Test Renders for MakeHuman SSS script Beta 0.4

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Key:
• Ref = Reflectivity - the material setting in the material buttons that controls how much light the material reflects
• Sctr = Scattering parameter in the SSS script GUI
• Den = Density parameter in the SSS script GUI
• Lgt = Light Received parameter in the SSS script GUI

Image rendered with one ray-shadow spotlight and AO.
Original image rendered without SSS Vcol Light, and Reflectivity 0.8

	Sctr: 0.1	Sctr: 0.2	Sctr: 0.3	Sctr: 0.4	Sctr: 0.5
Den: 1.0	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.1 Den: 1.0 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.2 Den: 1.0 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.3 Den: 1.0 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.4 Den: 1.0 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.5 Den: 1.0 Lgt: 0.2
Den: 1.25	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.1 Den: 1.25 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.2 Den: 1.25 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.3 Den: 1.25 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.4 Den: 1.25 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.5 Den: 1.25 Lgt: 0.2
Den: 1.5	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.1 Den: 1.5 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.2 Den: 1.5 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.3 Den: 1.5 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.4 Den: 1.5 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.5 Den: 1.5 Lgt: 0.2
Den: 1.75	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.1 Den: 1.75 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.2 Den: 1.75 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.3 Den: 1.75 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.4 Den: 1.75 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.5 Den: 1.75 Lgt: 0.2
Den: 2.0	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.1 Den: 2.0 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.2 Den: 2.0 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.3 Den: 2.0 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.4 Den: 2.0 Lgt: 0.2	Ref: 0.2 Sctr: 0.5 Den: 2.0 Lgt: 0.2

What I was looking for was something that kept the same overall brightness characteristics of the directly lit side of the original image. With that in mind, I felt that something around the Ref: 0.2 Scrt: 0.2 Den: 1.75 area worked the best. As the Scattering value rose toward 2.0, it quickly introduced strange coloring artifacts into the shadow side, which can be seen on the right half of the above chart. I'm not sure what's up with that - feature or bug? Density was also an issue. Below 1.5 (the top half of the chart), it seemed to blow out the image, leaving little shadow left.

As for why reflectivity was set to 0.2 in the material buttons, my theory is that with SSS being taken into account the amount of directly reflected light is greatly reduced, and replaced by the scattered light. One nice thing that could be added to this SSS script would be to have it show a final calculated value of retransmitted light on the same scale as the the Ref value in the Material buttons, so the user can more accurately compensate for this. Below, you can see my images with different Reflectivity settings that allowed me to settle on the 0.2 value:

Ref 0.0
Ref 0.2
Ref 0.5
Ref 0.8

Finally, a little sequence showing varying Light Received values from the script. I settled on 0.2, the default, as it seemed to look pretty good.

Light Rec: 0.1
Light Rec: 0.2
Light Rec: 0.3
Light Rec: 0.5
Light Rec: 0.7
Light Rec: 1.0

Anyone interested in playing with these settings further can download the 1.9MB texture-packed .blend file here