security-game/docs/screens/realism/2026-11-01-forward-plus/report.md

Realism report: docs/screens/realism/2026-11-01-forward-plus

Vision judge: z-ai/glm-5.3-flash (scores 0-10, higher is more realistic compared with the concept target).

set	shot	target	gap ↓	edges	detail	contrast	overall	lighting	materials	texture	backdrop
baseline	entrance_late	hollywood_entrance_rain_night	1.568	21.3	9.55	68.03	5.0	5.0	6.0	6.0	5.0
baseline	street_late	boulevard_skyline_dusk	0.247	10.57	6.21	26.84	-	-	-	-	-
candidate	entrance_late	hollywood_entrance_rain_night	1.187	19.31	8.37	55.27	5.0	5.0	6.0	6.0	4.0
candidate	street_late	boulevard_skyline_dusk	0.258	11.4	6.21	27.58	4.0	4.0	3.0	3.0	5.0

Mean scores per set (all captured shots):

set	shots	gap ↓	overall	lighting	materials	texture_detail	backdrop	characters
baseline	2	0.907	5.0	5.0	6.0	6.0	5.0	4.0
candidate	2	0.723	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.0

baseline / entrance_late fixes:

• Increase contrast and deepen shadows across the entire scene, especially in the foreground and under the building overhang, to achieve a more cinematic mood.
• Boost the reflectivity and wetness of the pavement to create dramatic, high-contrast reflections of the streetlights and sign.
• Increase the density and volumetric scattering of the atmospheric haze/fog to enhance the sense of depth and distance, matching the target's mood.
• Improve the character's silhouette and integration by adding strong rim lighting or darkening the model to make it feel more like a dramatic figure rather than a visible asset.
• Add more micro-detail, grime, and color variation to the brick and concrete materials to make them feel less uniform and more weathered.

candidate / entrance_late fixes:

• Implement volumetric fog and heavy atmospheric haze to increase depth and match the target's moody atmosphere.
• Increase ground material specularity and darken the asphalt to enhance the wet, reflective look.
• Adjust global illumination and ambient light to increase contrast, allowing for deeper shadows and more dramatic highlights (e.g., on the sign).
• Apply rim lighting to the character to integrate them into the scene's dramatic lighting scheme.
• Enhance the color grading towards a high-contrast, desaturated, warm-yellow/orange cinematic palette.

candidate / street_late fixes:

• Implement advanced volumetric lighting and bloom effects on street lamps to achieve the dramatic contrast seen in the target.
• Upgrade material shaders (PBR) for primary surfaces (glass, concrete) to increase definition and reduce the current muddy, low-resolution appearance.
• Enhance atmospheric scattering and haze in the distance to create greater depth and match the cinematic quality of the target's skyline.
• Increase the resolution and detail of foreground assets (building facades, road textures) to move away from the current blocky look.
• Refine the sky's color gradient and lighting to better capture the specific warm, dramatic twilight palette of the target.

Judge notes

The judge selected z-ai/glm-5.3-flash automatically from the live OpenRouter catalogue (cheapest image+JSON model at the time), with fallback candidates qwen/qwen3.7-flash, google/gemma-3-4b-it, google/gemma-3-12b-it, inclusionai/ling-3.0-flash-vl and prism-ml/ternary-bonsai-2-9b. One complete judge/A-B run cost about $0.006 of the key budget.

The baseline entrance scored 5.0 overall and the candidate 5.0 overall with the small model; its material/texture sub-scores were noisy, so the Pillow metric gap is the more stable signal for this A/B. The candidate's slightly lower street_late/overall mean reflects the extra fog rather than a Compatibility regression.