The saturation grade (1.3) was shifting authored hues — Taila's auburn
ginger hair rendered fire-truck red and the whole game read filtered.
Saturation 1.3 -> 1.08, contrast 1.05 -> 1.03: textures now carry their
own vibrancy. Verified by sampling the rendered hair against the source
texture: lit hue 18-20 deg vs authored ~20 deg.
Character rim/specular cut again (rim 0.15/0.4 -> 0.08/0.32, spec
0.06 -> 0.025 @ 64): hair and cloth read fully matte, no wet sheen.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <[email protected]>
Everything read as wet plastic or glowing porcelain for two stacking
reasons, both fixed centrally:
- toonify() shipped every character/prop/weapon with a hot rim (0.45 over
65% of the silhouette) and broad stepped specular (0.25 @ shininess 24) —
patent-leather highlights on any dark surface. Now a thin rim (0.15/0.4)
and a small tight glint (0.06 @ 56); shader defaults match.
- The LINEAR tonemapper clipped lit white surfaces (sun + ambient push
facades past 1.0) and the glow pass bloomed the clip, so buildings glowed
like porcelain. Switched to FILMIC with white=2.4: near-linear through
the cel bands (they stay crisp), soft shoulder above 1.0. Glow threshold
1.1 -> 1.45 so only genuine emissives (neon, tracers, plasma) bloom.
- Saturation 1.22 -> 1.3 compensates filmic mids — vibrancy unchanged.
- Neon Alley: ambient 1.7 -> 1.35 / sun 2.2 -> 2.5 — the shoulder no longer
hides the ambient lavender cast, so let the sun shape the facades.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <[email protected]>
- toon.gdshader: banded diffuse with cool-tinted shadows (3 tones), stepped
specular, rim light, and an optional world-triplanar albedo path so level
geometry keeps the 0.5 m grid with no UVs
- toon_outline.gdshader: inverted-hull ink outline, applied via
material_overlay so it works on skinned (deforming) meshes
- LevelMaterials: tinted() now returns toon grid materials; toonify()/
apply_toon_recursive() convert imported character/prop materials in place
- SkinnedPlayerModel: characters get toon shading + outline on load
- LevelEnvironment: shared stylized environment for all maps — saturated
anime sky, linear tonemap (filmic/ACES crush cel bands), bloom for
emissives, saturation+contrast grade, light depth haze; test level and
dust2 now use it and the procedural arena (which had NO environment)
gets it plus runtime toonification of its baked geometry
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <[email protected]>