Subsurface scattering can accurately be modeled using photon mapping.

Rachel Bernstein stated that subsurface scattering has been added to character models, to give the characters a "painterly look".

Subsurface scattering is important in 3D computer graphics, being necessary for the realistic rendering of materials such as marble, skin, leaves, wax and milk.

Subsurface scattering is the effect evident when light enters a material and is scattered before being absorbed or reflected in a different direction.

As noted at the start of the section, one of the more obvious effects of subsurface scattering is a general blurring of the diffuse lighting.

This would be the first time that subsurface scattering would be used in a Pixar film, and a small team at Pixar worked out the practical problems that kept it from working in animation.

BSSRDF (Bidirectional scattering-surface reflectance distribution function or B surface scattering RDF) describes the relation between outgoing radiance and the incident flux, including the phenomena like subsurface scattering (SSS).

Subsurface scattering (or SSS), also known as subsurface light transport (SSLT), is a mechanism of light transport in which light penetrates the surface of a translucent object, is scattered by interacting with the material, and exits the surface at a different point.

Specifically, it is capable of simulating the refraction of light through a transparent substance such as glass or water, diffuse interreflection between illuminated objects, the subsurface scattering of light in translucent materials, and some of the effects caused by particulate matter such as smoke or water vapor.