What is sub-surface scattering?
It is the indirect transmission of light as it passes through a turbid medium. Things like wax, plant leaves, certain types of plastic, skin, to an extent one could think of sub surface scattering occurring in all living creatures to some degree, as well as a few man made materials. When you stop to really look around it is present all around us in the real world, even if to a subtle degree. If you’ve ever taken a flashlight and shined it through the thin skin between your fingers, or through your cheeks, the red glow you see is the result of light from the flashlight, indirectly (scattering) through your flesh (the turbid medium). In Mental Ray version 3.3 we can achieve this effect in a physically correct, as well as non-physically correct manner through the use of a few mental ray shaders. Mental ray for maya version 3.4 and later include the shaders, therefore they need not be acquired through a 3rd party. For those of you who are using Maya version 6.0 with mental ray version 3.3,
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