The skin shader is based on Zap’s Skin+ shader that combines MIA+ Mental Ray’s Skin phenomena. I reconstructed his phenomena using SkinSSS and Mia_Material_X in softimage. Although be warned, SkinSSS has a bug where it calculates indirect lighting twice. I had to fix that, i wish autodesk would finally fix that!

72 does look good, but the specular was a bit odd. Notice it doesnt pick up the rim lighting too well. The newer shader has much better specular because it blends Zap’s 2 layer fake specular with the soft reflections provided by the MIA. This ends up being much better looking. 72 actually just used MIA’s reflection only which I realized was the incorrect way to go about reflections.

Zap’s phenom has 2 phong spec layers which are designed to use raytraced glossy reflections in combination with the spec layers. When using SSS + Mia, you should also use those 2 specs + mia HL_ONLY glossy reflections to replace the skin’s raytraced reflections. 

Basically in 72, I was not aware of this, or had not even thought to do it. I simply relied on the HL_Only glossy for spec. It looks ok, but you need those 2 phong specs to blend with the hl_only gloss to get a really nice skin spec.

Although, I’m still not entirely satisfied with the specs, the nose and lips should be a little shinier.

The latest render, I think is more skin like. 72 is a bit too waxy. The latest render could probably be a tad bit waxier… but I think its better overall because 72 looks really bad in day light setups. The latest shader does not.

The skin in wip 72 was also oddly green in some spots like the cavities in his forehead lines and neck area where it comes to a v into the clavicles. I could not really figure out why that was, considering the maps werent green at all. The shader seems to have solved that a bit, as I no longer have textures in the subdermal lot. I just used a red color.

As for the eyes, I’ve updated them a little bit from the maps I’ve posted in this thread. I repainted the sclera texture map and veins and tweaked the SSS Material. I still have to get the wetness around the eyelids to show up a bit more.