Thanks gducatel, a few following questions:

1. So how should I divide materials per object, using maps and mixers? My experience doing this in V-ray and Mental Ray tells me I will take a severe hit in rendering time (specially if transparency varies across the mesh) is this different for 3delight?

2. Still struggling with UV tiles:  I assumed the setup was the same for the other renderers: mixer node set to add and wrap disabled, but this way I only get the first one. Following your advice and activating the wrap u and v I only get the first image tiled all over and I can't get the other images across.

3. I couldn't get this to work as well, using the misss shaders I can get subsurface scattering working only if the object has the 3delight attribute on, otherwise it renders diffuse. Anyway this goes back to my first question, I guess, how to get materials distributed without using clusters? Using the mixer and weightmaps won't allow me to bypass the misss shader, since it doesn't use the color port.

Hello Tralen,

I'm using materials on clusters in Softimage, all the time since 2004, mostly because of compatibility and easy transfer to another 3d, Max, games and so. They works for me in 3delight, too.
Discussions about material on clusters seems to be tradition on SI forums. Read this if you want...
However, 3delight seems to be more sensitive about materials on clusters. So here are a few recipes - maybe something of this is unnecessary, but anyway:

1: one cluster = one material. Applying the same material to multiple clusters in same object, that's a 2005 error, regularly. For example, if you have a "head" and "legs" cluster, you want two different materials - or you want to merge these clusters.
2: try to fill everything with clusters, don't use mix of master material and materials on clusters.
3: be careful about cluster overlap, 3delight could take the cluster ID differently than out-of-the-box render engine. Cluster overlap can happen with extruding, deleting edges or so, SI won't inform you about that.
4: if one involved material has a displacement shader, all others should have it, too. At least, scalar_save_state node with zero value.
5: in case of subdivs, use 3delight's subdivision. That is, zero subdivision threshold.

About subsurface shaders, honestly I don't using MI_sss emulation at all, too much of bad memories about that interface, no way to mix it with anything. Not an option, simple as that. Anyway I'll be very careful about localizing the any subsurface shader, especially the advanced shading model in 3dl. Form my understanding, SSS shader needs to "know" about another side of object too. Some heavy localization, let's say having a SSS on human's face but not under hair, could make a strange result - I think...