Subsurface Scatting Approximation

OpenGL
1

Anyone know of any good sources of info on GLSL implementations of subsurface scattering/translucency effects? I’ve been looking at the GPU gems examples here
http://developer.download.nvidia.com/books/HTML/gpugems/gpugems_ch16.html
but it all gets a bit vague when it starts to talk about the depth-map based approach.

I’ve managed to create a depth-map, but I’m a bit stumped when it comes to the bit about how to use it to calculate penetration-depth. Maybe someone has come up with a GLSL-based method…

a|x
http://machinesdontcare.wordpress.com

2

Chapter 14 of Gems 3 has some great stuff on the subject in the context of skin rendering. Don’t know if that chapter is available online or not…

There are lots of papers floating about on the general subject for additional inspiration, and most any book on raytracing will have a section or two.

I haven’t implemented any of this yet so I’m afraid that’s the best I can do at the moment.

3

hi modus,

thanks for getting back to me!
I think it’s just GPU Gems 1 that’s currently available free online. I might invest in some of the other ones in the series at some point though.

I’m trying to do realtime stuff, so the ray-tracing method might not be the best way to go, I fear. Having said that, I did manage to get a simple ray-tracing isosurface rendered working (based on Tebjan Halm’s version of Keenan Crane’s Quaternion Julia raytracer). I think the method used there was technically ray-casting, though, since ray refraction and reflection weren’t taken into account.

That’s why I’ve been thinking about the depthmap method. I’m not looking for complete photo-realism, just something like this

a|x

4

Hi toneburst,

You might find this link helpful :

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=403656

5

Ah, looks useful. I’ll have a look!

Cheers!!

a|x

6

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