Miss Fast Shader 2×1 Advanced Skin Shader

MISSS_FAST_SHADER2_x1 SETUP

The misss_fast_shader2_x1 in Maya mental ray is the most advanced shader for Sub Surface Shading and for skin. It gives individual color control for Red Green and Blue light which is how skin in particular works.

It’s not a difficult shader to use but unfortunately Maya doesn’t set it up for us so we have to manually build the nodes. The following tute shows how to setup up a basic misss_fast_shader2_x.

Misss_fast_shader2_x1 Setup
Just keep in mind this demo does not use Linear Workflow. While using linear workflow all color swatches should be gamma corrected .4545 (see bottom of page)

Setting Up The Lightmap
1. Open the hypershade, type sss to filter the sss shaders under the create tab.
2. create a misss_fast_shader2x and a misss_fast_skin_maya shader.
We do this because the misss_fast_skin_maya will build our lightmap and texture for us.
3. select both shaders again and the MentalRayTexture1 node and graph the input output connections. This will show us the shading groups and the lightmap nodes.
4. Select the shading group of the misss_fast_shader2x, which will be called misss_fast_shader2_x1SG
Open up the mental ray tab and find the Lightmap Shader slot.
5. Middle click drag and drop the lightmap node called misss_fast_lmap_maya1 onto the Lightmap Shader slot
6. Select the shader misss_fast_shader2x and find the Lightmap slot (very top attribute)
7. Middle click drag and drop the texture of the lightmap “mentalrayTexture1” onto the Lightmap slot of the misss_fast_shader2x shader.

The shader should now render with it’s subsurface effect when assigned to an object.

Setting Up The Specular
1. In the same sss shaders that we created the shaders create a misss_skin_specular, this will be the specular shader for the object.
2. Select the misss_fast_shader2_x and find the Specular Illum slot.
3. Middle click drag and drop the specular shader (misss_skin_specular) onto the Specular Illum slot

We now use the specular shader to tweak our specular values.

Setting Up The Diffuse
By default the Diffuse Color of the misss_fast_shader2_x affects the Front SSS color and the Back SSS color. To create a diffuse color that does not affect the front and back SSS colors we create a diffuse shader and map it to the Diffuse Illum slot. To do this.

1. In the hypershade find the mental Ray list and the bottom entry should be Legacy Materials. Click on it and create a mib_illum_lambert
2. Select the misss_fast_shader2_x and find the Diffuse Illum slot.
3. Middle click drag and drop the mib_illum_lambert shader onto the Diffuse Illum slot
4. Select the mib_illum_lambert shader and swith the first two attributes Ambience and Ambient to 0 (black)

Now the Diffuse color is the color for the diffuse layer in our misss_fast_shader2_x. This is where we’d map a texture.

If using Linear Workflow (recommended)
If using linear workflow all the color swatches must be gamma corrected to .4545, see the Linear Workflow Page Step 3 “Procedural Colors/Swatches Linear Workflow” here. Note theGamma Adjust Color Swatches will not support the SSS shaders so we have to manually gamma correct.

New Mila workflow in 2015
I’ve haven’t tested this yet but this tute looks promising for new ways of adding SSS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU-iL1HnEm0