How to make SSS

my old one was outdated, and in general, was never a good option lmao, decided to make a new one, it's not that good, but eh, whateva

Pre-Guide Info

So, basically, to begin, you gotta light up your scene, take your posters and all that good stuff. Just as some knowledge beforehand, SSS is short for "subsurface scattering," and that basically means that it's light scattering across an object, sometimes changin translucence, stuff like that. It's kinda hard to describe until you see it. Btw, I based almost all of this off of Tesser's guide




This is an example of SSS in action, and it's almost always present on things like skin.
Another example of SSS would be something like this:




So in the end, SSS is just that thing where light hits something to the point where it can appear translucent, since it pierces the light to scatter it across. For this guide, we'll be focusing on the skin portion of it, since it can be really visible on skin, and can make your picture feel "better" with it added. Even though it might not add much, it's still good to get in practice of doing, since you can do it fast once you get the hang of it.

Addons Required:

Submaterial Tool. This tool is ABSOLUTELY essential if you do scenebuilds and lighting, since it creates so many opportunities and choices for reskinning and rematerialing things.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=405793043

Any form of soft lamps. I've heard that there have been issues with lightbounce in this version lately, so you might have to revert back to the 2018 one. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2044112738

Glow Material. You'll be using this to mask out things, and in general, it's actually really useful for masking out other things, not just for sss. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=394188041

A human being that has skin visible. For this guide, I made a scene of just some basic stuff to show how SSS can be applied using masks and stuff like that. tbh it's not that hard, it's just that you need skin for it, since it scatters and makes a red thing around it.

Step One: Getting your layers

So for SSS, you'll have to mask your stuff, by using the glow material I linked earlier. Use submaterial tool with your glow tool, and put it into your ragdolls' skin areas. It'll be different for every ragdoll you use, but all you need to know is that you should just reskin it using glow material in skin parts, head/arms/legs/etc.



Once you got your things all taken, take your poster of it and then you're ready.

Step Two: Basically finish editing your lighting in photoshop

If you're using this guide, I'm hoping that you know how to use soft lamps and at least SOME knowledge of how to use photoshop, since all steps after this involve knowledge of how to use photoshop very basically. After you've lit up your scene and edited it, you can choose whenever you want to do SSS, but just make sure it's after the lighting portion. For me, I just do it after I'm done with fog and skies and stuff, and put it in a folder. I've still got more to edit.

Step Three: Setting up SSS layer

For this, you'll just need to set up your layer by dragging it from files and then dropping it into photoshop.



Now put it in a group or something to keep it organized, and then set your SSS layer to multiply. It should look terrifying lmao.



Okay, now we've got a terrifying ass picture of eyeless heads and arms. Now, got to the top of photoshop, while being selected on your layer, and go to image>adjustments>channel mixer.



So, you've got channel mixer pulled up. Go to each output channel, EXCEPT for red, and change it to 0, like I've shown in the example. Set blue and green to 0, and leave red alone, or edit if you want your call. Once you've got em set up, press Ok.



After you've got your skin looking red, go to your layer, and set it to lighten. This next part I'm talking about is optional, you don't HAVE to do this. Once you set it to lighten, go to the top of photoshop, and go to filter>blur>gaussian blur.



This step's optional, and you don't have to do this. We've got Gaussian blur set up, now just blur it just a TINY bit, not too much, but just a little. Maybe do like 0.5-3.0, not too big. It depends on your scene, because too much blurring will cause an object from farther away to have displaced and to have an inaccurate sss mask, while a large object closer to the camera wouldn't suffer as much.



Now the fun begins.

Step Four: The fun part of erasing

This part sucks, but eh, whatevah. So to begin, just equip your eraser tool, and make settings to something like I've just shown. It doesn't have to be exactly like this, but you wanna have something that's similar to the opacity at least. The size is completely your choice.



Hooh boy, here we go. Now that you've got your eraser stuff set up, time to get to work. Turn the layer's opacity down a bit, just in case we mess up later, and rasterize the layer. Take your brush, and erase the main parts where sss wouldn't be visible at all, like in dark shadows.



Avoid erasing any areas that have light at the moment, since we'll be going over those later. I've erased the main parts that are filled with shadows, but I left a tiny bit of red left over to make the skin color "pop out" more.



Before you start erasing the parts near the edges of the shadows by light and stuff, you should know some things about the areas you shouldn't erase too much. The parts are: ears, nose, and fingers Tone it down when you're erasing near those areas, since they're key features of SSS. We'll focus on these a bit later.



Now it's time to go to erasing the parts near the shadows. Take your brush, and make the size smaller. Zoom in on your scene, and start erasing areas around the shadows and light areas. You can also turn down your opacity to try and blend in the rest of the skin with it as well. Suffer and do these for the rest rip.

Step Five: Ears, Nose, and Fingers

SSS is super visible in these three, the eyes, nose and fingers. Light spreads across em, so they're important to focus on. For this example, I'll be showing an example of what you can do on them for all three.



So far, you've left these three alone, for the most part. Erase most of the red visible in shadows in them, since light won't be getting there anyways. For the parts that do have light, including their edges, focus on these.




Now you've got those parts erased, focus on the light area. Turn down your brush, and erase what you need to, but lightly. Do this for all these parts.



Well, I've made you suffer enough, I'll just show a couple other examples and then we'll move on.



Note, you shouldn't probably follow this step by step, but by rather how you feel what looks best. SSS is more visible in super high sunlight/contrast areas, which isn't in this scene due to being midday. Something more like sunset/sunrise or from a direct light source, such as a lantern or flashlight, would work well to showcase more prominent sss.

Step Six: Basically done

Okay, now it's almost time to move onto the rest of photoshop stuff, as well as wanting to scream internally. Before you move on, here's just two backup methods If you still needed to fill in more sss.

One way is that you can just turn up the opacity of the sss layer (which is why we lowered it earlier).


Another way is that you can also bring out your blur/smudge tool and set its brush mode to lighten, and brush over areas you want to increase more sss in, like I've shown below:


You shouldn't rely on this second method too much, but you can do this if you need to. If you want, you can combine these two methods if you really feel the need to, but time'd be more preciously spent towards other things in editing.

Finished

why did i make this guide so overexplained and why did I repeat myself so much it's so confusing and no one will understand. ask in comments if you need help or something, i'll try to get back to you if i can. I promised someone I'd make this a couple months ago, and sorry it's a garbo and jumbled mess.

Endless pain later, result was this:


im sorry for making this so overcomplicated this guide should've been like a total of 10 sentences

Short Explanation

aight so here's the expert gamer explanation of this

submaterial skin in ragdolls in scene to white, poster it. drop it into photoshop after you've edited the lights and stuff for a while, and set it to multiply. then channel mixer it by setting all color outputs (green/blue) to zero except for red, maybe slightly gaussian blur it. set the layer to lighten, maybe lower opacity of the layer, and then erase around shadows and light areas at different opacities and stuff. boom. done.

[Pluvillion]

If the model doesn't have separate skins (their skin and clothing are in one texture sheet), you can always draw the white mask yourself. Do not worry about irregularities since you're here to highlight the redness in their skin (with the effect being completely invisible so barely anyone will notice).

Another thing, please do layer masks instead of eraser. You have more control over intensity and you can tweak it how much you like.

[SiVDAY]

Ну да по факту, можно так не мучиться, через пос можно все наложить.

[goody]

oh

[afuea8143]

modl

[goody]

what models did you use?

[GrunsTala]

oh yeas that's gonna be useful, someday, if i don't forget to try out SSS lol

[afuea8143]

what

[Treat]

baaad baaad ur baaaad ur mom dead cause of that baaaad

[afuea8143]

no

[Duck]

░█▐▓▓░████▄▄▄█▀▄▓▓▓▌█Help
░░░░░▄█▌▀▄▓▓▄▄▄▄▀▀▀▄▓▓▓▓▓▌█ Doge
░░░▄█▀▀▄▓█▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▀░▓▌█ Take
░░█▀▄▓▓▓███▓▓▓███▓▓▓▄░░▄▓▐█▌ Over
░█▌▓▓▓▀▀▓▓▓▓███▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▄▀▓▓▐█ Steam
▐█▐██▐░▄▓▓▓▓▓▀▄░▀▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▌█▌ Copy
█▌███▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▐░░▄▓▓███▓▓▓▄▀▐█ And
█▐█▓▀░░▀▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓██████▓▓▓▓▐ Paste
▌▓▄▌▀░▀░▐▀█▄▓▓██████████▓▓▓▌█
▌▓▓▓▄▄▀▀▓▓▓▀▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓█▓█▓█▓▓▌█ STOP THE NICK AND BOB
█▐▓▓▓▓▓▓▄▄▄▓▓▓▓▓▓█▓█▓█▓█▓▓▓