Shader Showcase Saturday #8

Hi everyone!

If you ever placed a strong light source behind your hand, you might have noticed how light is able to filter through the skin. Even more interesting is the fact that light "travels" inside the skin, and can sometimes make the entire hand glow. This optical phenomenon is called subsurface scattering (or SSS) and is caused by individual photons penetrating the skin, bouncing (scattering) inside it, and finally exiting from a different point. For this reason, subsurface scattering is also called subsurface light transport.

For this week's Shader Showcase Saturday I have featured the work of:

• Adam Samons

• Edward del Villar

If you have been following my blog for a while, you might remember that I have also talked about SSS in a previous tutorial, Fast Subsurface Scattering in Unity.

If you are developing games professionally, these assets in affiliation with the Asset Store might be what you are looking for:

• Deep Subsurface Scattering: one of the most advanced SSS shaders out there. It allows to include secondary meshes to simulate complex structures inside a 3D model. This is perfect if you need, for example, to see bones inside a hand.

• Translucent Subsurface Scattering: this solution is cheap and effective, and I would strongly recommend it to anyone looking to add marble or glass statues to their game.

• Subsurface Scattering: is the perfect asset for realistic skin.

I hope this will encourage more developers to play with SSS, especially now that it is available in Unity's new HDRP.