Chapter 24. The Importance of Being Linear — Gritz, d'Eon
- Source: https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/gpugems3/part-iv-image-effects/chapter-24-importance-being-linear
- Volume: GPU Gems 3
- Note: add-only excerpt for wiki ingest; images omitted; prose and key listings kept.
Summary of full chapter read
Monitors ≈ gamma 2.0–2.4 nonlinear; light transport is linear. JPEG/sRGB textures are precorrected. Symptoms if ignored: wrong mip averages, harsh Lambert falloff, skin SSS color shifts / blue-green shadow edges, specular yellowing.
Cure
- Assume ~2.2 for players (or calibrate).
- Linearize color textures (sRGB formats preferred — filter in linear on GF8+); do NOT linearize normals/alpha/height.
- Gamma-correct as last step (sRGB framebuffer with correct blending).
Intermediate 8-bit linear buffers lose dark precision — prefer 16F or sRGB FBOs. Two wrongs (nonlinear tex + no output gamma) look OK-ish but break lighting edits.