Replace the generic boulevard facade with a stylized 6840 Hollywood Blvd block: six Ionic columns, eight stone steps, Masonic frieze/medallions, event banners, side doors, El Capitan Theatre and retail neighbours, Ovation Hollywood arcade, Walk of Fame and four-lane street markings.
Add the Day and Night Hollywood venue-menu rows. Night uses a phase-time offset so a full-length shift stays in LATE while the clock starts at zero; late routine traffic keeps the street populated and the offset round-trips through checkpoint restore.
Retune local-light falloff to linear attenuation, add a cool north sky fill, and use the smooth limestone facade texture. Refresh the staged gallery and map references; add geometry-budget, menu, night-offset and late-traffic tests.
Package a Forward+ preset with volumetric fog, SDFGI and a volumetric flashlight
for a separate Linux/Windows Desktop HQ zip. Gate the effects on a real
RenderingDevice, tune LATE fog, and adapt local light falloff for Godot 4.7.
Record the Compatibility/Forward+ A/B captures and metrics, add the artifact to
the build/publish scripts, and keep the default Compatibility/Web path
unchanged. Headless 231/231, Python 87/87; exported HQ binary boots with Vulkan.
Blender library
- Rebuild the face: sclera, iris and upper lid per eye, brow ridge, cheekbones,
nose bridge and tip, ears with lobes, split upper/lower lips.
- Give each hand four fingers plus a thumb and end every sleeve in a cuff ring.
- Raise CHAR_MAX_VERTS 4000 -> 5000 (16 avatars still cost ~6.9 ms of a 50 ms
frame), decimate the body to 26 %; characters are now 3,974-5,026 tris and
3,744-4,807 verts. Rebuild all 8 variants and re-bake their AO maps.
Capture tooling
- Add a `portrait` stage to capture_realism.gd: freeze one NPC, park the crowd
out of frame, stand the subject on open sidewalk, turn it into the camera and
put the guard on the sunlit side. New --portrait-type=N picks the role.
- Add the npc_portrait_day concept and map the shot to it, so avatar detail is
scored against a portrait instead of a wide street frame.
Flashlight
- Drop the fake additive beam (Materials.light_beam + the cone mesh): on GL
Compatibility a first-person camera inside the cone renders it as a filled
disc with a bright far ring. Keep the tight spot (14 deg, 20 m, energy 4.2)
and its headless test; the visible shaft is now planned behind a Forward+
preset.
Docs and task tracking
- Move the finished realism follow-ups (ground exposure, flashlight, NPC detail,
judge re-check) to DONE.md and expand TODO.md with step-by-step plans for NPC
gear fit, venue geometry plus the committed gallery, and the Forward+ preset.
- Record the decisions, gotchas and portrait recipe in MEMORY.md; update the
Blender contract, the concept README and the capture section of README.md.
- Refresh the gallery captures affected by the avatar rebuild.
Checks: headless 228/228, Python 86/86, blender_assets audit exit 0,
scene_concepts audit all GOOD, screen_designs compare 11 good / 0 bad,
smoke_npc_budget OK, boot clean (only the known headless mesh warning).
A GradientTexture1D varies along U, so the cone showed a bright ring; build a
1×64 vertical ramp for UV.y instead (faint at the lens, brightest near the
start, gone before the tip). Regenerate the affected captures; headless 227/227,
compare 11 good / 0 bad.
Widen and lengthen the additive beam cone and raise its near-end opacity so the
night flashlight reads on screen. Regenerate the staged captures; compare stays
11 good / 0 bad, headless 227/227.
- add the v2 runtime picks: per-phase skyline panoramas, brick, sidewalk
pavers, dry/wet asphalt, awning canvas, and their normal maps
- add the realism tooling and evidence: tools/scene_concepts.py, capture_realism.gd,
concept frames, reports/sheets, and tests
- retune phase lighting/fog/exposure, add sun yaw, brighten the night glow,
add the flashlight beam mesh, and rebuild the planter/tree assets
- regenerate all eleven staged screenshots from the current build; compare is
11 good / 0 bad
- finish the visual-alignment closeout in DONE/TODO, update architecture,
blender-assets, PLAN, and ignore rules (editable Blender sources untracked)
- keep the judge retry and document the verified default judge model
Verification: headless 227/227; Python tooling 86/86; check_screenshots 11/11.
Phase 4 of the v0.6.0 graphics plan:
- tools/bake_ao.py bakes 256² AO maps for every Blender character/gear/prop
(Cycles, existing UVs) next to each GLB; Materials.apply_ao() wires the red
channel into character slots, gear, and props. Compatibility has no SSAO.
- Regenerated brick/concrete/asphalt at 1024² with OpenRouter, derived tangent
normal maps via tools/make_normal_maps.py, and wired them through
SurfaceMaterials.textured() without changing UV scales.
- Evaluated Forward+: boots on desktop Vulkan, but the renderer is project-wide
and Web must stay GL Compatibility; v0.6.0 keeps Compatibility (decision in
MEMORY/plan). A desktop-only override is deferred.
- Recaptured screenshots; compare 11 good / 0 bad. Fixed marquee text alignment.
- Tests: baked AO maps exist for all 46 assets; prop/character AO material
checks; headless 222/222, Python 69/69, all smokes pass.
- Version 0.6.0; ADR-0013 accepted; README/architecture/blender-assets/plan and
TODO/DONE updated.
Wire the skinned model from ADR-0013 into NpcAvatar:
- _build_skinned_body() instantiates the imported npc_base.glb, binds the 14
armature bones, and keeps the procedural _build_body() as the offline
fallback (use_skinned_model can force it in tests)
- outfit_for()/layer_for() tint the five material slots through the new
SurfaceMaterials.npc_slot(); accessories and hand items attach under Rig/Head
- the existing limb pivots (Hip/Knee/Shoulder/Elbow/Hand + Head marker) keep the
old animation math; _sync_skeleton() copies their rotations to bones. Bone
pose rotation is absolute local orientation, so it is composed with the rest
basis (otherwise the whole body snaps into a broken pose)
- skinned rigs scale uniformly (non-uniform parent scale shears the skin) and
keep Rig/Head for the focus cone, nametag, and reaction tag
- commit the editable npc_base.blend plus a .gdignore: Godot's editor otherwise
tries to import the blend and hangs during --import
- npc_pipeline audit tests (contract, textures, clean GLB, committed source)
Verification: headless 212/212, Python tooling 60/60, NPC budget 16 avatars =
144 meshes at ~6.9 ms, movement/focus/props smokes pass, compare 11 good / 0 bad.
TODO Phases 0-3 checked; environment lift and release remain.
Rendering and presentation
- Shared surface-material module (src/game/materials.gd) with per-surface
roughness/metallic/uv profiles; ACES tonemapping, glow, fog and phase-driven sky
energy. WorldBuilder rebuilt on those profiles with facade windows that light up,
door trim/handles, curb, lane dashes, bollards, bench, bin and planter foliage.
- NPC silhouettes: per-role clothing palettes, caps/hoods/backpacks/sunglasses,
hands and shoes, arm/leg walk swing.
- Six generated low-poly GLB props (bollards, bench, bin, planter, newspaper box,
hydrant) built by tools/model_pipeline.py, loaded by WorldBuilder with a
procedural fallback; ADR-0012.
Selection and movement
- Focus ranking by view angle then distance (NpcFocus.rank_indices); Tab and the
mouse wheel cycle nearby people initially, right click clears focus with a
re-acquire grace, HUD shows the candidate count, Shift walks at half speed.
ADR-0011. Windowed smoke extended to cover wheel cycling and clearing.
QA tooling
- screen_designs.py catalogue grown to 19 screens (8 scene, 11 UI) plus a `list`
subcommand; draft generation keeps existing AI references unless --force.
Web export
- New Web preset using the non-threaded Godot template (static hosting, no
COOP/COEP). tools/build_releases.sh exports build/web and packages
build/step-line-web-<ver>.zip; publish_release.sh uploads it with the desktop
artifacts. test_web_export.gd covers the preset and release wiring.
Verification
- Headless suite 177 -> 181, Python tooling 53 tests, all eight smokes pass
(including the windowed focus/wheel smoke). Web bundle serves index.html,
index.wasm (35 MB) and index.pck (30 MB) with HTTP 200 from a static server.
- Version 0.3.0; README, PLAN, RELEASING, TODO/DONE and MEMORY updated.
zwitschi