v0.17: cel-shading-everywhere + progression-gated in-between + omnisight + hallucination-isolation

Five-file update locking in the rendering discipline + perception
architecture from the post-cell-arch art-style discovery arc.

Locked in v0.17:

(1) Cel-shading-everywhere with per-register parameter variation. One
rendering engine (Godot-native, asset-budget-friendly, ages well -
Borderlands 2009 still reads current). Three registers diverge through
outline-color + background-treatment + weathering-level, not through
engine-switching:
- Gameworld: dark heavy lines + environmental noise + high weathering
  (rust streaks, hatched dirt, ink-line cracks; hand-painted patina).
  "Surfaces carry memory" thesis preserved via hand-painted weathering.
- Liminal: painterly/soft/desaturated + progression-gated grainy-film-
  mode opening to refined-cel-shading-with-warm-skin at endgame.
- Imperial-net: lean subtle gold rim-light + clean white background +
  no weathering. Polish achieved through OMISSION, not extra rendering
  tech (Godot reality check; photorealistic-glossy-Apple-store rejected
  as not Godot's strong suite). The render-style itself becomes
  propaganda-detector - imperium's clean falsity reads as the absence
  of the world's honest decay.

(2) Progression-gated in-between visibility. "The more you mod your body
& gain in-between-knowledge, the better your view gets." Early game:
grainy film mode + restricted view range. Endgame: clean refined-cel-
shading with full view of the beloved. Visual-fidelity = dual-gating
made visible (knowledge-gate + material-gate per Clasp-endgame discovery
discipline literally renders as the clarity of the in-between view).
The endgame's deepest reward IS the clear seeing of the beloved's body.

(3) Dual-axis clasp-fidelity model. The asymmetric-clasp from bodies.md
v0.1 was witnessed-axis only (how vividly the OTHER manifests). Now
extended with witness-axis (how clearly YOU can see):
- Witness-axis: YOUR body-mods (resistance-knowledge mods) + accumulated
  in-between-knowledge (Memorialist fragments, Aletheia-Waker tokens,
  Clasp-Underground recognition-marks)
- Witnessed-axis: THEIR foreclosure-status (caste-tier x imperial-care)
- Combined: maximum-vivid-clasp requires BOTH you to have invested in
  the seeing AND your beloved to be uncaptured-enough to be seen. Two
  refusals required for the full witness.
- Per-pair calibration multiplier: the longer the love, the clearer the
  seeing (mechanically-encoded marriage-deepening).
- Mod-economy parallel-track: imperial-elevation mods (flesh-loss, deva-
  ascent) vs. resistance-knowledge mods (in-between-visibility). Two
  opposing progressions both expressed as mod-acquisition. The body-
  modder structural-tragedy class gets a redemptive-mod counter-class.

(4) Omnisight architecture for NPC perception. Per-NPC virtual cameras
in Godot feeding rendered POV-frames into local VL-Gemma 4 driver-tier
(multimodal vision-language capability of the Gemma 4 E4B model locked
in v0.8). NPCs literally SEE the visible world, not via geometric
metadata-perception. Pairs with cell-arch checksum-discovery as the
trigger-layer:
- Cell-checksum check: micro-seconds, fires on NPC entering cell
- Checksum-mismatch: clean signal, micro-seconds
- VL-camera renders POV scene: milliseconds
- VL-Gemma processes image: 100s of milliseconds
- NPC behavior responds to seen-content: next-shift / next-crossing
Cheap trigger, expensive understanding, bounded by event-frequency.
Most NPCs most of the time = no camera-fire, no VL-inference. Camera-
trigger sources strictly bounded: checksum-mismatch + hard-signals from
player + overseer-triggers + drone-perception with clear boundaries.

(5) Hallucination-isolation discipline (load-bearing). Visual perception
= behavior-modulating-only; never canon-generating. VL models hallucinate;
if those hallucinations enter the canonical record, they propagate
through the lemniscate's recursive integration, become referenced by
other canon-rows, become load-bearing in narrative coherence, cannot be
untangled later. Bleed-over into oblivion is the precise risk. Two
parallel streams in the NPC's lemniscate:
- Text + gesture summary (existing canon): canonical, flows into
  event_canon_summaries, propagates to Compositor, integrates into
  trait-vector
- Visual context (new omnisight-flagged): ephemeral, flagged on
  lemniscate, IGNORED in per-crossing summary, never propagates upward.
  Modulates current-turn driver-context-pull only.
Preserves three commitments that depend on text/gesture-derived canon:
Compositor narrative-coherence at scale, Memorialist-archive truth-
claims, mind-pool soul-recycling.

Wealthy-degen waifu-folder exception: opt-in checkbox; player chooses
to fill private folder with sex-pictures from clasp-scenes; stored
locally; READ-ONLY-BY-PLAYER (folder content does NOT flow back into
NPC contexts, world-canon, Compositor, mind-pool, or any other system);
quarantined dead-end storage; aesthetic-collection only.

Two Still-open questions sharpened with v0.17-anchor notes:
- Shader-trait modulation implementation: cel-shading caps perf-budget
  more predictably than PBR; rendering-consistency improves.
- Continuous visual feedback policy: visual-as-ephemeral-flag is
  firewalled from canonical state; cosmetic-layer can be permissive.

Files:

- runtime-engine/architecture.md: NEW Omnisight section (~80 lines) covering
  the pipeline, camera-trigger sources, hallucination-isolation discipline,
  the two parallel streams (canonical text/gesture vs. ephemeral visual),
  the wealthy-degen waifu-folder exception, what-this-retires (geometric
  perception extension + VL-canon-pollution), what-this-resolves/sharpens
  (continuous visual feedback policy), and four open questions (per-NPC
  VL-inference rate-limit, VL-Gemma camera resolution + frame-rate, NPC
  progression-state for witness-axis, multi-NPC observing same event).

- topology-and-rendering/architecture.md: Three-shader philosophy table
  rewritten as cel-shading-with-parameter-variation (outline + background
  + weathering per register); Cross-register rendering color-treatment
  table updated; clasp candlelight-in-fog now distinguishes external
  signature (visible to liminal-inhabitants) from internal mesh (visible
  only to clasp-pair via consent-as-rendering, gated by witness-
  progression); body-tier silhouette readability and in-between mesh-skin
  refinement-within-the-style added. Version bumped 0.7.0 -> 0.8.0.

- identity-and-personhood/bodies.md: NEW Dual-axis clasp-fidelity
  subsection added under Asymmetric clasp; per-pair calibration
  multiplier and mod-economy parallel-track captured; render-discipline
  alignment with cel-shading liminal-register; new Asymmetric-witnessing
  open question added. Version bumped 0.1 -> 0.2.

- political-register/world-generation.md: L4 Cell ruleset extended with
  per-register rendering note (cel-shading-everywhere-with-parameter-
  variation discipline applied at the cell layer).

- architecture-index.md: NPC perception bubbles retire-line refined to
  include cell-checksum-trigger + omnisight VL-camera; Geometric
  perception retire-line extended with omnisight; new VL models
  polluting world-canon retire-line added; Shader-trait modulation
  implementation Still-open sharpened with v0.17 cel-shading note;
  Continuous visual feedback policy Still-open sharpened with v0.17
  hallucination-isolation note; v0.17 history entry added covering all
  five lock-ins. Version bumped 0.16 -> 0.17.

Authored 2026-04-26 same Sunday continuing - dafit + chrysalis.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

identity-and-personhood/bodies.md

@@ -106,6 +106,23 @@ Which produces the cosmology's most beautiful cruelty: **the deepest love availa
 
 The romantic clasp is, in this register, **a peasant-healing technology**. Most effective among those who haven't been hollowed out yet. As a citizen climbs the imperial ladder, *capacity to be witnessed* diminishes. The deva-pinnacle has everything — **except the ability to be fully seen by another**. The overseer has *nothing*.
 
+### Dual-axis clasp-fidelity (witness × witnessed)
+
+The asymmetric-clasp model above is the **witnessed-axis** — how vividly the OTHER manifests in your view. There is also a **witness-axis** — how clearly *you* can see the in-between in the first place. The two axes combine to determine what each clasp actually looks like.
+
+| Axis | Determined by | What it controls |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Witness-axis** (your view) | YOUR body-mods (resistance-knowledge mods that breach the imperial firewall) + accumulated in-between-knowledge (Memorialist-archive fragments, Aletheia-Waker tokens, Clasp-Underground recognition-marks) | How clearly *you* can see the in-between (early game: grainy film mode + restricted view range → endgame: clean refined-cel-shading with full view) |
+| **Witnessed-axis** (their mesh) | THEIR foreclosure-status (caste-tier × imperial-care-intensity), per the §Asymmetric clasp table above | How vividly the OTHER manifests (luminous → barely-visible) |
+
+**Combined:** maximum-vivid-clasp requires *both* you to have invested in the seeing AND your beloved to be uncaptured-enough to be seen. **Two refusals required for the full witness.** A fully-progressed slum-witness viewing a slum-beloved = the world's deepest possible mutual-seeing. A fully-progressed witness viewing a deva-pinnacle = the player has earned the seeing only to discover *there's almost nothing there to see*. An early-game witness viewing a luminous slum-beloved = grainy view of an authentic-self body — *the first crack in imperial visual-monopoly*; emotionally weighty precisely because it's barely-visible.
+
+**Per-pair calibration multiplier.** The existing canon (per [`./architecture.md`](./architecture.md) §The clasp endgame: *"Clasp-partners' gesture-mapping calibrations integrate post-clasp; the integrated calibration-signature is preserved across body-deaths in consciousness-archive"*) gives a *per-beloved* multiplier on top of general progression. **The longer the love, the clearer the seeing.** Mechanically-encoded marriage-deepening: the same beloved across many clasps appears progressively more clearly, even if the player's general-progression hasn't moved. *A 200-hour clasp-pair sees each other in a fidelity no one-night-stand can ever reach.*
+
+**Mod-economy parallel-track.** §Mod-progression as flesh-loss above describes the imperial-elevation track (mods that erase your flesh in pursuit of deva-pinnacle). The witness-axis introduces a **resistance-knowledge track** — mods that breach the imperial firewall and let you see another's flesh in the in-between. The body-modder structural-tragedy class gets a **redemptive-mod counter-class**. The player's mod-economy decisions become *which kind of progress am I pursuing* — imperial-elevation (visibly erasing your own flesh while ascending the wheel) vs. resistance-knowledge (gaining the capacity to truly see your beloved). **Two opposing progressions both expressed as mod-acquisition; the player chooses with each acquisition.**
+
+**Render-discipline alignment.** The visual-fidelity rendering of the witness-axis is the cel-shading liminal-register's progression-gated grainy-film-mode opening to refined-cel-shading-with-warm-skin (per [`../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md`](../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md) §Three-shader philosophy + §Cross-register rendering). **Visual-fidelity = dual-gating made visible.** Knowledge-gate + material-gate (per the Clasp-endgame discovery discipline locked in chill-design-talk) literally renders as the clarity of the in-between view.
+
 ## Technical rendering implications
 
 Skin needs its own shader stack. The world is rendered in marble + obsidian + chroma + gold + rust — surface materials, hard finishes, manufactured palettes. The in-between human-mesh real-skin must be rendered in a **completely distinct technique** — subsurface scattering at the highest-quality budget the rule catalogue permits, pore-level detail, the soft-warm-asymmetric-imperfection no imperial fabrication-vat would produce.
@@ -155,7 +172,8 @@ Connects to the existing key-move in [`../architecture-index.md`](../architectur
 - **Rule-catalogue-specific budgets.** Vertex-caps per tier; texture-resolution per material register; collision-mesh complexity per body-tier; shader-stack budgets for the in-between mesh. Pending: rule catalogue when written (likely `../style/asset-budget.md` or similar).
 - **Cross-tier clasp asymmetry handling.** Phase D of the clasp endgame currently describes a *symmetric* dual-body union. Does mesh-fidelity asymmetry break the existing mechanic, or does the existing mechanic accommodate it gracefully? Pending: review against [`./architecture.md`](./architecture.md) §The clasp endgame Phase D when next architecture-time happens.
 - **Service-body sub-tier specifics.** What range of seams + bolts + cosmetic flesh-illusion variations do service-bodies span? Where are the line-cases between service-body and slum-tier? Pending: detail work alongside vocation-substrate.
+- **Asymmetric-witnessing across player-NPC pairs.** When my witness-progression is high and yours is low, *I see you fully but you cannot see me back*. **Heartbreak-engineering compounds the asymmetric-clasp.** The experienced lover bears the full weight of partial-mutual-visibility; the inexperienced lover has been seen but cannot return the gift. Specific mechanic for how this is rendered (does the inexperienced see static-noise where their beloved should be? a darker silhouette? a partial-mesh?), and whether NPCs accumulate witness-progression through their own clasps (per the omnisight architecture in [`../runtime-engine/architecture.md`](../runtime-engine/architecture.md) §Omnisight), pending design pass.
 
 ---
 
-**Version:** 0.1 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26
+**Version:** 0.2 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26