Great questions.

Quote - Can PP2010 output more than 8 effective bits per channel?

Yes - in render settings you check the "HDRI-Optimized" output option.

Quote - That does not necessarily mean that the images produced contain more levels per R/G/B than an 8-bit png file, but it probably does, at least for the main image.

Yes you get full floating-point output with no loss of precision. In 16-bit TIFF you get some loss of precision and can't go over 1.0, but you 65536 shades. In HDR or EXR format, you get the actual number with the full precision allowed in those formats. Numbers greater than 1 are not clipped.

Quote - But what about the multi-pass rendering with PSD- output? For example, an output of a higher resolution depth-channel would really be useful.

Yes - full resolution for all passes. The post-processing options are maximized.

Quote - Can PP2010 read textures with more than 8 bits per channel?

Yes, but this is true of Poser 7 and 8 as well. No need for Pro just to get this feature.

Quote - Is the gamma-correction facility an all-or-nothing switch in PP2010?

Yes all or nothing on output, but there's more to it than just output gamma. Incoming material is linearized - anti-gamma correcting the incoming colors from images. On each image, you control the individual anti-gamma value. This is a point of confusion for those unclear on what a "linear rendering equation" is for and why you care, but it's very important. One of the things perceived as "extra work" is the necessity to think about and specify the anti-gamma value for each image. It assumes you want the render gamma to apply as anti-gamma on incoming material. This is wrong for bump, displacement, and transparency, but there is a 3-click Python script to fix that for the whole scene automatically.

Quote - As a side note i am also wondering what the color-dialog from the material room might look like when GC is enabled.

Excellent question. All the color chips on nodes are assumed to be that what you see is what you want, but in linear value. So PPro anti-gamma corrects these. They look the same, but the numerical value is the linear one, not the one necessary to see what you see.

Generally when a color chip is used to say what color you want to see, the anti-gamma corrected value is what you really want and that's what you get. When you really want .5, you should connect a math node and type .5. Or use the User_Defined node, in which you enter a color as floating point numbers in linear scale.

Also, there is a new node (I've never talked about it, nor have I seen anybody else do so) called the "Gamma" node. This node let's you specify a color and a gamma value to control how that color is interpreted. So you can use this node to enter gray 127 directly from the color picker and you can be sure that if you tell it that is the Gamma=1.0 value, it will not be anti-gamma corrected, even if you enable render GC.

You can also connect things to the Gamma node and choose which gamma to apply to its input, and which direction (correct or anti-correct).

Note: Failure to understand that color chips are anti-gamma corrected leads to confusion amongst those new to linear render equations. The Daz shaders put a light blue value in the Diffuse_Color. When anti-gamma corrected, this is no longer light blue, but dark blue!!! Thus, they look horrible. These shaders need to be edited because they are making an assumption that they are NEVER going to be used with the linear rendering equation, which is the wrong assumption.

I usually suggest that people just discard those shaders and use mine. Applied via VSS with one click, you get a linear rendering equation compatible shader that is compatible with any version of Poser. As well, mine looks more real, often producing a credible SSS effect.

Currently the VSS shader needs to be told to set gamma = 1.0 when render GC is used, but there is a thread somewhere showing how to add two nodes to make it automatic. And - I will be publishing an updated set of VSS template shaders that are yet another improvement in realism, have more options, and automatically detect render GC and switch off the shader GC automatically.

Note also that a color chip that is set to pure white is the same RGB 255, 255, 255 regardless of gamma. Those are safe to use in both the linear and non-linear rendering equations.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)