Best way to achieve skin SSS in Octane max

[Dave_Yu]

I saw some images on the net of the SSS Skin shader but there's no real details on how to achieve the effect.
There was one posted saying 8 seconds for a noise free SSS head.

SSS scatter function seems to work in the inverse color so if i select green , the effect is red. Seems a bit unintuitive.

With a lack of a good manual , it's just hit and miss and trying to dig through the forums for info. Anyone want to share some tips for 3dsmax ?

[profbetis]

After some experimentation and having the same question, I have some hopefully helpful tips for you.

First, I noticed that skin looks best as a mix material of a SSS for a deep blood/fleshy volume, then and with a glossy top layer epidermis. This will give you the shiny tan of the skin, with the subtle red undertones of blood and flesh underneath. Make sure the flesh has some roughness AND scattering as they are slightly different effects. The color/absorption of the flesh is fairly red, as this is not supposed to the the color of the skin, but of the volume underneath. The glossy texture's roughness is really a preference or conditional value. oily/sweaty wet skin will have low roughness obviously, while regular dry skin will probably be pretty high, around 0.7.

If you want even more realism, try adding a skeleton underneath. this will block lots of light inside that may make your flesh volume look too translucent.

A trick for getting the SSS color exactly how you want it is to use an Invert node.

[Dave_Yu]

Thanks for the tips! I'll give it a go