It started with a statement: shiny eyebrows are weird

And this is because I'm using a second layer to add some glossiness to the skin.
So that I started to create a "Brows Transparency Map"

Sometimes, the actual Face's Bump map is correct, but that's how I've found that numerous ones are frankly incorrect near the brows.
So, I create a decent one using a diffuse map, and I use it a this kind of setup:

Hence the result

A closure with just a color chip plugged into one side makes no sense.

ghostship2 posted at 4:59 PM Wed, 17 May 2023 - #4465619

A closure with just a color chip plugged into one side makes no sense.

Color plugged into what though? It's not plugged into a diffuse, reflect or anything else. The way those mix closures work is you want two shaders plugged in and then you'd have that color chip plugged into one of the shaders. the other shader would be your SSS setup that you have there

I'm not doubting of your knowledge, that's sure, I'm just trying to understand, once again sorry about that.
But if I change the color of the "Input Color" node, the brows are getting a new color.

I think what Ghostshio is saying is that usually you use a shader node in a mixclosure. It's for combining shader nodes (nodes under the shader category) rather than other nodes. In this case, the "proper" way would be to have the color node plugged into a diffusebsdf node. Though, theoretically, the diffuse has its own color chip so you could just use that to change the eyebrow color.

if you just plug a color into the output that is what you'll get: a color that doesn't respond to lighting or shadows. You need a shader plugged into that thing for it to work right

This is what I get for trying to follow a conversation between several people who are considerably smarter than I am.

@Thalek I’m sure there are things you know or can do that I don’t or can’t.  I didn’t have much time today to respond here with more articulate answers so I can see not following this convo.

If I guessed correctly, I should replace the Color Ship by a PrincipleBSDF one?
I've tested this:

And indeed that gives a better result (above: Color node, below: PBSDF)

Thank you!

That works.  You could simplify it by just using a DiffuseBsdf node as your source for color as RedPhantom mentioned in his comment.

Oh... I misread what RedPhatom wrote, sorry about that. I like what I'm getting now. Thank you.

DING DING DING DING DING!

ghostship2 posted at 10:16 AM Thu, 18 May 2023 - #4465675

DING DING DING DING DING!

WE HAVE A WINNER!!

I like this idea very much. My face setup is a bit more complex because I use a lip mask to soften the transition between the lips and the face.

needs a REALLY fine mask for the brows. I'll need to get a new WACOM tablet to paint that stuff. Sigh...

Speaking of lips mask: I'm using yours, Ghostship2, but still find that line around the lips, probably because the color of the lips itself doesn't extend enough.

Sometimes it's supportable, sometimes not.
Here, I can do with

I've tried to play with the Scatter Group ID but I haven't succeed to remove that line.

can you post a bigger render of those lips?

Also: are you using the same skin setup on both the lips and face?

Here is my setup, inspired by yours:

Note that the Face Skin Scatter Group ID = 1
The Lips Mask is yours.

The Subsurface radius is 0.482, 0.169, 0.109, but I'm getting the same effect with your values

And if I use Scatter Group ID=1 for the face in the setup here, I'm loosing that weird greenish line but will what I call a kind of moustache line 

OK, I think I miss-typed some roughness values in the SSS shader setup. I think I said increase roughness by 1. I meant to say .1. I think your roughness values are way too high and also your lip bump values. I get a nice smooth transition between the lip and the face skin

try something closer to these roughness and bump settings

After having corrected the  values, indeed, I'm getting this

But I thought I could get rid of was what the green arrows are showing, but after having experimented a bit with different lips masks, I found that something is wrong at the bitmap level because the shape of of lips is smaller than what is on the bitmaps, and it's a parameter that can't be changed using morphs.

Here I replaced the face bitmap by a simple color on the Lips material:

I Suppose that it's something that should be corrected on the bitmap, actually not doable by me  (already tried - lol)

Never mind, i'll live with this... "moustache"  Thank you anyway for your help.

I want a verification of the Scatter Group ID, isn't it dependent on the Material Zone and not how many are present PrincipledBsdf nodes within a Material Zone?

From what I've understood, the Scatter Group ID could be used to avoid weird effects when using SSS on overlapping surfaces, but in V13.0.339, there's a new "Legacy Scatter" checkbox that can help (avoids SSS glow)

@Y-Phil

Open the face map in Photoshop. Copy the map to a second layer. Erase everything on the second layer but the mouth. Enlarge the mouth on layer 2. Make sure to use a soft brush when erasing. Make sure the new lips are in the right place and collapse the layers and save the image with a new name. 

@Y-Phil

Open the face map in Photoshop. Copy the map to a second layer. Erase everything on the second layer but the mouth. Enlarge the mouth on layer 2. Make sure to use a soft brush when erasing. Make sure the new lips are in the right place and collapse the layers and save the image with a new name. 

Ok, I'm approaching what I want, I still need to practice:

The idea is to lower the brightness
Original:

What I'm working on:

The way: using the brush, in almost transparent mode, down from pure white to below 50% brightness, I think that the right word for the brush mode is Luminosity.
It's useful also to kind of hide a slight burned in specular effect, example from this:

To this:

Not perfect but still better 

ghostship2 posted at 1:54 AM Thu, 18 May 2023 - #4465645

@Thalek I’m sure there are things you know or can do that I don’t or can’t.  I didn’t have much time today to respond here with more articulate answers so I can see not following this convo.

@Y-Phil

something still off about your shader/bump/rouhness? I'm not getting that SSS error at the edges of the zones.

can you post a shot of the texture map for the lips? It looks a bit unnatural. Also, If you send me the maps I can fix them for you in Photoshop. I do that stuff all the time.

The original:

What I have done so far, using my poor Photoshop skills:

Yes, this is a cross post I thought it best to post this in my skin shader thread AND this one.

Y-Phil had a valid point about the eyebrows being to diffuse and not saturated enough. I think I've come up with a solution. The invert and Brightness/contrast nodes exclude/modulate the roughness for the eyebrows. Have a look

I love your idea, which I'm mixing with mine: the ability to tint slightly the brows:

I've noted that your idea gives a better result near the lacrimal: in the green circle there's some specular which I find wrong, on the left: no specular effect.

Thank you "Uncle Ghostship" 😁

Note that my setup uses a second layer, to give some slight effect on the skin, easier to control with my toolbox