Project-M/.claude/skills/art-dev/references/style-and-practices.md

# Style essentials + Blender best-practices (LANTERN art-dev)

The **binding** style lives in [[Art_Direction_Lantern]] (constitution) + [[Lantern_Art_Pipeline_Recipes]] (manual). This file is the *operative subset* to hold in-head during a session, plus the **Blender-beginner** coaching the operator needs. When this and the art docs disagree, the docs win.

## The five rules that shape every asset

1. **One material, color by UV placement.** Never texture/unwrap per asset. Model → *place* each face's UV onto a palette-atlas colour band (`Closest`-filtered) → flat colour. Three shader roles only: **Lit-Palette** (statics), **Emissive-Gloam** (glows), **Skinned-Palette** (creatures/suits, deformation-aware). Batching + coherence + zero texture skill = the solo-dev factory.
2. **Faceted low-poly, silhouette-first.** Flat shading (`face.smooth=False`). The read is the *shape* + *light*, not detail — "a readable blob with a great light beats a detailed model nobody can see."
3. **Budgets (hard):** props ≤ ~800 tris · creatures ≤ ~3k · hero/boss/suit-frame ≤ ~6k. Report tris every time; over-budget → decimate or drop parts (e.g. body OR armour, not both).
4. **The palette IS the ontology:** warm gold/amber = **true light (ours)** · cold corpse-green/blue = **gloam (the deep's counterfeit)** · lure-red = **bait** · white-hot = **conversion**. Pick an asset's emissive hue for what it *is* (diver beacon = warm; wisp/gloam-enemy = cold green; ambient flora = cold teal; lure = red).
5. **The readability law:** value-first (carry every warm/cold read by luminance + shape + **flicker-cadence**, not hue alone — steady = true, flicker = false; this is the colorblind answer). Reads at **200 px**. A **capture grade** (lifted/saturated) for shots; the murk grade is darker.

## Rig families (skinned assets — clips are made per FAMILY, not per creature)

| Family | Body plan | Members | Base to kitbash |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Drifter** | spine-chain swimmer | Wisp-Choir motes, lure-fish, serpents | procedural blobs + tail beads (no humanoid rig) |
| **Crawler** | legged/scuttling | Grindylow, kappa-kin, Tenders | (quadruped — separate rig) |
| **Strider** | biped-ish | Drowner, Wrecker, **suit-frames** | Synty humanoid (`SM_Chr_*` in the combined FBX) |

Suit-frames = kitbash on the Synty humanoid (helmet/tank/plate swaps over the proven rig); a custom silhouette sculpt is a later upgrade, not a blocker.

## Assets built so far (in `<repo>/ArtSource/Blender/`, the style-proof set)

`Prop_CargoCrate` (92 tris, statics/palette proof) · `Prop_GlowFlora` (380, teal ambient) · `Creature_WispMote` (110, gloam-green Drifter) · `Creature_Drowner` (2742, Synty-crew Strider kitbash — gloam skin, hunched, bone-parented glowing eyes) · `Suit_Bathynaut_Kitbash` (8.4k ⚠ over hero budget — body+armour+kit; game-ready pass must pick body-or-armour + decimate). Concepts: suit kit + wisp not rig-bound; drowner posed not animated. Pending: the in-engine Unity bake + the 3 master ShaderGraphs (esp. Emissive-Gloam's flicker param).

## Coaching a Blender beginner (the operator)

On **every** handoff, give a short **numbered, literal** step list — only the keys they need for that step — and one line on *why* (the best practice). The vocabulary:

| Do this | How (tell them exactly) |
|---|---|
| Orbit the view | **middle-mouse drag** (or numpad `4/6/8/2`) |
| Zoom | **scroll** (or `Ctrl`+MMB drag) |
| Pan | **Shift**+MMB drag |
| Frame selected | **`Numpad .`** (or View ▸ Frame Selected) |
| Front / side / top view | **`Numpad 1` / `3` / `7`** |
| Select an object | **left-click** it; **Shift**+click to add to selection |
| Move (grab) | **`G`**, move mouse, **left-click** to confirm, **`Esc`/right-click** to cancel |
| Move on one axis | **`G` then `X`/`Y`/`Z`** (e.g. `G Z` = up/down only) |
| Scale / Rotate | **`S`** / **`R`** (same confirm/cancel; add an axis letter to constrain) |
| Save | **`Ctrl S`** |

- Hand the operator only **intuitive direct-manipulation** (grab/scale/rotate a selected object onto a target). Keep the fiddly/risky ops (mode switches, modifiers, bmesh, export settings, materials) **headless** on my side.
- When one axis is hard to see in a single view (depth), tell them to ignore it — "place it in this front view, I'll snap the depth after" (raycast/shrinkwrap).
- Explain the *why* briefly so they learn: flat shading = the low-poly look; UVs onto a band (not unwrapped) = the shared-material rule; apply transforms before export = correct scale in Unity; under the tri budget = it stays cheap in the dark.
- If a request would break a rule (e.g. "paint a texture", "make it super smooth/high-poly"), say so plainly and offer the palette-correct / budget-correct way.

## Best-practice do / don't

**Do:** faceted flat shading · UVs placed on atlas cells · metric units, 1 u = 1 m · feet at z=0, origin sensible · apply rotation/scale before export · pack textures before saving the `.blend` · one shared material per asset · report tris vs budget · verify with a hi-res render under murk, judging silhouette + value + 200px · **also render from the game camera (top-down ARPG, Pitch 45°/FOV 55°), both facings — put detail + emissive accents on TOP-facing surfaces (crown/shoulders/back-pack), not the face the camera never sees** · keep each asset a separate master `.blend` under `ArtSource/Blender/`.

**Don't:** per-asset texture/unwrap · smooth-shade the low-poly forms · exceed the tri budget silently (log the upgrade if you ship a placeholder) · overwrite a Synty pack FBX (GUID refs — new files only) · write into `Assets/` while a Unity session may be live · trust a dark screenshot (check material *values*) · trust `WorldRenderBounds`/bone reads for a *skinned/posed* mesh (they return the bind AABB — use the operator's eyes) · leave emission at strength 4–6 on AgX (whites out — Standard + saturated color, ~1.5–3).

## The pipeline into Unity (hand off to /dots-dev)

Statics: model → export `.glb` → collider policy (cosmetic = strip colliders/no ghost; blocking = `Environment` collider baked into the gameplay subscene, mesh Read/Write on) → assign the shared `M_Lit_Palette` → bake into subscene → verify baked CollisionWorld + a Play screenshot. Skinned: Humanoid rig → per-action clips (Key All Bones, bake-to-pose) → FBX → Rukhanka ingest (`CreateFromThisModel`) → `Skinned-Palette` → prefab via `EnemyRigTools` (ownerless interpolated ghost; server strips Rukhanka). Full checklists + gotchas → [[Lantern_Art_Pipeline_Recipes]] + `CLAUDE.md` (Animation / Art-import sections).