Making the Cheddar Warrior - the cheesy bits
You could argue that the entire Cheddar Warrior scene is a bit cheesy. But there's a wedge of Edam cheese in there that presented its own challenge along with its own simple solution


Basic model
You don't get 3D models much simpler than this one. It's ready for some cheesy materials now.



Materials applied
Here's the cheese with some nice cheese-coloured materials on it. But it doesn't look right. That yellow part doesn't look like cheese. It looks more like yellow plastic. I couldn't figure out why at first.



Crusty edges
Edam cheese is a bit tougher around the edges and also a bit darker. So I've made that change. It looks a bit better, but it still looks fake.



SSS
Then I realised that cheese is not completely opaque. It lets a tiny bit of light through the thin parts, and the solution was suddenly obvious.

In many materials, light penetrates the skin and scatters for a short distance below the surface. That's what happens in things like human skin, a glass of milk, candle wax, and cheese. 3D artists call that lighting effect 'sub-surface scattering'. Most of the time we shorten that down to 'SSS' to save thinking about all that spelling.

Once I turned on the SSS in my cheese it looked good enough to eat. I could move onto the next thing in the scene.



Making the Cheddar Warrior
Making a mouse
The hairy bits
The foreground leaves
The background tree
The hazy bits
Looking through the water
Sticking it all together

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