The one thing that is missing from my traditional Photoshop-based workflow is what would essentially be the Transition modifier that is available for normals, but for color/grayscale layers. Like Photoshop's Outer/Inner Glow, or Blender compositor's Dilate/Erode node. Ideally it might also have a curve input to control the falloff (linear vs exponential, etc.).
I do suspect this may not be possible since in all my research I cannot find any shader node setup that can achieve this effect, it seems only possible via the compositor.
Yes, the advanced effect like that is not possible yet in blender unless it can do texture-based nodes. The current transition effect on normal channel is also a bit of a hack.
The one thing that is missing from my traditional Photoshop-based workflow is what would essentially be the Transition modifier that is available for normals, but for color/grayscale layers. Like Photoshop's Outer/Inner Glow, or Blender compositor's Dilate/Erode node. Ideally it might also have a curve input to control the falloff (linear vs exponential, etc.).
I do suspect this may not be possible since in all my research I cannot find any shader node setup that can achieve this effect, it seems only possible via the compositor.