docs: product proposal

doc/en/MS1-ProductProposal.md

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+# MS1-Product Proposal
+
+## One-Sentence Product Summary
+
+This product is a 2D pixel-art game asset generation tool built on top of a game asset management system. It is designed to help 2D pixel-art game developers efficiently generate, manage, and reuse stylistically consistent game assets.
+
+---
+
+## Target Users
+
+The product targets **pixel art / character art enthusiasts, indie game developers, small game teams, and game prototype creators**. The distinction lies in **their intended use cases rather than their professional skill levels**.
+
+- **Pixel art / character art enthusiasts** represent a relatively large user base but are not the core target audience. Their individual usage is relatively low, and their willingness to pay is limited. Their primary value is user acquisition and community exposure rather than direct monetization.
+- **Indie game developers** can generally be divided into two groups:
+  - Individuals or teams with no artistic capability at all, who require a more complete AI-powered solution.
+  - Individuals or teams with limited art staff and low art team productivity, who need AI assistance to improve productivity. These users are offered a "vibe creating" / "AI assistant creating" solution integrated into the creative environments indie developers commonly use.
+- **Game prototype creators** primarily target those who want to rapidly develop a game demo. During the demo phase, the speed of developing basic game functionality is clearly much faster than producing art assets. It is also possible that art teams may directly use AI to generate assets during the demo phase rather than spending effort on drawing. In essence, these needs largely overlap with the two categories of indie developers.
+
+---
+
+## Problems We Solve
+
+When using general-purpose AI image generation tools for game development, users commonly encounter the following issues:
+
+1. A single generation result is disconnected from real game development workflows — you only get a single image, and cannot directly obtain animation frames, spritesheets, tilesets, or game engine objects.
+2. Multiple assets within the same game project are generated independently, and the AI lacks project-level context, easily resulting in inconsistent art style, proportions, color palettes, and design specifications.
+3. A single asset often requires multiple rounds of generation and modification, but general chat-based AI tools make it difficult to centrally manage conversations, historical records, and branching for that asset.
+4. Characters, animations, weapons, sound effects, and environments are inherently related, yet these relationships are typically not recorded by the system, forcing users to repeatedly provide the same context.
+5. Generated results still require manual cropping, frame extraction, file organization, and format conversion before they can be imported into engines such as Unity or Godot.
+6. Music and sound effect creation has an even higher barrier than general image asset creation. While users without drawing skills can still express ideas through rough sketches, users with no musical knowledge typically find it very difficult to start creating BGM or sound effects on their own.
+7. Some similar products are disconnected from development workflows and cannot be integrated into actual work processes.
+
+Therefore, the goal of this product is to build a pixel-art-oriented one-stop 2D game asset creation and management platform that enables users to generate, edit, relate, manage, and deliver game assets within a unified project context.
+
+---
+
+## Core Concepts & Information Architecture
+
+### Project
+
+To help users continuously generate, manage, and maintain assets for the same game, we introduce the concept of a **Project**. A Project typically corresponds to a game, a game demo, or a themed asset pack with a unified style, serving as the workspace for the entire asset production process.
+
+There are three ways to create a Project: import an existing game, have a game idea, or have no game idea and create the simplest project. Currently, priority is given to implementing Project creation with a game idea.
+Each Project includes:
+- Project Name
+- Game Type
+- Visual Style
+- Target Platform (e.g., PC, Web)
+- Game Description
+- Visual Direction
+
+A large image (Visual Direction) is generated, which includes as many examples of Characters, UI, Background, Objects, and other Assets as possible to serve as a reference for subsequent asset generation. If unsatisfied, users can modify the prompt and regenerate, or upload their own image as a replacement.
+
+A Project provides the following capabilities:
+
+- **Unified AI Context**
+  - The information provided by users when creating a Project becomes the default AI context for the Project and is automatically referenced when generating Characters, UI, Backgrounds, Objects, and other assets, reducing repetitive prompt input and maintaining stylistic consistency across the project as much as possible.
+
+- **Centralized Asset Management**
+  - Users can create, browse, and manage multiple Assets within a Project.
+  - All Assets belong to a single Project, ensuring complete isolation between different games or asset packs.
+
+---
+
+### Asset
+
+To help users continuously iterate on and manage game assets, we introduce the concept of **Asset**. An Asset is an asset management unit within a Project — each Asset corresponds to an independent asset in a game. For example, in *Stardew Valley*, Abigail could be a Character Asset, Pelican Town could be a Scenery Asset, a wooden chest could be an Object Asset, and the backpack interface could be a UI Asset.
+
+#### Character
+
+A Character represents all the information of a character, managing one or more protoTypes (prototype images) of that character, Animations generated from protoTypes, and sound effects attached to corresponding Animations.
+
+A Character includes:
+- Asset Name
+- Creative brief (the user's specific description of this Character)
+- Canvas size (the canvas size for the generated Character, e.g., 32×32px)
+- Perspective (the user can choose Top-down, Side-on, or Isometric)
+- Reference (reference images)
+- Belongs to Project
+
+After defining a Character, the AI generates a protoType for the user, which describes the Character's appearance information.
+A protoType includes:
+- Name
+- Belongs to Character
+- AI-generated image asset (currently presented as multi-directional sprites)
+
+Once satisfied, users can generate Animations attached to this Character based on the protoType. An Animation includes:
+- Animation Name
+- First Frame (the first frame of the Animation)
+- Description (a specific description of the motion to generate; users can write their own or use our presets such as idle and then modify)
+- Frame count (4–16 frames)
+- AI-generated frame image resources
+- Belongs to Character
+A Character can have multiple Animations associated with it.
+
+We support adding sound effects to Animations. A sound effect includes:
+- Belongs to Character
+- Animation (the corresponding animation)
+- Description (sound effect description)
+- AI-generated sound effect resource
+
+#### Object
+
+An Object represents a static or interactive object in a game. Similar to Character, it contains one or more protoTypes (prototype images), Animations generated from protoTypes, and sound effects attached to corresponding Animations.
+
+#### UI
+
+A UI Asset represents a set of UI components. In the first phase, we focus on the most basic static UI. The second phase will add different states (e.g., hover) to UI components, and the final phase will provide UI animation capabilities.
+A UI includes:
+- Asset Name
+- Style (overall style description for this set of UI components)
+- Reference (style reference images)
+- Belongs to Project
+
+A large composite image is presented to the user and then sliced. This image contains all Components. A Component represents a specific UI component (currently only the most basic single-state static UI component), and includes:
+- Name
+- Belongs to UI
+- Size (the size specification of the Component)
+- The sliced resource
+![alt text](/doc/image/ui-example.png)
+
+#### Background
+
+Background includes two specific Asset types: Scenery and TileSet.
+
+##### Scenery
+
+Scenery represents a scene displayed as multiple stacked layers, and includes:
+- Asset Name
+- Style (overall style description for this scene)
+- Layer num (number of layers)
+- Aspect ratio (e.g., 16:9)
+- Reference (reference images)
+![alt text](/doc/image/secenery-example.png)
+- Belongs to Project
+
+It manages a number of Layers corresponding to Layer num. A Layer includes:
+- Name
+- Description
+- AI-generated resource
+
+After generation, users can directly see the effect of multiple layers stacked together. If unsatisfied with certain layers, they can further modify specific layers.
+
+##### TileSet
+
+A TileSet represents a set of tile resources, and includes:
+- Asset Name
+- Description (description of this TileSet)
+- Reference (reference images)
+![alt text](/doc/image/tile-example.png)
+- Belongs to Project
+
+A TileSet manages multiple user-defined Items. An Item is an independently placeable unit with a logical concept (for example, a bed may occupy two Tiles — these two Tiles individually have no logical meaning; only the two combined as a bed form the Item). A large Tile Set image is provided to the user and sliced into individual Tiles, which are assigned to their respective Items based on the user's preset configuration.
+
+An Item includes:
+- Name
+- Description (specific description of this Item's content)
+- Shape(e.g. 16X32)
+- Location (position (x, y))
+- Belongs to TileSet
+
+A Tile, as the basic tile unit of a TileSet, includes:
+- Belongs to TileSet
+- Belongs to Item
+- The sliced resource
+
+#### Audio
+
+Audio is distinct from animation-attached sound effects. Audio is an Asset type typically used for generating BGM, ambient sounds, and similar audio for games. It includes:
+- Asset Name
+- Style (music style; users can choose preset styles such as rock, or write their own prompts)
+- Reference (audio reference)
+- Length (duration)
+- Belongs to Project
+
+At this stage, only simple trimming and speed adjustment are supported. Track functionality will be introduced later for more flexible processing.
+
+#### Asset provides the following general capabilities:
+
+- **Continuous Asset Iteration**
+  - Users can repeatedly perform AI generation, partial repainting, and manual fine-tuning around the same Asset.
+  - Every modification is retained within the current Asset rather than creating a new independent resource, making it easy for users to continuously refine the same asset.
+
+- **Record Management**
+  - Assets include built-in Record management. Each time a user uses AI generation, a new Record is automatically created.
+  - Users can browse historical records, restore any previous record, or select an Asset and copy it into a new Asset.
+
+- **Asset Associations**
+  - Assets support AI-automated association relationships. The system automatically references these related assets as context during generation or modification, improving the consistency of generated results.
+
+- **Tag Classification**
+  - Users can add one or more Tags to an Asset for classification, quick search, and batch modification.
+  - The same Tag can be associated with multiple Assets, making it convenient to manage a group of assets with shared characteristics.
+
+- **Asset Export**
+  - Assets can be exported into formats such as PNG, GIF, Spritesheet, Tileset, and JSON depending on the asset type, and can also be further converted into resource formats required by game engines such as Unity or Godot, enabling users to use them out of the box.
+
+---
+
+### Record
+
+To support continuous iteration and historical traceability of game assets, we introduce the concept of **Record**.
+
+A Record is a persistent history entry for an Asset. Each time a user confirms a creation or edit operation, the system automatically creates a new Record that captures the complete state of the Asset at that moment, without overwriting any previous history.
+
+A Record provides the following capabilities:
+
+- **Automatic Saving**
+  - Every creation or save operation that requires user confirmation automatically generates a new Record, such as AI Generate, Save.
+  - Users do not need to save manually — the system automatically persists the history, allowing users to focus on asset creation.
+
+- **Complete History**
+  - Each Record stores a complete snapshot of the Asset at the time it was created.
+
+- **Historical Rollback**
+  - Users can revert to a previous historical record to recover from problems caused by incorrect operations.
+
+---
+
+## Features
+
+The first milestone focuses on completing the core business loop of the AI game asset generation platform, covering the entire workflow:
+
+**Project Creation → Asset Generation & Management → Iteration → Batch Processing → Export**
+
+### Feature 1: Web Application
+
+Provide a browser-based asset management platform as the primary entry point for asset generation, management, and export.
+
+---
+
+### Feature 2: Quick Generate
+
+Provide a simplified generation entry point. Users do not need to understand concepts like Projects or complex form data — they only need to provide a few required parameters and prompts to quickly create game assets.
+Preserve the user's AI creation history, making it convenient for users to view their historical generation records.
+
+---
+
+### Feature 3: Project Management & Global Configuration
+
+Provide Project creation and management capabilities, serving as the workspace for the entire game asset production process.
+
+Supported operations:
+
+- Create Project
+- Edit Project
+- Delete Project
+- View Project
+
+Configure unified AI context for the Project, and generate or upload a Visual Direction master image to improve asset generation consistency. This prevents the problem of multiple assets within the same project being generated independently, where the AI lacks project context, leading to inconsistent art style and design specifications.
+
+Supported configurations:
+
+- Game genre
+- Art style
+- Camera perspective
+- Target platform
+- Reference images
+
+---
+
+### Feature 4: Asset Management
+
+Provide organization and management capabilities for assets within a Project, helping users efficiently locate and maintain assets as their number grows.
+
+Supported operations:
+
+- Create Asset
+- Edit Asset
+- Delete Asset
+- Search Assets
+- View Asset Details
+- Copy Asset
+
+---
+
+### Feature 5: Asset Content Modification
+
+Support AI re-generation or manual editing of content within an Asset.
+
+---
+
+### Feature 6: Record Management
+
+Automatically track the complete evolution history of every Asset, solving the problem that a single asset often requires multiple rounds of generation and modification whose historical versions are difficult to trace and manage.
+
+Supported features:
+
+- Automatic Record creation
+- Restore historical Records
+- View Record details
+
+---
+
+### Feature 7: Animation & Sound Effect Generation
+
+Generate animation frames for characters or objects based on their ProtoType, and attach sound effects to animations, forming a complete "Character → Animation → Sound Effect" chain. This solves the problems of prototypes, animations, and sound effects lacking associations (forcing users to re-describe context) and the high barrier to sound effect creation.
+
+Supported capabilities:
+
+- Generate Animations from ProtoType
+- Preview animations and sound effects
+
+---
+
+### Feature 8: Tags
+
+Support asset classification and batch management.
+
+Capabilities include:
+
+- Create Tags
+- Assign Tags to Assets
+- Search by Tag
+- Batch operations via Tags
+
+---
+
+### Feature 9: Asset Associations
+
+Automatically establish relationships between Assets, enabling related assets to be referenced as context during generation and modification, improving cross-asset consistency within a Project. This solves the problem of users needing to repeatedly describe relationships between characters, objects, scenes, and other related assets.
+
+Supported capabilities:
+
+- AI automatically identifies and establishes Asset associations
+
+---
+
+### Feature 10: SDK
+
+Network games require assets such as images, audio, and animations to be hosted in object storage. The platform provides optimized built-in object storage services and packages a client SDK, allowing users to call assets directly in their code via the SDK — no need for "download assets → upload to own object bucket → configure access URLs".
+
+Supported capabilities:
+
+- JS SDK (npm install)
+- Asset loading
+
+---
+
+### Feature 11: MCP Capabilities
+
+To seamlessly integrate platform assets into the game development workflow, we introduce the **MCP (Model Context Protocol)** interface.
+
+MCP addresses two typical game development scenarios:
+
+- **Network Game Scenario: SDK Information Retrieval**
+  - Agents read the SDK's real-time documentation via MCP, automatically generating asset invocation code to achieve vibe coding — users only need to describe their requirements, and the agent handles the entire pipeline from asset retrieval to code integration.
+
+- **Local Game Scenario: Direct Project Landing**
+  - After users configure assets in the Web editor, agents use MCP to directly land resource files into the local project directory.
+  - Automatically generates engine-specific scene files (such as Godot's .tscn files), including sprite nodes, animation frame references, and other configurations.
+
+This solves the problem of the product being disconnected from development workflows — unable to integrate into actual work processes or directly produce ready-to-use resources.
+
+Supported capabilities:
+
+- Read SDK real-time documentation
+- Query Project information and Asset lists
+- Search Assets within Projects
+- Retrieve Asset details and related assets
+- Download resource files to a specified directory
+- Generate engine-specific scene files and resource configurations
+
+---
+
+### Feature 12: Audio Generation
+
+Provide standalone BGM, ambient sound, and other audio asset generation capabilities, solving the problem of the high barrier to creating music assets such as BGM.
+
+Supported capabilities:
+
+- Online audio playback
+- Duration control
+- Simple trimming and speed adjustment