Hello! I've been developing a free simple-ish Cycles Three layer skin shader group for people to use. Yes this does look simular to the Arnold port shader network was made by Mathew Heimlich quite a while back for blender. Not sure why it is marked obsolete really. I liked how it worked in some cases so I wanted to make my own. It uses weights like it but without use of ubershaders. My shader allows you to use your own textures to make a nice skin material. This shader doesn't cover displacements but you can use the normal inputs like any other shader of course.
I've been watching Kent Trammel's old skin material lessons and used his stylized old man head and textures to test my shader. If you want to get Kent's files I recommend going to CGcookie.com under the Archive section. You will have to create a free account to access the Archive section. It will be under "Skin Shading with Cycles".
So, my shader mixes a Diffuse node with three different SSS nodes and some glossy nodes. In theory you are able to mix your layers of skin maps to make realistic or any type of skin. Weight sliders allows you to give influence to that layer. There are sliders down at the bottom of the shader to turn off layers of either SSS scattering, SSS colors, All colors, and even the model's glossiness.
Why turn off these layers? Wouldn't it just be better to turn off all the weights instead? Well if you have all your weights are right where you want them, then it would be better to turn them off by a master slider instead. #Note you can create alpha maps for these weight sliders but that takes really careful planning.
-Turning off the ‘SSS Scattering’ allows you to focus mainly on the colors that you are mixing.
-Turning off your 'SSS Color' allows you to tweak your diffuse color and even help mixing your diffuse and scattering colors better. <i>#Note it will also turn off your SubSurface scattering so forewarning. I recommend plugging in a SSS scale alpha map in the SSS scale slider if you are using this slider for the final render. SSS scale map is basically where the thinnest parts of the mesh or where the subsurface scattering will happen most. Ears are one example.</i>
-Turning off your 'All Color' turns off all colors and even your SSS colors. With this you can tweak your glossy's fresnel, bump, and roughness.
-Turning off your 'Gloss' will of course turn off all glossiness of your model.
I thought about selling this shader but how easy it was to create I believe any one could make it with some time. Really to me, it is simple when comparing mine to the last Arnold port shader. And I am still not sure that this is truly the best or easiest way to go about a Triple layer SSS skin shader other than just mixing the SSS layers together. This shader worked for me in my recent projects. I do have to say that it does not boost render times but as I said you can use the 'Off/On'sliders to preview colors and glossiness faster. Anyway, hope you guys and girls like it!
Have fun and happy blending!
Three Layer Skin Shader.blend (419 KB)
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