Nuts, I was worried there was only a workaround for it. The whole point of using the aiImage node is that the maya image node is actually two nodes and I was hoping to conserve a little file space + make everything a little neater. Maybe in arnold 7.
It's in the title. Some textures with the maya image node would need to be RAW color space and alpha as luminance, Some do not need this. The aiImage node that I'd really like to start using doesn't have an option for luminance/alpha. Does anyone know?
Just forgot that I never got an answer to this and googled "ai image node alpha luminance". The third result is this thread of me, asking this question, 2 years ago.