Hey I just wanted to know if I should mix translucency with diffuse directly or add it and change the amount of translucency with another mix shader just added between mix and translucent? Or should I use sss for foliage and not translucency at all?
I guess it depends on what kind of effect you wish to achieve using it. For leaves I tend to just add a more saturated of the diffuse color to the diffuse shader rather than mixing it. I believe the translucent shader provides backfacing diffuse (only) illumination, and in general it should be used for thin surfaces and sss should be used for thick surfaces (similar to a diffuse shader being a big simplification of where you should really use volume shaders - nobody does that for a reason :)). But I won’t hesitate to use it anywhere if it provides the look I like, however it’s not often used.
Note that translucency can’t create a shine on the backside. For thin materials you would need to add a rough refraction shader with incoming as the normal. A bizarre trick, but it works great.
What do you mean with shine on the backside? I want to/ am using it for grass.
See this thread for that “shine on backside for rough thin refraction” trick. Without it you can’t use refraction on thin surfaces, and refraction is required for that frosted look. Mixing this with translucency, fresnelling with glossy on top, create great smartglass effect. I might use it for grass if grass was extreme closeup and/or a key player in the shot.
For “regular” grass, I would just use a greener and darker grass color to a translucency shader added to diffuse. Technically speaking I believe a mix would be more physically correct to maintain energy conservation, but the times I’ve used it this way it always comes out too dark and insignificant. But that could be result of bad lighting.
Hi.
What kind of translucency do you want? Frosted glass, paper, oiled paper, candle, etc.?
Edit:
Ah, you had said foliage. Forget what I asked.