i've been 3d modeling for a while now and there are a few things (some new some old) that i still have yet to fully understand when dealing with photorealistic models. (bear with me i believe these questions largely deal with shaders, but since i know very little about shaders [beyond that you should use them] you can…
I am currently a big fan of the "blur-the-lightmap-and-reapply" method: it get a very nice, subtle (and that's the key) softening of the light striking the skin. I find the thin-skin translucency thing is way overdone - in real life it's a very subtle, and rarely seen effect except in certain special cases (sunlight coming…