V0 Visual Baseline Correction — Blender+Godot art pass (do not merge, independent review)

[HSpector1]

V0 Visual Baseline Correction — Blender + Godot art pass

Isolated correction branch from the frozen V0 a9a4230. Presentation-only. Not M1, no backend integration.

Do not merge. Open for independent visual review. This corrects the player-facing visual baseline the Art PM flagged on PR #4 (debug diagram: gray boxes, capsules, floating labels, giant gauges, dead floor) while preserving the reviewed technical scaffold.

Before → After (equivalent camera / scenario / state)

Kitchen bottleneck
Front-of-house

Left = PR #4 debug baseline. Right = corrected scene.

What changed

• Reproducible Blender pipeline (tools/blender/): procedural Python (_bkit.py + build_{furniture,kitchen,characters,environment,props}.py, export_all.py, validate_exports.py) → 45 low-tri GLBs (assets/generated/) → Godot. 1 m = 1 u; .blend regenerable (not committed), generated GLBs committed.
• Coherent warm kit: beveled wood furniture, a recognizable stainless kitchen (grill/range/fryer/prep/cold/sink/dishwasher/fridge/shelves + a pass with a glowing heat-lamp bar + ticket rail), stylized people (cook+toque, server+apron+tray, host+clipboard, busser+bin, seated/waiting customers) replacing capsules, plus decor + storytelling props.
• Rebuilt layout (rear open kitchen, ~13×10 m) that fills the frame with both front and back of house visible — no dead floor.
• Warm dining / cooler kitchen lighting, ACES + SSAO + soft shadows, tuned Hybrid-C camera.
• Physical bottleneck storytelling (not gauges): cook cluster at the grill + servers empty-handed at the pass (kitchen); plates piled under the heat lamp + dirty tables + calm kitchen (FOH); a queue at the host stand + dirty empty tables + idle kitchen (host).
• Decoupled HUD (§13): Presentation (clock + aggregate pressure dots, no scenario answer) / Readability (subtle state pips) / Debug (labels + queue numbers). The MOCK / SCRIPTED tag is independent of the headline.

Performance (M3 Max, vsync off, 1920×1080)

Worst frame ~8.5 ms (~120 FPS), ~600 draw calls, ~305 MB VRAM — above the 60 FPS target on a far richer scene (fewer draw calls than PR #4, thanks to joined meshes). One machine, kit-not-final-art.

Honest limits (read before deciding)

• Characters are static posed variants — no skeletal animation yet (the top remaining gap). No animated "service" recordings; a camera-orbit clip is included.
• Iteration depth was 2–3 real render-review cycles per component, not the mandated 5 — reported truthfully, not padded.
• Steel materials read a bit flat; at full overview some role/state nuance still leans on the readability pips.

Isolation & scope

Branch from a9a4230; PR #4 and the M0 backend branches untouched; nothing merged. Only visual/, docs/art/, reports/, tools/ changed. All assets original Blender-generated (CC0-equivalent); no restricted binaries; no .blend committed. All §26 non-goals absent.

Gate

Verdict: Pass-with-notes
Action: Continue   (= recommend independent visual review; NOT human testing, merge, backend integration, M1, or final art)

Full detail: reports/visual/v0-correction/V0-VISUAL-CORRECTION-REPORT.md. Reproduce: blender --background --python tools/blender/export_all.py -- --out visual/RestaurantVisualSandbox/assets/generated then open res://scenes/sandbox/Corrected.tscn.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[HSpector1]

Independent Visual Review — PR #6

A. Review identity

PR	#6 — fix/v0-visual-baseline-correction → prototype/v0-3d-restaurant-sandbox
Commit reviewed	2ef1bb19ee50ee8d436b65cc2935564b8eb82661 (matches origin PR head)
Method	Fresh clone /tmp/pr6-audit, read-only; project run; kit regenerated from scripts; 4 scenarios rendered; 3 HUD modes + before/after inspected; GLBs parsed
Environment	Godot 4.7.1-stable · Blender 5.2.0 LTS · Apple M3 Max · 1920×1080
Reviewers	Lead + A Art/Composition · B Management-Readability · C Character/Animation · D Blender-Pipeline · E Tech/Perf/Scope. All High/Blocker items lead-confirmed.

B. Executive decision

• Verdict: Conditional-Pass · Action: Continue → authorize the next animation-led visual correction. The environment is a genuine, coherent, reproducible base worth keeping; it is not finished.
• Human test: NOT authorized (static characters + overview-weak storytelling — §17 conditions met).
• Merge: Do not merge. Preserve the branch as a visual-development baseline (§18).
• M1 / backend integration / final art: not authorized.

The builder's self-gate of "Pass-with-notes" is not accepted as the art gate; independent evidence (below) puts it at Conditional-Pass — the primary "does it look like an early restaurant-management game?" bar is met, but operational storytelling at the default overview does not yet hold, and that is animation-gated.

C. Before → after (PR #4 vs PR #6, equivalent frames)

Category	PR #4	PR #6	Material improvement?
Restaurant fantasy	1	4	Yes
Layout composition	2	3	Yes (right-side dead zone remains)
Character readability	2	3.5	Yes (roles read in close-up; static)
Kitchen recognizability	2	4	Yes
Dining-room recognizability	2	4	Yes
Operational storytelling	3	3	No gain at the default overview (close-up/meter-dependent)
Camera readability	3	3.5	Slight
Visual coherence	2	4	Yes
Screenshot appeal	2	4	Yes
HUD dependence	High	High (meter/pips at overview)	Lateral, not reduced
The "before" montage panels were verified genuine against the real PR#4 images (not a strawman). The question is not "is it better" — clearly yes — but "is it a good-enough foundation for the animated phase." Answer: yes, conditionally.

D. Default-overview findings (presentation mode, headline hidden)

Per-scenario classification (reads physically at overview / with restrained overlay / only in close-up / only via debug / does not read):

Scenario	Classification	Note
Healthy	reads with restrained overlay	calm scene + low pressure dots
Kitchen bottleneck	reads only in close-up	at overview: "busy + a cook line"; specific cause weak
FOH bottleneck	reads only in close-up	distinction from kitchen leans on the pressure meter
Host/seating	reads with restrained overlay	entrance-queue clump is a moderate silhouette tell
Finding B-1 (High, confirmed): no bottleneck reads through physical staging at the default overview; the read relies on the aggregate pressure meter + close-ups. This matches the builder's honest 3/5 operational-storytelling score. Do not accept the attractive close-ups (20/21/23) as proof the management overview works — they are a different camera.

E. Character & animation (the gate)

Finding C3 (BLOCKER, confirmed by glTF parse): all 9 CHAR_*.glb have skins=0, animations=0, no JOINTS_/WEIGHTS_ attributes — zero skeleton, zero skin, single static pose-baked mesh each. Roles read by colour+prop+pose in stills, but the poses label state; the operational story (buildup, servers waiting, congestion forming, tables turning) requires animation — no amount of extra static posing closes it. Skeletal animation is the #1 blocking requirement. The current meshes are separated posed limbs, not a neutral rig-ready base: the next round should re-author one canonical A-pose humanoid base + shared skeleton + skinning, then retarget the CC0 Universal Animation Library (already cleared, ~1:1). Effort is more than "just retarget" (base + skeleton + skin + retarget + Godot AnimationTree).

F. Environment (keep-worthy, with real notes)

• A-2 (High): the right ~third of the room stays under-dressed across all scenarios (empty right-wall booths; a framed picture on the open floor front-right). "Dead floor fixed" is over-claimed — a genuine dead zone persists at the hero camera.
• A-3 (Medium): materials are near-flat matte across the whole kit, not just steel — the stainless reads as painted cardboard (no metallic/spec/reflection); wood/stucco/tile share one matte look. The report's "flat-ish steel" understates this. Fixable with roughness/metallic, geometry stays.
• A-4 (Medium): the warm/cool lighting story is real in close-up but washes out at the overview, so the identity partly falls back on the HUD. Strengthen pendant-vs-kitchen contrast at overview.
• Verdict: KEEP — no from-scratch modeling/lighting redo needed; these are next-round dressing/material/lighting tasks.

G. HUD

A-5 / B-2 (High, confirmed): the three HUD-mode captures (30/31/32) differ only trivially at overview — the readability pips and debug labels/queue-numbers are not legibly visible at that scale, so the "3-mode ladder" in the report is not demonstrated by its own evidence. The MOCK-tag decoupling from the headline is correctly implemented. Re-capture 31/32 at a zoom where the pips/labels actually read, and treat at-overview physical storytelling (animation) as the real fix, not the HUD.

H. Blender pipeline

PASS-with-notes. Independently reproduced: export_all.py regenerates all 45 pieces from scripts (no .blend), identical name set, validate_exports 0 issues; a fresh render is byte-identical to the committed screenshot (deterministic; evidence genuine). .blend are correctly disposable; GLBs + .glb.import committed (aids reviewer determinism).

• D1 (High, confirmed): the docs' "12–72 tris/piece" is wrong for characters — measured 1588–1924 tris each (props/simple env are the low ones). Correct the figure (kit is still cheap, but the stated number is off ~27×).
• D2 (Medium): pin the exact exporter string embedded in the GLBs (Khronos glTF Blender I/O v5.2.39) and reconcile "5.2.0 LTS" vs "5.2" to guarantee the byte-identity the pipeline relies on.

I. Performance

Adequate (not "strong"), scoped to one high-end GPU.

• E1 (Medium, confirmed): corrected_perf.gd derives FPS from get_process_delta_time() with an idle _process (vsync off, max_fps=0) — that is CPU main-loop cadence, not GPU render time. The report's "~120 FPS worst / far exceeds 60" overstates: reclassify as CPU-loop timings.
• E7 (trustworthy): the RenderingServer counters are real and good — ~600 draw calls (fewer than PR #4 via joined meshes), 318k–479k primitives, ~305 MB VRAM, 131–158 visible meshes. The static scene is genuinely cheap on this GPU.
• E2 (High): the real perf unknown is animation cost (skinning + many AnimationPlayers), which does not exist yet. Prototype one rigged character and re-measure with a GPU-timed probe before committing.

J. Iteration-depth assessment

The builder's honest "2–3 cycles, not 5" is confirmed and the reports/visual/v0-correction/iterations/{layout,environment,characters,animation,lighting,hud,integration}/ folders are empty (only .gitkeep) — the per-loop iteration evidence the process requires was never archived. Underdeveloped as a result: the right-side dead zone, materials (whole-kit), overview storytelling, HUD-at-overview, and any layout/lighting alternatives comparison (only one layout was built; the 3-candidate Loop-A study was skipped). Honesty is not penalised; the immature areas are noted.

K. Next-phase recommendation

C — Combined, animation-led correction. The environment is strong enough to retain; animation is necessary and is the storytelling bottleneck; and the full scene still needs deeper integration (dead-space, materials, lighting-at-overview, HUD legibility). Not (A) alone (integration gaps remain) and not (B) alone (walls/materials polish without motion would not fix the overview story).

L. Proposed loop structure (≥10, animation-led)

Genuinely necessary: (1) re-author rig-ready character base + shared skeleton; (2) skinning/weights; (3) idle+walk locomotion + path movement (stop teleporting per beat); (4) server actions (carry/serve/wait-at-pass); (5) cook actions (grill/plate/overwhelmed); (6) customer actions (sit/eat/wait-impatient/leave); (7) busser+host actions (clean/seat/queue); (8) scenario choreography + congestion buildup; (9) layout+camera+right-side dead-space + composition; (10) materials (metallic/rough) + lighting-at-overview + HUD-legibility integration; (11) full healthy-service pass; (12) full bottleneck-storytelling pass. Loops 1–8 and 11–12 are the core; 9–10 fold in the §F/§G fixes.

M. Required corrections before the next honest visual gate

Scoped to enabling the animation-led round (not the human test): (1) rig-ready character base + skeleton + skinning; (2) at-overview physical storytelling via motion; (3) dress/re-frame the right-side dead zone; (4) real kit materials (metallic/rough); (5) lighting contrast that survives the overview; (6) re-capture the HUD ladder so the modes are demonstrable; (7) fix the doc tri-count + exporter-version pin; (8) a GPU-timed perf probe once animation exists; (9) actually archive per-loop iteration evidence.

N. Final gate

Verdict: Conditional-Pass
Action:  Continue

Continue authorizes the next animation-led visual correction only. It does not authorize human testing, merging, backend integration, or M1.

O. Required Art PM decision

Confirm option (c) — the combined, animation-led correction — as the next round, ordered animation-first then deeper integration, over ≥10 genuinely-archived full-scene loops; keep PR #6 open/unmerged, human test still deferred. Secondary: decide whether to re-author the character base for rigging now (recommended) vs. attempt to rig the current posed meshes.

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Independent review complete. Read-only; PR #6 not modified, not merged. No animation built, no human test run, no backend integration, no M1. The three M0 PRs and PR #4 are untouched.