Do you guys use HuntingSuccubus' Subsurface Scattering?

[SortaLewd]

Just wondering what's considered the norm. I know that plugin has some compatibility issues and bugs, but I don't notice the usual giveaways like the grey patches or Embody pov bugging out when viewing videos and screenshots from other vam users.

 

[hazmhox]

There is no norm : )
People do what they enjoy / like.

On my end, I tend to avoid unstable plugins and potential heavy modifications of the characters IF the goal is realtime ( playable scene in VR ). As potential bugs and incompatibilities for people is a huge deal, and I prefer a smooth playback than having a slight SSS effect.

Also, I generally don't like SSS in games. It is generally way overdone and does not look appealing to me. If you look at the last updates on the subject from HS. The characters do not look like skin is letting a bit of light through, but they're becoming more like wax figures.
It's just a matter of taste.

Do what you enjoy, do what you think is great for your characters... no one is gonna sue you
( also, don't forget about framerate, it matters in VR ; ) )

 

[SlimerJSpud]

When SSS was first introduced in Daz Studio, it was derisively referred to as "Lava mouth" because too much light was shining through the skin texture near the mouth. It can be a subtle effect, or it can be a hot mess, literally. You don't really need it, IMO.

 

[SortaLewd]

When SSS was first introduced in Daz Studio, it was derisively referred to as "Lava mouth" because too much light was shining through the skin texture near the mouth. It can be a subtle effect, or it can be a hot mess, literally. You don't really need it, IMO.

How do you get around skins in VaM looking greyish and generally lacking color? I've been using SS but the combination of issues it has with a few other frequently used plugins and clothing items/scalps having grey spots has me second guessing if it's worth continuing to use. I look at images in the media tab and there are some great shots, but none of them say what plugins they used to achieve the shots, so I can't tell if people are using SS or something else to have their characters with skin that doesn't look so mute.

 

[hazmhox]

How do you get around skins in VaM looking greyish and generally lacking color? I've been using SS but the combination of issues it has with a few other frequently used plugins and clothing items/scalps having grey spots has me second guessing if it's worth continuing to use. I look at images in the media tab and there are some great shots, but none of them say what plugins they used to achieve the shots, so I can't tell if people are using SS or something else to have their characters with skin that doesn't look so mute.

99% of shots that look nice are because of:

• Light
• Skin color tone
• Light
• and light

All the friends in the community doing nice shots do not use SSS.

Generally when you're aiming for a specific tone in the light, you adjust skin tone based on that, and vice versa... or both. You can adjust light and skin color. No fancy shader is gonna make a bad/average lighting look good. It could compensate in some situation, but SSS is not gonna make shots look great magically.

The SSS plugin page is actually a great example... even tho I respect the work involved in the plugin itself, none of the shots "demoing" the plugin look remotely close to nice.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

LUTs can improve the lighting too, but I'm not a fan.

 

[hazmhox]

LUTs can improve the lighting too, but I'm not a fan.

Almost 100% of games use LUT/Color grading nowadays
(it's more color grading than light improvement btw)

 

[SortaLewd]

99% of shots that look nice are because of:

• Light
• Skin color tone
• Light
• and light

All the friends in the community doing nice shots do not use SSS.

Generally when you're aiming for a specific tone in the light, you adjust skin tone based on that, and vice versa... or both. You can adjust light and skin color. No fancy shader is gonna make a bad/average lighting look good. It could compensate in some situation, but SSS is not gonna make shots look great magically.

The SSS plugin page is actually a great example... even tho I respect the work involved in the plugin itself, none of the shots "demoing" the plugin look remotely close to nice.

Thanks, gonna have to get better with lighting and adjusting skin tone then. Getting good at scene lighting is going to be a trial of its own lol.

 

[hazmhox]

Thanks, gonna have to get better with lighting and adjusting skin tone then. Getting good at scene lighting is going to be a trial of its own lol.

If it's for shoots/virtual photography, you can take a look at Studio Maestro, if you're not used to lighting, this is a good starting point : )

 

[BStarG2]

I use it yeah, but mostly because of the Tessellation rather than the actual Subsurface effect; although I do keep a subtle amount of Subsurface effect active, just adjusting the values to a low amount. What I do like about it is that it can truly help improving / changing the overall skin tone of a character especially when the Diffuse textures aren't vibrant (but it's very situational, and not that common). I generally use it for making my renders though, rather than scenes with too much going (albeit the performance isn't really impacted by much, and I'm still on my 3080 12GB, and SSS by itself isn't bringing the performance to its knees or anything dramatic; however, if adding that on top of a long list of plugins for complicated scenes then yeah, at some point it's an extra that can impact performance).

With all this said, however, it does have one issue that - from what I can tell - cannot actually be fixed due to Unity engine-related limitations (maybe, I'm no expert). It's not about the SSS effect itself, which is the ironic part of it. It's actually about the Tessellation part of the plugin (which is optional, so just not using it is a way to 'fix' the problem; but the author himself cannot fix it, it's Unity-related, or so I think from what little info I could find on the subject). If using Tessellation (either from the SSS plugin, or any other plugin which also applies Tessellation) then given specific camera distance from the character, and given specific types of lightning in the scene, there will be very little - single pixel-sized - white and/or black 'dots' constantly flashing in and out of existence onto the surface of the skin. The 'dots' actually follow the Vertices' patterns (based off of the G2F's). In other words, it's as if the Tessellation effect cannot actually completely 'fill in' or be fully layered on top of the G2F frame, and pixel-sized portions of the non-Tessellated frame "below" the skin show through for literal fractions of a second, in and out, and can be seen very well as I said given specifics (if you're zoomed out enough, it's possible to completely miss it and think it's not happening at all).

I tested this multiple times and it's very repeatable. I did talk to Hunting Succubus about it, and according to what he told me about it, from what I could understand, is that Tessellation cannot be made any 'better' or any more precise right now in VAM (at least not in VAM 1.x, maybe in 2.x this problem will be completely gone; not to mention that the polygonal count and overall frame complexity of G8F is so ahead of G2F that Tessellation could be completely useless in VAM 2.x anyways).

So yeah, that's the only true "issue" for me, with the Subsurface plugin (then again, it's only related to using Tessellation as I said; the actual Subsurface effect itself works well and can make a big impact on coloration in specific types of scenes or character skin tones, with proper lightning and LUTs it can absolutely add some 'oomph' to my renders.

 

[hazmhox]

The 'dots' actually follow the Vertices' patterns (based off of the G2F's). In other words, it's as if the Tessellation effect cannot actually completely 'fill in' or be fully layered on top of the G2F frame, and pixel-sized portions of the non-Tessellated frame "below" the skin show through for literal fractions of a second, in and out, and can be seen very well as I said given specifics (if you're zoomed out enough, it's possible to completely miss it and think it's not happening at all).

Generally, when you get super obvious "black dots" or "black lines" in VAM, it's a UV issue. Like, extreme values not properly clamped or normalized. Maybe the tesselation is breaking something on the UVs and you get that result indeed.

 

[SortaLewd]

I use it yeah, but mostly because of the Tessellation rather than the actual Subsurface effect; although I do keep a subtle amount of Subsurface effect active, just adjusting the values to a low amount. What I do like about it is that it can truly help improving / changing the overall skin tone of a character especially when the Diffuse textures aren't vibrant (but it's very situational, and not that common). I generally use it for making my renders though, rather than scenes with too much going (albeit the performance isn't really impacted by much, and I'm still on my 3080 12GB, and SSS by itself isn't bringing the performance to its knees or anything dramatic; however, if adding that on top of a long list of plugins for complicated scenes then yeah, at some point it's an extra that can impact performance).

With all this said, however, it does have one issue that - from what I can tell - cannot actually be fixed due to Unity engine-related limitations (maybe, I'm no expert). It's not about the SSS effect itself, which is the ironic part of it. It's actually about the Tessellation part of the plugin (which is optional, so just not using it is a way to 'fix' the problem; but the author himself cannot fix it, it's Unity-related, or so I think from what little info I could find on the subject). If using Tessellation (either from the SSS plugin, or any other plugin which also applies Tessellation) then given specific camera distance from the character, and given specific types of lightning in the scene, there will be very little - single pixel-sized - white and/or black 'dots' constantly flashing in and out of existence onto the surface of the skin. The 'dots' actually follow the Vertices' patterns (based off of the G2F's). In other words, it's as if the Tessellation effect cannot actually completely 'fill in' or be fully layered on top of the G2F frame, and pixel-sized portions of the non-Tessellated frame "below" the skin show through for literal fractions of a second, in and out, and can be seen very well as I said given specifics (if you're zoomed out enough, it's possible to completely miss it and think it's not happening at all).

I tested this multiple times and it's very repeatable. I did talk to Hunting Succubus about it, and according to what he told me about it, from what I could understand, is that Tessellation cannot be made any 'better' or any more precise right now in VAM (at least not in VAM 1.x, maybe in 2.x this problem will be completely gone; not to mention that the polygonal count and overall frame complexity of G8F is so ahead of G2F that Tessellation could be completely useless in VAM 2.x anyways).

So yeah, that's the only true "issue" for me, with the Subsurface plugin (then again, it's only related to using Tessellation as I said; the actual Subsurface effect itself works well and can make a big impact on coloration in specific types of scenes or character skin tones, with problem lightning and LUTs it can absolutely add some 'oomph' to my renders.

The only issue I really had with subsurface scattering besides incompatibility with other plugins such as Embody's pov was the grey/black patches it has when using some hair scalps and clothing. Generally I found it makes skin look better without needing to master lighting in a scene, but the fact that the plugin causes the grey spots with hair and clothing is what made me question whether it was worth keeping. You haven't ran into that issue? By chance, are you using PostMagic's bloom when experiencing the pixel/dot flashing? That's the only time I encounter that particular issue, and turning off bloom in PM 'fixes' it.

 

[Henriyk]

For me, less is better. But the texture quality and not least the lighting setup are crucial. For me, the skin becomes "plastic-like" and artificial with subsurface.

 

[BStarG2]

The only issue I really had with subsurface scattering besides incompatibility with other plugins such as Embody's pov was the grey/black patches it has when using some hair scalps and clothing. Generally I found it makes skin look better without needing to master lighting in a scene, but the fact that the plugin causes the grey spots with hair and clothing is what made me question whether it was worth keeping. You haven't ran into that issue? By chance, are you using PostMagic's bloom when experiencing the pixel/dot flashing? That's the only time I encounter that particular issue, and turning off bloom in PM 'fixes' it.

Nope, not using any PostMagic, I've tested it under 'no other plugins' conditions as well as under completely fresh 100% vanilla VAM installation (with just SSS and some scene dependencies going). It's 100% repeatable every time. However, as I said, it's mostly seen under specific camera distance + lightning conditions. Most users would either 1) never notice it, or 2) never have those conditions to see it, even if they looked for it.

I recorded this some time ago for Hunting Succubus to look at:

I was just activating and disabling the Tessellation in this clip. And again, note: it's not a problem that is unique to the Tessellation from the SSS plugin. I've observed the same from another plugin which also includes Tessellation (can't recall the name, it's a Skin Micro Details plugin). Seeing this clip showing the issue is the best possible way to visualize what I'm describing. For some, even this clip might seem to show no problems at first glance, you might have to squint your eyes to see it. But in this clip you can see the white dots popping in and out. In some cases, it's black dots instead (and rarely, it's both).