Assigning different textures per UV tile with SSS shader

Introduction:
The purpose of this white paper is to illustrate how to apply different textures per face while using SSS shader and ender it with mental ray.

The approach
The objective is to assign different texture files to a creature while using SSS shader.

Preparing UVs.
The first step is to layout the UVs in different regions in the UV editor

UVs in different regions.

Preparing the texture.
In the Hypershade create 4 different texture file nodes and lay them out according to their position in the UV editor.

4 different file textures.

In the attribute editor for all texture files under Color Balance
Change the default color to be black (value is 0)

In the attribute editor for all Place2dTexture nodes uncheck the Wrap U and Wrap V, so now the texture will not warp on all the UV regions.

The objective now would be assigning the file texture to its corresponding UV layout.
For this you will need to the file placement in the 2d Texture Placement Node

For file 1 leave to have the default values.
For file 2 change the translate Frame to 1.0 and 0.0 (that mean it will move 1 unit on the U direction and remain at the 0 for V)
For file 3 change the translate Frame to 0.0 and 1.0
For file 4 change the translate Frame to 1.0 and 1.0

 
Translate Frame.

Note: you can test your results by assigning a Lambert shader to the creature and applying each file to the color value of the Lambert.

Connecting texture files.
In the Hypershade grab +/- Average node and put in the working area next to the 4 file textures.

MMB drag the file 1 texture node onto the plusMinusAverage node from the popup menu choose Input3D[n] = 0

Connecting the file texture to the plusMinusAverage node.

Rendered image with SSS shader assigned to the creature.

Open the attribute editor of the SSS shader, MMB drag the plusMinusAverage node and drop it onto any of the attruibtes of the SSS sahder
For this case it’s going to the front SSS color.

 Rendered image with 4 different file textures and SSS.

Repeat the previous steps with the remaining file textures and connect them to the Input3D[n] 1, 2 and 3.Make sure theat the Operation is set to Sum in the attribute editor of the plusMinusAverage node.

The Attribute editor for the plusMinusAverage node.

Create an SSS shader and assign to the creature.

Final shading network.

Conclusion.
You can have high detailed different texture files that can be used in conjunction with mental ray SSS shader.

Comments

[Marcus]

Halleluja....this was exactly what I was looking for!!! Thanks ALOT:)

[Thom]

Can you explain why you'd want to do this? I don't understand what it does. Thanks.

[matt]

you should probably point out that the default colour for the file texures should be set to black, and wrapU/wrapV should be disabled.