is if you want to skin not to look like crap.

I've been working on an idea for doing non-raytraced SSS that would be extremely fast. Fast enough to do in animations on Blender's internal renderer. Maybe when I'm sick of BlenderPeople for a night, I'll make a doc and some enterprising soul can code it.

Here is a vote for you

I have seen it used in OpenGl stuff so Iam sure you can make it fast in CPU somehow.

Toon_Scheur · Post by **Toon_Scheur** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 9:07 pm

I've seen "The Incredibles" yesterday and it looked to me that there is a pretty damn lot of SSS not only in skin shading but also in a lot of plastic material.

Yeah the SSS thing was nice in the Incredible. By the way... were you looking at the SSS effect the whole movie? Because I forgot about that after a couple of seconds. You get my point?

It would be nice if HarkyMan can pull it of. I was working on it too. But due to lack of time I cannot complete it. The implementation is indeed straight forward. And it is fast enough for animation. Only thing that drove me crazy was storing radiant values in the octree and than sorting them out with a fine enough resolution.... .anyway... I think the water and cloth simulation were more impressive in the Incredibles than SSS.
By the way, I think I have a paper and Java sources for a routine to dress up objects very easily, called "sweater".... I should look into that. That would be a great addition to Blender.

SamAdam · Post by **SamAdam** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 12:17 am

Toon_Scheur wrote:
I've seen "The Incredibles" yesterday and it looked to me that there is a pretty damn lot of SSS not only in skin shading but also in a lot of plastic material.
Yeah the SSS thing was nice in the Incredible. By the way... were you looking at the SSS effect the whole movie?

Actually, for me I was looking at it the entire time. The wave effects on the ocean, the beautiful fluid expolosions, and the SSS held my attention as much as the storyline. That is the kind of thing that catches my eye. In fact, when we all said what our favorite parts of the movie were, I said 'the SSS.'

I think that anything is nice, as long as some progress is being made. But I think that we should pick a project, work on it, finish it, and then move on to the next and not keep debating about which thing to do.

Money_YaY! · Post by **Money_YaY!** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 5:11 am

SamAdam wrote: I think that anything is nice, as long as some progress is being made. But I think that we should pick a project, work on it, finish it, and then move on to the next and not keep debating about which thing to do.

But then stuff would actually get done now would it ... That would be no good then users would finally get the stuff they beg for

Toon_Scheur · Post by **Toon_Scheur** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:51 pm

Sandam wrote:Actually, for me I was looking at it the entire time. The wave effects on the ocean, the beautiful fluid expolosions, and the SSS held my attention as much as the storyline. That is the kind of thing that catches my eye. In fact, when we all said what our favorite parts of the movie were, I said 'the SSS.

Well, I really doubt if you could have enjoy the movie. I myself watch some movies like Nemo and Shrek and so on analyticaly, but only after seeing the movie a couple of times just for fun. Most people don't know anything (especcialy kids) about SSS, GI, Motion Blur, DOF and so on anyway. What makes the movie worthwhile watching is the STORY. Take for example Final Fantasy: the flop within. Superbly rendered. In fact it is so realistic that it is useless to watch out for SSS effects and such. You don't look for SSS effects in real live movies now do you? I have a friend that is a orthopedic student. One time I found out how he is watching movies: he was paying more attention to the shoes people are wearing and the way they walk, instead of just enjoying the movie. Man... you must be really tense, so you don't just relax and watch the damn movie. I bet if we have a compelling enough script, you could make a block buster movie with Blender with just standard lamps and just standard scanline rendering. People won't mind inferior effects in the presence of superiour story telling.

I read the book Acting For Animators, and I must say I watched the Pixar and PDI movies again with on a different level, and analysing the acting and the storyline was more enjoyable than watching the mathematics behind it.
That's why a automechanic cannot enjoy a ferrari, because he looks at the technical level and misses the beauty of it completly.

SamAdam · Post by **SamAdam** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 7:49 pm

Toon_Scheur wrote:
Sandam wrote:Actually, for me I was looking at it the entire time. The wave effects on the ocean, the beautiful fluid expolosions, and the SSS held my attention as much as the storyline. That is the kind of thing that catches my eye. In fact, when we all said what our favorite parts of the movie were, I said 'the SSS.
Well, I really doubt if you could have enjoy the movie. I myself watch some movies like Nemo and Shrek and so on analyticaly, but only after seeing the movie a couple of times just for fun. Most people don't know anything (especcialy kids) about SSS, GI, Motion Blur, DOF and so on anyway. What makes the movie worthwhile watching is the STORY.

but, if the effects fail, then the story does also. if ff had a great story, but dirt cheap graphics, it would have been a flop too. When someone looks at a movie, and doesn't see DOF, they may not understand why, but they feel uneasy about getting completely into the movie.