Quote -  I know. Its a no win situation LOL. I opted for going with the 'this is how i rendered these promos' explanation instead of including 400 mat versions.

Also BB - I noticed that if you plug your standard VSS into Normal Diffuse instead of Alt_Diffuse it kills the GC network.

I'm sure its written somewhere - but why use the Alt_diffuse node instead of normal ??

Ummm, let's see if I learned my lessons properly...

Because Alt_Diffuse accepts and processes only shader information.
Diffuse_Color does calculations on what gets plugged into that channel for each light in the scene. Essentially this, according to BB:
**The Diffuse node formula (roughly) is:

Diffuse_Color * Diffuse_Value * Cosine(alpha) * LightColor * LightIntensity

That is only for one light. When there are multiple lights, that is evaluated for each light and these are all added together.**

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

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