I’d like to know if I should take the time to become proficient with Yafa, or just focus on the internal. What makes Yafaray special? More powerful? (I usually use Lux, but I’m looking to produce quality renders in a Biased renderer as well.) Are there any other (free) powerful biased renderers for blender that you would recommend?
Any information is appreciated 
-Tic
Yafaray usually gives better results. Although with 2.5 having fixed the bad bump mapping issue, it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference anymore.
Yafaray can do full GI, but the internal renderer can use subsurface scattering.
Why can’t there just be a “best of both worlds” renderer???
Can’t Yafaray do SSS as well? I wish I could stumble upon something similar to Mental/VRay, in UI and ability (but that’s asking a lot, for a free product 
)
yafaray can cafe sss with create surface offsets and using translucency values for the material.
Can Yafaray run on blender 2.5?
Can Yafaray run on blender 2.5?
no, it can’t.
not yet, anyway.
yafaray can cafe sss with create surface offsets and using translucency values for the material.
please explain?
you have to duplicate your mash and scale one down(up). then assign material with translucence.
the method is slow and can be hard to apply it to some models because of there geometry, but if you REALY need it, try this one 
I did most of the testing of the geometry based SSS method in yafaray. If that is something you need have a look at my (same user name) posts about it on the yafaray.org forum, although they are somewhat outdated. Also PM me or post on that site if you have questions. I read that yafaray forum pretty religiously.
http://www.yafaray.org/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2300&hilit=SSS
So the (best) method for SSS in yafa is to make several layers of translucent materials? Wouldn’t 1 suffice unless you have a multi-layered material (like the several layers of skin) ?
If one uses only one layer of translucent material then depth is not really a factor. In my tests with homogeneous materials such as milk and jade 2 or 3 layers were usually enough with two materials, a surface with the correct specular properties and an inner material that only worried about diffuse and translucency.
For skin which is much more complicated I used a four layer system: the well known epidermis dermis and bloody dermis plus a non translucent bone layer.
I have a lot of practice setting these up both the materials and the meshes so I can give you tips if you need.
SSS or no, Yafaray’s raytracer is millions of lightyears ahead of poor old Blender’s. It supports multiple methods and ‘proper’ GI.
Oh, and it’s blazingly fast.