Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).
Intermediate
Poser Material Room offers the following nodes
- Skin,
- Subsurface Skin (Poser 8 / Pro 2012 and up),
- Scatter (Poser 8 / Pro 2012 and up),
- CustomScatter (Poser 8 / Pro 2012 and up),
- FastScatter
addressing scattering of light within an object surface (skin) layer.
From these, CustomScatter is the most generic, does require the SubSurface Scattering (SSS) option in the Render Settings, and provides direct access to all parameters of the mechanism. Which, by the way, are nice words telling that I’m on my own finding the appropriate values for them. As it actually deals with the light rays scattering within the surface layer, it takes the most resources and render time. And gives the ‘best’, most manageable results in return.
Subsurface Skin then is a derivative of CustomScatter, dedicated to (human) skin.
Scatter on the other hand offers the possibility to pick a preset, based on something similar to what I want to accomplish. It does not use the SubSurface Scattering option in the Render Settings, and so it takes (far) less time and resources for rendering, but the results might be somewhat less realistic. They are less manageable anyway, but is does resemble scattering to some extent.
The ones just mentioned above are available in Poser 8 / Pro 2012 and up. The ones mentioned below are available in earlier versions as well.
Skin itself is just a combination of regular material properties, dedicated to (human) skin. It presents the diffuse, specular and ambient properties of a Poser material in a balanced way and mimics the waxiness of skin in a classical way, as used in the earlier versions of Poser. It does not use the subsurface scattering as referred to in the Render Options.
FastScatter is an early, and simple – and according to the manual outdated – way of representing SubSurface Scattering. It does not use the subsurface scattering as referred to in the Render Options.