I have this issue with image maps

I am trying to get SSS on deep rich colors using the Skin material in the material Palette.

Just off the shelf the skin material looks nice with good SSS in places like nose and ears.

But as soon as I add and dark rich image to the diffuse channel I have an issue with SSS going away.

If I lower the tint level then I get some of the SSS back. But then I loose detail.

I am trying to get high detail deep rich colors with SSS. I have tried all manner of settings, adding the image into the other subsurface channels and so on. But all of the SSS effects are washed out and lacking detail unless the diffuse image map has the tint to 1 or more. If less than one, it just looks strange and lacking detail.

Think of a thick dark rich piece of meat or alien skin with High detail and yet SSS.

How is this possible?

Losing details when using SSS is to be expected. Usually, driving the colors for the dermal layers is done by using different images from the diffuse map, but derived from that. As a rule you'll want a dark, saturated variance (of the diffuse map) to be used for deep layer and as you go towards the surface, lighter less saturated maps.

Also don't forget about the reflections as they play a big role in achieving realism and also by bringing up some details.
For say a lizard like creature, you want the outer skin to have little SSS but have a lot more inside the mouth or other mucous surfaces, so using a map to drive the SSS intensity in different areas is best for that.

It's probably a good idea to post a few pics with your set-up, it would help users give you specific feedback based on those rather than some general guidelines as I did.

Hi thanks for the tips. Yep you are right about all of that.

But I don't see why loosing detail should be expected. I see wonderful shots all the time with full detail and SSS. Just wish I could figure it out… lol

But I am making progress. I went back to Maya and almost by accident started getting something to work.

As far as my set up in Houdini it is fairly straight forward. Simply dropped in the skin and then added an image to the diffuse channel and adjust the tint level to attempt to get back some SSS.

From there I went crazy with all kinds of combinations of images maps I have for the various dermal levels as well as adjusting colors and so on. Basically nothing was working.

I have found though that lighting is obviously key. But I am still not quite there yet as far as the quality.

Examples of what I want to achieve followed by my best attempt so far in Mental Ray with the fast skin shader.