Subsurface Scattering (SSS) Materials

The subsurface scattering (SSS) materials are intended for modeling skin and other organic materials whose appearance depends on light scattering among multiple layers. 3ds Max provides four of these materials. Each is a top-level wrapper (a “phenomenon”) for shaders whose controls are documented in the Standard mental ray Shader Libraries document. Click a link to see the NVIDIA documentation for the shader.

• Material/Map Browser > Materials > mental ray > SSS Fast Material, SSS Fast Skin Material, SSS Fast Skin Material+Displace, or SSS Physical Material
Note: The SSS materials appear in the Browser only if the active renderer supports them.

Tip: When you follow a link to the documentation for NVIDIA library shaders, scroll up a bit in your browser. The links tend to go past the title of the section, and there might be introductory content above the link location. If the link goes to the beginning of a section, scroll down instead.

Material Name	mi Library Shader Name
SSS Fast Material	misss_fast_simple_phen
SSS Fast Skin Material	misss_fast_skin_phen
SSS Fast Skin Material+Displace	misss_fast_skin_phen_d
SSS Physical Material	misss_physical

Also see Subsurface Scattering Shaders and the topics that follow it for more general information. See Physically Correct Subsurface Scattering for background information and tips about the Physical material.

Note: The SSS Physical Material can also be used as a shader for the Surface and Photon components of a mental ray material.

For a downloadable tutorial offering a practical demonstration of using the SSS Fast Skin material, see this Web page.

Light Controls for the SSS Physical Material

The SSS Physical material includes light controls that correspond to the lights array in the parameters for the misss_physical shader.

Lights

When on, the material is illuminated only by those lights specified in the list. When Lights is turned off, all lights in the scene affect the material. Default=off.

The remaining light controls are available only when Lights is on.

• List of lights Displays the lights you have chosen to illuminate this material.
• Add Adds a light to the list. Click Add to turn it on, then click the light object in a viewport.
• Replace Replaces a light in the list. Highlight a light's name in the list, click Replace to turn it on, then click the replacement light object in a viewport.
• Delete Deletes a light from the list. Highlight a light's name in the list, then click Delete.