Linear Workflow

Been investigating Linear Workflow and Gamma Correction. It seems that many of the tutorials on this are oversimplified, as most tell you to correct “anything that affects an object’s colour.” In practice though, on an mia_material_x it appears that only the Diffuse need be corrected – other channels, such as Specular, should only be corrected if a File Texture node is attached to it. That’s not a hard and fast rule – it’s just what seems to work on my files.

The misss_fast_skin shader, on the other hand, was initially a nightmare. Gamma correcting all the Subsurface layers yielded some really weird results, with highlights blown out and everything else turning muddy grey.

The best workflow seems to be connecting the OutValue of the shader into a Gamma Correct node, then connecting the output of that into the Additional Color of an mia_material_x shader, then turning down the specular highlights on that so that only the miss shader comes through. Interesting…