I'm pretty sure there is no subsurface scattering in frosted glass. Indeed frosted glass is just regular glass with a frosted surface. Below the surface, it's just pure glass, which does not scatter light.
Tbh it’s more like an edge-lit acrylic effect. We did call it a “subsurface effect” when I worked at Forza but may have been using the term loosely. Forza also was going for acrylic rather than glass and we had several acrylic samples around the office to play with.
That being said my example is not acrylic… and it’s not quite glass either as you mention. It’s more like glass with some artistic license.
I agree that it looks nice and similar to what SSS eventually renders like. But strictly speaking it's not SSS. Actual SSS happens when the medium is somewhat transparent (light can enter the material) but also diffusive (light gets randomly bounced around within the material). Glass lacks this second property. A good example of a material exhibiting strong SSS would be wax.
Not that this matters much anyway, the effect is cool nonetheless, albeit a little bit improperly named.
If both sides are frosted, then you will have a similar effect as subsurface scattering.
Yes, it looks similar. But it's still not sub surface scattering.
Light inside the frosted glass just goes in a straight direction. It will not behave like this : https://blendamator.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/schema-ra...
