Rendering quality roadmap: layered PBR and renderer foundations

[proggeramlug]

Status

Draft cumulative rendering-quality branch. The branch is intentionally kept reviewable, continuously pushed, and regression-gated while the remaining roadmap work is completed. Parent roadmap: #126.

Included so far

• layered glTF PBR material import and rendering paths
• compiled render graph, capability-aware material/texture indirection, and GPU-driven retained-rendering foundations
• data-driven baseline/modern/high-end renderer tiers with real lower-tier forcing, validated documentation, structured quality snapshots, and bounded native/Linux device negotiation ([Platform] Define renderer capability tiers and validate every fallback #138)
• transparency, refraction, reactive coverage, transmitted shadows, and virtual-shadow work
• iridescence-aware SSR metadata transport with ordinary paths kept lazy
• solid-angle/PDF-selected HDR environment prefiltering to remove thin-film fireflies
• restored Hi-Z SSGI indirect lighting and corrected WSRC octahedral corner wrapping
• merged compatibility with PRs fix: unblock main CI + audit follow-ups (RT-safety, silent-drop FFI, docs) #124, feat(apple): gamepad on macOS/iOS + iOS AVAudioSession #125, and fix(linux): make Bloom actually run on Linux — device limits, screenshots, window close #146
• truthful named local/PR/web/hardware CI lanes, strict lint/contract gates, failure evidence, exact-tag-SHA release gating, and a complete canonical-example inventory

Latest qualification

Head 21f73d8 passes every required hosted check:

• 306 shared unit tests passed (1 ignored), the production negotiated-device integration passed, 44 renderer goldens passed (2 ignored), and 3 render-target tests passed
• strict formatting/clippy, FFI/schema parity, file ratchets, wasm compile/build, and quality-governance tests pass
• macOS, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows release builds pass
• dependent macOS Chrome passes the real WebGPU known-frame/compositor-pixel smoke against the exact Ubuntu-built package
• production renderer construction passes locally in automatic high-end, forced baseline, and forced modern modes
• all 20 canonical package/main examples pass Perry code generation locally; their inventory is completeness-checked in PR CI
• exact Damaged Helmet A/B: SSIM 0.98803, luminance RMSE 0.01653 (pass)
• ordinary steady-state rendering has no new per-frame pass or CPU work; capability detection/device planning is startup work only

Remaining before ready

• finish [Platform] Define renderer capability tiers and validate every fallback #138 migration of direct Windows/mobile device paths, full public capability API, setter-result parity, and platform qualification coverage
• finish public API/debug/transport parity and closure evidence for other active rendering issues
• archive linked-native canonical-example and hardware quality runs before closing the combined [CI] Make local, PR, hardware, and release quality gates truthful #140 criterion
• add release package-install/startup smoke after [Platform] Package shader runtime dependencies and enforce UTF-8 end to end #145 supplies the Windows shader-runtime dependency manifest and packaged DXC files

This draft does not auto-close remaining roadmap issues; issue checklists are updated only when their evidence is complete.

[coderabbitai]

Important

Draft PR not reviewed

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✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch codex/rendering-wip-integrated-20260727

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[proggeramlug]

Checkpoint pushed: 7962bee adds the qualified bounded rigid-opaque VSM page indirect path; 87b9d2e adds exact image/performance evidence and updates the current VSM contract.

• CPU-control vs indirect image: byte-identical (RMSE 0, SSIM 1).
• Median-of-five long-window result: wall -3.66%, CPU-frame mean -9.90%, GPU-frame mean -5.07%, VSM-page CPU -11.48%, VSM-page GPU -46.65%.
• Full local scripts/ci-check.sh --quick: pass.
• Boundary and remaining work recorded on [Renderer] Add virtual shadow maps with cached pages and scalable many-light shadows #132: [Renderer] Add virtual shadow maps with cached pages and scalable many-light shadows #132 (comment)

The path remains compatibility-safe for cutout/skinned/dynamic/small/Web/unsupported work and allocates nothing until a page qualifies.

[proggeramlug]

Windows RTX 4080 / Vulkan hardware handoff is ready in #153 at exact commit 4508eaff082b849203ac60f9d8f3a327b71d95c9. The pickup ticket contains host prerequisites, pinned Bistro setup, strict command, exit semantics, archive commands, and the required return checklist. The branch now forces Vulkan and hardware GI for the governed class, uses the active Python interpreter and main.exe on Windows, and includes a refreshed Windows Cargo lock.