Practical aspects of spectral data in digital content production

Compared to path tracing, spectral rendering is still often considered to be a niche application used mainly to produce optical wave effects like dispersion or diffraction. And while over the last years more and more people started exploring the potential of spectral image synthesis, it is still widely assumed to be only of importance in high-quality offline applications associated with long render times and high visual fidelity. While it is certainly true that describing light interactions in a spectral way is a necessity for predictive rendering, its true potential goes far beyond that. Used correctly, not only will it guarantee colour fidelity, but it will also simplify workflows for all sorts of applications. Wētā Digital's renderer Manuka showed that there is a place for a spectral renderer in a production environment and how workflows can be simplified if the whole pipeline adapts. Picking up from the course last year, we want to continue the discussion we started as we firmly believe that spectral data is the future in content production. The authors feel enthusiastic about more people being aware of the advantages that spectral rendering and spectral workflows bring and share the knowledge we gained over many years. The novel workflows emerged during the adaptation of spectral techniques at a number of large companies are introduced to a wide audience including technical directors, artists and researchers. However, while last year's course concentrated primarily on the algorithmic sides of spectral image synthesis, this year we want to focus on the practical aspects. We will draw examples from virtual production, digital humans over spectral noise reduction to image grading, therefore showing the usage of spectral data enhancing each and every single part of the image pipeline.