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>

topology-and-rendering/architecture.md

@@ -89,9 +89,9 @@ Color paired with motion-signature ensures color-blind accessibility — the tra
 
 | Register | Color treatment |
 |---|---|
-| **Gameworld** | Full PBR; trait-colors coexist with material surfaces |
-| **Liminal** | Vague baseline shader, but trait-colors *more* legible (vagueness concentrates attention on identity-signals) |
-| **Imperial net** | Trait-colors **distorted** toward machine-preferred palette — Philotes-rose flattens to commercial-pink; Aletheia-white sterilizes; Moira-crimson commercializes. *Aletheia-vision* in net pierces this distortion to reveal true colors beneath |
+| **Gameworld** | Cel-shaded flat-color regions; trait-colors *more* legible (flat-color regions don't fight per-NPC trait-color modulation; pulses read clean against the comic-book base) |
+| **Liminal** | Vague baseline shader; **progression-gated visibility** (grainy-restricted-view at low witness-progression opening to clean refined-cel-shading at endgame); trait-colors *more* legible (vagueness concentrates attention on identity-signals; consent-as-rendering manifests real-skin-warm-cel-shading in the clasp-mesh per `../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md` §The in-between human-mesh) |
+| **Imperial net** | Cel-shaded with **gold rim-light outlines** + **clean white backgrounds** + **no weathering**; trait-colors *distorted* toward machine-preferred palette — Philotes-rose flattens to commercial-pink; Aletheia-white sterilizes; Moira-crimson commercializes. *Aletheia-vision* in net pierces this distortion to reveal true colors beneath |
 
 ### Faction color-politics
 
@@ -124,17 +124,23 @@ Base palette example: ~8 torso variants × ~6 arm-pairs × ~6 leg-pairs × ~10 h
 
 ## Visual rendering: three-shader philosophy + color-language
 
-**One world, three shaders, three political realities.**
+**One world, three shaders, three political realities — one rendering engine (cel-shading) with per-register parameter variation.**
 
-| Register | Shader treatment | What it says |
-|---|---|---|
-| **Gameworld** | Full PBR; high-frequency detail; environmental storytelling; rust/dust/wear/patina | Embodied life with history. Surfaces carry memory. |
-| **Liminal** | Reduced draw-distance; blur-falloff; desaturation; muted contrast; ambient-heavy | Contested frontier. Privacy-through-opacity. Focus-to-see. |
-| **Imperial net** | Emission-dominated; gold-tinted tonemap; high-contrast specular; flat-white base; minimal geometry; bloom; chromatic aberration | Seduction-lighting. Casino/Apple-store/Instagram. Extractive maximalism. |
+The rendering discipline (locked v0.17): **cel-shading is the engine for all three registers** (Godot-native, asset-budget-friendly, ages well — Borderlands 2009 still reads current). The registers diverge through **outline-color + background-treatment + weathering-level**, not through engine-switching. Photorealistic-glossy-Apple-store rendering for imperial-net was rejected (not Godot's strong suite); the imperium's polished-falsity is achieved through *omission* (no weathering, no environmental noise, gold-rim-light-on-clean-white) rather than *extra rendering tech*.
 
-**Layered with color-language** (per the Color-language section above). Trait-modulation means two NPCs in same pipe see measurably different things.
+| Register | Outline | Background | Weathering | What it says |
+|---|---|---|---|---|
+| **Gameworld** | Dark heavy lines | Marble + obsidian + rust + chroma; environmental noise | High (rust streaks, hatched dirt, ink-line cracks; hand-painted patina) | *Embodied life with history. Surfaces carry memory.* (Cel-shading preserves this thesis via hand-painted weathering — different visual grammar, same thesis intact.) |
+| **Liminal** | Painterly / soft / desaturated; **progression-gated grainy-film-mode at low witness-progression** opening to refined-cel-shading-with-warm-skin at endgame | Blurred ambient; muted | Low (atmospheric only) | *Contested frontier. Privacy-through-opacity. Focus-to-see. The clarity of vision IS the resistance-progression made visible — the player earns the seeing of the beloved through body-mods + in-between-knowledge accumulation.* |
+| **Imperial net** | **Lean subtle gold rim-light** | **Clean white** (no environmental noise) | **None** (the imperium scrubs its presentation) | *Polished propaganda; seduction-by-omission. The render-style itself is propaganda-detector — the imperium's clean-falsity reads as the absence of the world's honest decay. Walking from gameworld into imperial-net is a render-style-shift the player feels physically.* |
 
-Layer-transitions = shader-blends, not loading-screens. **Clasp = candlelight-in-fog local override** (3m clear-volume around clasp-pair within ambient vagueness; visible at-a-glance signature of shared interiority).
+**Layered with color-language** (per the Color-language section above). Trait-modulation means two NPCs in same pipe see measurably different things. Cel-shading flat-color regions *amplify* the trait-color-grammar (color-as-language gets more legible, not less).
+
+Layer-transitions = shader-blends, not loading-screens. **Clasp = candlelight-in-fog local override** (3m clear-volume around clasp-pair within ambient vagueness; visible at-a-glance signature of shared interiority — the *external* signature visible to other liminal-inhabitants. The *internal* mesh-with-real-skin per `../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md` §The in-between human-mesh is visible only to the clasp-pair, manifested through consent-as-rendering, gated by the witness-progression that determines whether the view is grainy-restricted or clean-refined.)
+
+**Body-tier silhouette readability** (per `../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md` §The body-caste gradient): strong cel-shading outlines + flat-color regions make caste-tier *legibly visible at silhouette-distance*. Class-stratification gets a render-pipeline built for it.
+
+**The in-between mesh-skin distinction** (visible only inside the clasp): refined-cel-shading-with-warm-skin (softer outlines, warmer cel-shading bands, hand-painted blush, subtle subsurface tint within the cel-shading vocabulary). Reads as *real* against the *flat-comic-book* world bodies — distinguishability via *refinement-within-the-style*, not *style-switching*. Asset-budget benefit: clasp-scenes are infrequent and bounded, so the team can spend extra detail there without straining the rule-catalogue elsewhere.
 
 ### Diegetic relays — the architecture's heartbeat made legible
 
@@ -170,4 +176,4 @@ Players navigate the rings *by ear and eye*, not by reading a UI. The privacy-co
 
 ---
 
-**Version:** 0.7.0 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26 | **Origin:** Split from architecture-index.md v0.7 (2026-04-26)
+**Version:** 0.8.0 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26 | **Origin:** Split from architecture-index.md v0.7 (2026-04-26); cel-shading-everywhere + per-register parameter variation locked v0.17 (2026-04-26)