I’m a developer not an artist, and fairly new to working in linear mode. The main question I have is for the art style I’m going for, which will be better overall linear or gamma.
Art style is stylized. I would call it a flat look but I’m no expert and none of art is done yet. Albion Online is pretty close to what I want.
And does color grading when using gamma just make no sense, or is that something people do?
Depending on how your specific shaders work for your flat look, it may not make much difference between linear and gamma. If you have any amount of traditional highlights and shading with normal lights, linear could still be of benefit. Try both and see for yourself.
In terms of color grading, I wouldn’t think it would make any difference. Color grading should be just as effective for producing different looks/moods regardless of how the frames are originally rendered. It’s kind of like asking what kind of images are appropriate for Photoshop manipulation. Anything, really.
Linear always has better results especially with Post processing Stack and is more easy to create next gen lighting style in linear color space
Gama is better for low-end devices with better performance.