Quote - VSS will "fix" any skin texture within reason.  Some textures are just bad, i.e., baked in specular highlights. 

The standard practice with VSS, retain render Gc and adjust VSS gamma.  Keep in mind, VSS skin template gamma will only affect the material.  Render gamma is applied to every thing in the scene.  Otherwise, you would need to incorporate Gc into all your material of every single prop and character in the scene.  Better to use Gc in your render settings and simply adjust VSS to suit.

...and, if I may be so bold to add: set all non-colour maps gamma settings to 1 via the Menu -> MaterialMods -> changeGamma script. But I agree with HBorre that you are better off using GC (and IDL) in your renders... remember, all materials in your scene will need looking at. This is why I would set some of your scene bits to invisible, change the material settings for each bit, render, get that sorted, and add bits as you go.

Also, 3 lights? If you are using IDL, 1 or max two lights are really all you need.

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

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