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Spectral Subsurface Scattering from RGB via Biophysical Skin Inversion
Authors:
Carlos Aliaga,
Adrian Jarabo
Abstract:
In this paper we present a spectral optical inversion for skin for path tracing-based rendering of…
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In this paper we present a spectral optical inversion for skin for path tracing-based rendering of subsurface scattering. Skin is a complex multilayered medium, with appearance determined by the mixture of biophysical chromophores. However, current methods rely on medium homogeneization, with optical parameters obtained via albedo inversion from a reflectance texture and hand-tuned scattering distance and anisotropy. This results into significant art-skilled manual labor for authoring, and an inaccurate scattering profile for skin. To solve these problems, we generalize existing albedo inversion techniques, and propose a framework that predicts full-spectral skin scattering parameters from a single RGB diffuse albedo. Our method builds upon a new mixture-of-media representation, that approximates the aggregated multilayered appearance of skin by mixing the aggregated scattering of three uncorrelated media. We train a chained neural decoder that maps RGB diffuse albedo to the optical properties of the mixture of media, including anisotropy, scattering radius and scattering albedo. Then, we show this mixture can be used in a random-walk-based path tracer with minimal modifications, by simply randomly selecting the medium to traverse.
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Submitted 25 June, 2026;
originally announced June 2026.
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DIAMOND-SSS: Diffusion-Augmented Multi-View Optimization for Data-efficient SubSurface Scattering
Authors:
Guillermo Figueroa-Araneda,
Iris Diana Jimenez,
Florian Hofherr,
Manny Ko,
Hector Andrade-Loarca,
Daniel Cremers
Abstract:
Subsurface scattering (SSS) gives translucent materials -- such as wax, jade, marble, and skin -- their characteristic soft shadows, color bleeding, and diffuse glow. Modeling these effects in neural rendering remains challenging due to complex light transport and the need for de…
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Subsurface scattering (SSS) gives translucent materials -- such as wax, jade, marble, and skin -- their characteristic soft shadows, color bleeding, and diffuse glow. Modeling these effects in neural rendering remains challenging due to complex light transport and the need for densely captured multi-view, multi-light datasets (often more than 100 views and 112 OLATs).
We present DIAMOND-SSS, a data-efficient framework for high-fidelity translucent reconstruction from extremely sparse supervision -- even as few as ten images. We fine-tune diffusion models for novel-view synthesis and relighting, conditioned on estimated geometry and trained on less than 7 percent of the dataset, producing photorealistic augmentations that can replace up to 95 percent of missing captures. To stabilize reconstruction under sparse or synthetic supervision, we introduce illumination-independent geometric priors: a multi-view silhouette consistency loss and a multi-view depth consistency loss.
Across all sparsity regimes, DIAMOND-SSS achieves state-of-the-art quality in relightable Gaussian rendering, reducing real capture requirements by up to 90 percent compared to SSS-3DGS.
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Submitted 17 January, 2026;
originally announced January 2026.
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HumanMaterial: Human Material Estimation from a Single Image via Progressive Training
Authors:
Yu Jiang,
Jiahao Xia,
Jiongming Qin,
Yusen Wang,
Tuo Cao,
Chunxia Xiao
Abstract:
…problem by building material dataset for training, but their simplified material data and rendering equation lead to rendering results with limited realism, especially that of skin. To further alleviate this problem, we construct a higher-quality dataset (OpenHumanBRDF) based on scanned real data and statistical material data. In addition to the normal, diff…
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Full-body Human inverse rendering based on physically-based rendering aims to acquire high-quality materials, which helps achieve photo-realistic rendering under arbitrary illuminations. This task requires estimating multiple material maps and usually relies on the constraint of rendering result. The absence of constraints on the material maps makes inverse rendering an ill-posed task. Previous works alleviated this problem by building material dataset for training, but their simplified material data and rendering equation lead to rendering results with limited realism, especially that of skin. To further alleviate this problem, we construct a higher-quality dataset (OpenHumanBRDF) based on scanned real data and statistical material data. In addition to the normal, diffuse albedo, roughness, specular albedo, we produce displacement and subsurface scattering to enhance the realism of rendering results, especially for the skin. With the increase in prediction tasks for more materials, using an end-to-end model as in the previous work struggles to balance the importance among various material maps, and leads to model underfitting. Therefore, we design a model (HumanMaterial) with progressive training strategy to make full use of the supervision information of the material maps and improve the performance of material estimation. HumanMaterial first obtain the initial material results via three prior models, and then refine the results by a finetuning model. Prior models estimate different material maps, and each map has different significance for rendering results. Thus, we design a Controlled PBR Rendering (CPR) loss, which enhances the importance of the materials to be optimized during the training of prior models. Extensive experiments on OpenHumanBRDF dataset and real data demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance.
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Submitted 24 July, 2025;
originally announced July 2025.
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SFDM: Robust Decomposition of Geometry and Reflectance for Realistic Face Rendering from Sparse-view Images
Authors:
Daisheng Jin,
Jiangbei Hu,
Baixin Xu,
Yuxin Dai,
Chen Qian,
Ying He
Abstract:
…we introduce a novel two-stage technique for decomposing and reconstructing facial features from sparse-view images, a task made challenging by the unique geometry and complex skin reflectance of each individual. To synthesize 3D facial models more realistically, we endeavor to decouple key facial attributes from the RGB color, including geometry, diffuse r…
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In this study, we introduce a novel two-stage technique for decomposing and reconstructing facial features from sparse-view images, a task made challenging by the unique geometry and complex skin reflectance of each individual. To synthesize 3D facial models more realistically, we endeavor to decouple key facial attributes from the RGB color, including geometry, diffuse reflectance, and specular reflectance. Specifically, we design a Sparse-view Face Decomposition Model (SFDM): 1) In the first stage, we create a general facial template from a wide array of individual faces, encapsulating essential geometric and reflectance characteristics. 2) Guided by this template, we refine a specific facial model for each individual in the second stage, considering the interaction between geometry and reflectance, as well as the effects of subsurface scattering on the skin. With these advances, our method can reconstruct high-quality facial representations from as few as three images. The comprehensive evaluation and comparison reveal that our approach outperforms existing methods by effectively disentangling geometric and reflectance components, significantly enhancing the quality of synthesized novel views, and paving the way for applications in facial relighting and reflectance editing.
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Submitted 15 March, 2025; v1 submitted 10 December, 2023;
originally announced December 2023.
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Polarimetric BSSRDF Acquisition of Dynamic Faces
Authors:
Hyunho Ha,
Inseung Hwang,
Nestor Monzon,
Jaemin Cho,
Donggun Kim,
Seung-Hwan Baek,
Adolfo Muñoz,
Diego Gutierrez,
Min H. Kim
Abstract:
…Human faces, on the other hand, present a particularly difficult challenge, given their complex structure and reflectance properties, the strong presence of spatially-varying subsurface…
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Acquisition and modeling of polarized light reflection and scattering help reveal the shape, structure, and physical characteristics of an object, which is increasingly important in computer graphics. However, current polarimetric acquisition systems are limited to static and opaque objects. Human faces, on the other hand, present a particularly difficult challenge, given their complex structure and reflectance properties, the strong presence of spatially-varying subsurface scattering, and their dynamic nature. We present a new polarimetric acquisition method for dynamic human faces, which focuses on capturing spatially varying appearance and precise geometry, across a wide spectrum of skin tones and facial expressions. It includes both single and heterogeneous subsurface scattering, index of refraction, and specular roughness and intensity, among other parameters, while revealing biophysically-based components such as inner- and outer-layer hemoglobin, eumelanin and pheomelanin. Our method leverages such components' unique multispectral absorption profiles to quantify their concentrations, which in turn inform our model about the complex interactions occurring within the skin layers. To our knowledge, our work is the first to simultaneously acquire polarimetric and spectral reflectance information alongside biophysically-based skin parameters and geometry of dynamic human faces. Moreover, our polarimetric skin model integrates seamlessly into various rendering pipelines.
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Submitted 29 December, 2024;
originally announced January 2025.
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Controllable and Gradual Facial Blemishes Retouching via Physics-Based Modelling
Authors:
Chenhao Shuai,
Rizhao Cai,
Bandara Dissanayake,
Amanda Newman,
Dayan Guan,
Dennis Sng,
Ling Li,
Alex Kot
Abstract:
…Motivated by this limitation, we propose our Controllable and Gradual Face Retouching (CGFR). Our CGFR is based on physical modelling, adopting Sum-of-Gaussians to approximate skin subsurface scattering in a decomposed melanin and haemoglobin color space. Our CGFR offers a user-…
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Face retouching aims to remove facial blemishes, such as pigmentation and acne, and still retain fine-grain texture details. Nevertheless, existing methods just remove the blemishes but focus little on realism of the intermediate process, limiting their use more to beautifying facial images on social media rather than being effective tools for simulating changes in facial pigmentation and ance. Motivated by this limitation, we propose our Controllable and Gradual Face Retouching (CGFR). Our CGFR is based on physical modelling, adopting Sum-of-Gaussians to approximate skin subsurface scattering in a decomposed melanin and haemoglobin color space. Our CGFR offers a user-friendly control over the facial blemishes, achieving realistic and gradual blemishes retouching. Experimental results based on actual clinical data shows that CGFR can realistically simulate the blemishes' gradual recovering process.
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Submitted 19 June, 2024;
originally announced June 2024.
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Light Sampling Field and BRDF Representation for Physically-based Neural Rendering
Authors:
Jing Yang,
Hanyuan Xiao,
Wenbin Teng,
Yunxuan Cai,
Yajie Zhao
Abstract:
…that models direct and indirect light locally through a light sampling strategy in a learned light sampling field. We also propose BRDF models to separately represent surface/subsurface…
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Physically-based rendering (PBR) is key for immersive rendering effects used widely in the industry to showcase detailed realistic scenes from computer graphics assets. A well-known caveat is that producing the same is computationally heavy and relies on complex capture devices. Inspired by the success in quality and efficiency of recent volumetric neural rendering, we want to develop a physically-based neural shader to eliminate device dependency and significantly boost performance. However, no existing lighting and material models in the current neural rendering approaches can accurately represent the comprehensive lighting models and BRDFs properties required by the PBR process. Thus, this paper proposes a novel lighting representation that models direct and indirect light locally through a light sampling strategy in a learned light sampling field. We also propose BRDF models to separately represent surface/subsurface scattering details to enable complex objects such as translucent material (i.e., skin, jade). We then implement our proposed representations with an end-to-end physically-based neural face skin shader, which takes a standard face asset (i.e., geometry, albedo map, and normal map) and an HDRI for illumination as inputs and generates a photo-realistic rendering as output. Extensive experiments showcase the quality and efficiency of our PBR face skin shader, indicating the effectiveness of our proposed lighting and material representations.
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Submitted 11 April, 2023;
originally announced April 2023.
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AvatarMe++: Facial Shape and BRDF Inference with Photorealistic Rendering-Aware GANs
Authors:
Alexandros Lattas,
Stylianos Moschoglou,
Stylianos Ploumpis,
Baris Gecer,
Abhijeet Ghosh,
Stefanos Zafeiriou
Abstract:
…a large dataset of facial shape and reflectance, which we have made public. We define a fast facial photorealistic differentiable rendering methodology with accurate facial skin diffuse and specular reflection, self-occlusion and subsurface scattering approximation. With this, we…
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Over the last years, many face analysis tasks have accomplished astounding performance, with applications including face generation and 3D face reconstruction from a single "in-the-wild" image. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, there is no method which can produce render-ready high-resolution 3D faces from "in-the-wild" images and this can be attributed to the: (a) scarcity of available data for training, and (b) lack of robust methodologies that can successfully be applied on very high-resolution data. In this work, we introduce the first method that is able to reconstruct photorealistic render-ready 3D facial geometry and BRDF from a single "in-the-wild" image. We capture a large dataset of facial shape and reflectance, which we have made public. We define a fast facial photorealistic differentiable rendering methodology with accurate facial skin diffuse and specular reflection, self-occlusion and subsurface scattering approximation. With this, we train a network that disentangles the facial diffuse and specular BRDF components from a shape and texture with baked illumination, reconstructed with a state-of-the-art 3DMM fitting method. Our method outperforms the existing arts by a significant margin and reconstructs high-resolution 3D faces from a single low-resolution image, that can be rendered in various applications, and bridge the uncanny valley.
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Submitted 11 December, 2021;
originally announced December 2021.
