u/AndreiDespinoiuin r/gameenginedevs • Recommends
On “Do you need Linear space ?”
You mean like linear space vs. sRGB space? It basically refers to the fact that all pictures and videos on the internet are "gamma corrected", meaning they have a gamma curve (usually of 1/2.2) applied to them. This video explains it better: [video
And you need linear space for processing images that are meant to represent data (e.g. normal maps, position maps, height maps, etc). You don't want sRGB for those.
Or do you mean linear space as in linear algebra? It's farily obvious why you need linear algebra. Because the screen has an X and Y axis, forming a grid, a Cartesian coordinate system. And you need to determine distances between points, normalize vectors, all sorts of good stuff,…