tera/design-qa.md

Freeway / Vehicle v2 — Design QA

final result: passed

Evidence

• Source visual: /home/kartios/.codex/outputs/lumbridge-build-20260819/concepts/freeway-target.png
• Implementation: /home/kartios/worktrees/tera-freeway-v2 (feat/freeway-world-v2)
• Final US-101 capture: /tmp/tera-freeway-us101-design-qa.png
• Final I-5 capture: /tmp/tera-freeway-i5-design-qa.png
• Same-input full comparison: /tmp/tera-freeway-design-qa-combined.png
• Same-input focused comparison: /tmp/tera-freeway-design-qa-focused.png
• Viewport: 1505 × 1045 CSS pixels, device scale factor 1
• Browser: system Google Chrome through Playwright. Browser plugin was not available.
• State: California → chapter 02 / US-101, chase camera, assisted drive controls visible, live night atmosphere. I-5 was also captured after chapter switching.
• Flow under test: California loads → user selects US-101 or I-5 → a divided route enters chase view → vehicle controls remain available and keyboard drive input is accepted.

Findings and resolution history

Priority	Finding	Resolution
P1	Baseline freeway was one flat dark ribbon; direction, lane, median, and shoulder topology collapsed together.	Replaced with independent three-lane carriageways, shoulders, inner yellow and outer white edges, dashed lane separators, concrete median protection, outer guardrails, and instanced reflectors. Resolved.
P1	Baseline roadside bulbs overpowered the corridor and did not establish a California route identity.	Replaced corridor decoration with restrained reflectors plus deterministic US-101 coastal-oak/orchard and I-5 Central Valley power-pole/silo placement. Added route shield signs. Resolved.
P1	Existing black vehicle read as a silhouette and borrowed another product's visual identity.	Added an original unbadged Lumbridge EV-01 visual identity, graphite clearcoat, continuous light blades, satin rails, brighter wheels, panoramic glass, and a denser follow-camera interior LOD while keeping serialized compatibility names. Resolved.
P1	The first I-5 chase pass placed the camera behind a terrain grade, hiding the vehicle and near road.	Raised and tightened the chase rig so authored grades remain visible without terrain occlusion. Resolved.
P2	Initial v2 dashes were too long and roadside props too large at chase scale.	Shortened dash duty cycle, reduced reflectors, reduced/set back props, widened lanes to vehicle scale, and increased deterministic prop cadence through instancing. Resolved.
P2	Safety behavior had no visible replay-grade measures beyond road-edge contact.	Added deterministic acceleration/jerk, lane-keeping, headway, collision-risk and traffic-intervention telemetry plus nearest-lead adaptive braking. Resolved by controller/simulation tests.

Deliberate rendering limits

• The target is a daylight, near-photoreal art-direction image; the verified runtime state uses Tera's live 1 AM atmosphere. This change does not override the product clock or global weather/lighting contracts.
• Roads follow the existing coarse, hand-authored statewide transport graph. The renderer adds curve/grade continuity and route character but does not claim survey geometry or navigation accuracy.
• All new visible detail is procedural and draw-call bounded; there are no photographic asphalt, terrain, or vegetation textures. This keeps the open-source build cloneable and inside the existing triangle/draw-call budgets.

Browser verification

• US-101 and I-5 chapter keyboard navigation: passed.
• Boot completion and drive-control visibility: passed.
• Held W drive input after route switching: passed without page/runtime errors.
• Final capture had no JavaScript/page errors. The Vite dev server separately requests an absent favicon and reports that non-product 404.