Nope…you’re exactly right. That subsurface causes no end of problems. Smooth shading in general, seems to be a major issue here. I know I had a reference somewhere on how to do this. I’ll see if I can find it. That being said, your initial solution of just letting the shader do it’s work may be ideal, especially depending on how close you’re going to get your camera.
EDIT: The reference I was thinking of, which does basically accomplish what you’re looking for, was in the Sci-Fi Helmet tutorial, but it relied heavily on the Remesh Tool and Sculpting to achieve the final product.
