Testing with Render layers to avoid changing shaders

So after  lots of wind being expelled and brain cells burning out, I think we may have found a solution to our mental ray not liking our skin shader problem...but will it save time or add it t0 our already time short budget?

Bascially Chris Dai and Asian John Do overheard me in class today discussing my dilemma with Arash.  I queried with Arash whether we could use Render Layers from some tutorials I cam across on the net, I just wasn't sure I had the right understanding or know how to do it.  Arash believed it was not the way to go to resolve the problem as he thinks i should redo the shaders and lighting for Charlie.  I really didn't want to as we are completly happy with how she looks...

So Chris and "John" said that yes I was right in thinking that i could use render layers, but I would need to make sure it was set up in the render globals...so I came home to test it out...

So I set up 4 layers - selected the objects that could only be rendered out on Maya software, then did the same thing for mental ray and selected everything for Occlusion layers...the trick is you have to setup overrides before you batch render.  But it took about 5 minutes to render out 1 frame...but remember i was rendering out 4 different methods - software (charlie), Mental Ray (remaining Assets), Occlusion (everything) and the Masterlayer..which I probaby should have turned off, althougth it does have some nice reflections and major shadows from the harsh light, but also alot of artefacting...that may be more to do with the lights though...anyhoo after a bit of compositing in shake...and very basic mind u...i got this...

Ok so its a bit dirty looking in comparison to the photoshop manipulated one, but i also am not that proficient in Shake...yet.  Although, in the above image i did manage to roto around the eyes to brighten them up a bit and blur on of the images to make softer shadows...obviously we can do alot more as well...Oh and actually, I didn't plug in the shiny reflection one btw...i just used the software render of Charlie, mental Ray of everything and the Occlusion render.

P.s. whats the go with the eyebrows?  LOL thats the next thing i have to fix i guess.