tactical-shooter/docs/art-style-guide.md

Tactical Shooter — Art Style Guide

Phase 3 deliverable · Modular wall/floor kit, PBR materials at 1K Valorant-direction competitive FPS art direction · Godot 4 Forward+ renderer

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1. Visual Direction

Target: Valorant-Tier, Not AAA

• Clean silhouettes — geometry reads instantly at combat ranges. Avoid noisy trim/paneling.
• Team-color zones — CT (blue) and T (red/orange) territories are visually distinct at a glance. Color is used for gameplay read, not decorative variety.
• Low-fi surface detail — we suggest roughness and normal variation rather than carving it into geometry. 1K textures carry the detail budget.
• No photorealism — stylised realism with clear material categories: concrete, metal, tile, painted surfaces. Each category is immediately identifiable by its roughness/specular signature.

What This Game Looks Like

Aspect	Choice	Rationale
Lighting	Baked lightmaps + reflection probes	No real-time GI cost
Shadows	Baked for static, single cascade for dynamic	60fps target on GTX 1050
Reflections	Reflection probes at junctions	No SSR/SSAO cost
Post-processing	Tonemap only (ACES), no bloom, no DoF	Competitive clarity
Fog	Minimal distance fog	Don't hide silhouette readability
Textures	1K PBR (1024 max), no 2K+	VRAM budget: 2GB texture pool

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2. Modular Grid & Dimensions

The kit is built on a 2.56m (256cm) base grid — close to 8ft imperial, powers-of-two friendly for texture tiling.

Standard Dimensions (meters)

Piece	Width	Height	Depth	Notes
Wall straight	2.56	2.56	0.16	Full wall panel
Wall corner (L)	2.56 × 2 leg	2.56	0.16	90° outside corner
Wall doorway	2.56	2.56	0.16	0.80m × 2.00m door cutout
Wall window	2.56	2.56	0.16	1.20m × 0.80m window cutout
Wall endcap	0.32	2.56	0.16	Edge trim / termination
Floor slab	2.56	0.08	2.56	Thin slab
Pillar (square)	0.64	2.56	0.64	Structural column
Ceiling beam	3.84	0.32	0.32	Metal beam, 1.5U length
Accent panel	1.28	0.64	0.08	Team-color wall accent

Grid Alignment

• All pieces snap to a 1.28m (half-unit) grid in the map editor.
• Wall thickness is always 0.16m. Floors are 0.08m.
• Doorway bottom is flush with floor level. Window center is 1.58m from floor (eye level).
• Pillars occupy 0.64m × 0.64m on the floor grid (¼ of a full tile).

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3. Material Library

Material Standards

Every material is a StandardMaterial3D with PBR textures at 1024×1024 (1K):

Texture Map	Format	Notes
Base Color	sRGB PNG	Diffuse/albedo with subtle colour variation
Normal	Linear PNG	From height map via Sobel, strength scaled per material
Roughness	Linear PNG (grayscale)	White = rough (255), Black = smooth (0)
Metallic	Linear PNG (grayscale)	White = metal (255), Black = dielectric (0)

Texture filter: Linear (no mipmaps for modular kit; mipmap cost is unnecessary at 1K on a 2.56m tile with the camera ≤40m from most surfaces).

Material Palette (7 materials)

#	Name	Roughness	Metallic	Normal Scale	UV Tiling	Use Case
1	wall_concrete_01	0.85	0.0	0.5	1.0	Primary wall — light grey concrete
2	wall_concrete_02	0.75	0.0	0.4	1.0	Accent wall — darker grey
3	floor_tile_01	0.60	0.0	1.0	2.0	Interior — ceramic checkered tile
4	floor_concrete_01	0.90	0.0	0.8	2.0	Industrial — dark warehouse floor
5	metal_structural_01	0.30	1.0	0.3	1.0	Beams, vents, supports
6	accent_team_blue	0.35	0.5	0.3	1.0	CT territory — blue painted panels
7	accent_team_red	0.35	0.5	0.3	1.0	T territory — red/orange painted panels

Team Color Usage

• CT (Blue): RGB ~(40, 80, 200) — deep blue, low saturation. Applied to accent panels, not primary walls.
• T (Red/Orange): RGB ~(200, 60, 30) — burnt red-orange. Applied to accent panels, not primary walls.
• Neutral zones (uncontested) use wall_concrete_01/02 and floor_concrete_01.
• Spike plant zones / bomb sites get team-colour floor accents.

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4. Technical Specifications

Texture Budget

Category	Count	Resolution	VRAM (approx)
Wall materials (2)	8 maps	1K	~21 MB
Floor materials (2)	8 maps	1K	~21 MB
Metal (1)	4 maps	1K	~10 MB
Team accents (2)	8 maps	1K	~21 MB
Total (7 materials)	28 maps	1K	~75 MB

VRAM headroom for lighting data, shadow maps, and models: ~1.9 GB of the 2 GB budget.

Performance Targets (per the visuals architecture)

Metric	Target
Frame time	16ms (60fps)
GPU budget	8ms
CPU budget	6ms (6ms headroom for gameplay)
Draw calls	1500–2000/frame
LOD0 tris/wall	500–2000

LOD Strategy (for future mesh pass)

When modular CSG pieces are replaced with custom meshes:

LOD	Distance	Triangle Budget	Notes
LOD0	0–15m	100%	Full detail
LOD1	15–40m	50%	Remove panel gaps, merge edges
LOD2	40–80m	25%	Planar collapse, decimate
LOD3	80m+	Cull	Not visible at competitive sightlines

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5. Lighting Guidelines (for t_p3_lighting)

• LightmapGI on all static geometry. Texel density: 4–8 per unit on walls, 8–16 on focal surfaces.
• Reflection probes at corridor junctions, open plaza areas, chokepoints. Probe box size: 4U (10.24m) for corridors, 8U+ for open areas.
• No SDFGI, no real-time GI. 1-2 dynamic directional lights maximum (sun + maybe a single fill).
• Lightmap UV2: all modular CSG pieces export lightmap UVs automatically.

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6. Mapping Guidelines (for map makers)

• Start every map by placing a KitDemo scene to see the palette.
• Snap walls to the 1.28m half-grid. Full grid is 2.56m.
• Doorway walls are exactly 2.56m wide × 2.56m tall — stack a wall piece on top if headroom is needed.
• Use wall_concrete_02 for interior partitions, wall_concrete_01 for exterior-facing walls.
• Cover all floor areas with floor_tile_01 (interiors) or floor_concrete_01 (exteriors/warehouses).
• Team accent panels are decorative only — they do not affect gameplay collision or hitbox.

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7. Export & Build Pipeline

• Client project lives in client/ with its own project.godot.
• Modular kit scenes are under client/assets/scenes/modular/.
• Materials under client/assets/materials/.
• Textures under client/assets/textures/<material_name>/.
• Textures are generated by client/assets/textures/generate_textures.py.
• Materials are generated by client/assets/materials/generate_materials.py.
• Scenes are generated by client/assets/scenes/modular/generate_scenes.py.

Adding a New Material

1. Add a generator function in generate_textures.py
2. Run it to produce 1K PBR maps
3. Add a .tres entry in generate_materials.py
4. Run it to produce the material resource
5. Optionally create a scene using the new material

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This guide is a living document — update as the visual direction evolves.