The look — unshaded ground, sink depths, tile pointers with a flat fallback

done priority 1 estimate S

ground-look-and-levels/001 · created 2026-08-18 · updated 2026-08-18

What to do

Decisions 1, 2 and 10 of the workshop note (land-of-lor/docs/design/2026-08-18-ground-look-and-levels-workshop.md).

game/world/client/ground.gdshader: render_mode unshaded; the shading the ground needs is drawn here — darken by slope (the normal is available), a darker rim where a surface steps down (bank of water/lava/sand; later the cliff faces of 002), so a step reads as a drawn edge.
game/shell/elements.js (sync-elements.sh after): the ground type carries a sink (cells: water and lava 0.25, sand 0.125, the rest 0) in place of kind: sunken; keep kind for mountain only if something still needs it — prefer one field with one meaning. Each hexagram’s groundVariant gains an optional tile (a <lower>/<upper> file id; several hexagrams may point at one file); no tile → the flat colour. Delete the pattern fields and the procedural pattern painter in ground_atlas.gd (draw_tile) — dead the moment tiles are pointers; the atlas is: PNG if pointed at and present, else a flat fill.
ground_mesh.gd / world_units.gd: SUNKEN_DEPTH becomes the per-type sink; the standing height on sand is the sand’s own surface (no submerging — ENTITY_SINK is for water/lava).
Shots: _shots.gd gains LOR_SHOTS_ONLY=ground (only the ground shots) — the lab in the workshop session needed it; note in game/README.md that Godot re-imports changed PNGs only from the editor or godot --headless --path world --import.

Definition of done

test_runner.gd green (mesh rules updated for sink), the ground shots on the Badlands and the Village show sand a step down with a drawn rim and no lighting lift, sync-elements.sh run, director tests green (the TS table reader follows the field change). Committed and pushed.

Where the work lands

land-of-lor/game/world/client/, game/shell/elements.js, game/director/src/groundTypes.ts.

What was done (2026-08-18, laptop workshop session)

Built and shipped the same day (APK v15, /play at e34e8ba). The ground shader is unshaded — painted = seen — and shades banks, ramps and cliff faces itself; sand sinks an eighth (sink per type in elements.js, kind: flat|liquid|mountain, plain per type); tiles are tile pointers (28 named; no tile = flat colour, deliberately) and the pattern painter is gone; bodies carry a blob shadow and the sun’s shadow pass is off (an unshaded ground can’t receive shadow maps — the build’s call, in the handoff); LOR_SHOTS_ONLY=ground, and the re-import gotcha is in game/README.md. Handoff: land-of-lor/docs/handoff/ground-look-and-levels.md.

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