VFX Build-Out Grind

Depth-clip probe — per-pixel occlusion by the pixel world

A native-resolution HD sprite (a chroma-keyed skeleton) is occluded per-pixel by the 480 world. The trick: occluders render their linear view-depth into a separate 480×270 SubViewport, and the sprite's canvas shader samples that depth with NEAREST filtering — so the bite edge snaps to the world's pixel grid (chunky, not smooth). That's deliberate: the sprite stays crisp inside, but where it meets the world it's occluded by the world's own pixels, which is what makes the res-contrast read as authored rather than a floating cutout.

It also demonstrates correctness, not just "any geometry hides it": the orange pillar bites the left, the blue block bites the head, the magenta block bites the shins — all simultaneously and per-pixel — while the teal block behind the sprite does NOT bite (the skeleton's ribs draw over it). That's true depth. A first-pass world-light + shadow transfer is wired too (the sprite tints to the scene light; a ground shadow).

Resolution A/B — why zoomed-in sprites go janky

The same portrait, the same breathing scale-sin, three ways at matched on-screen size. 480-smooth (billboard in the world, sub-pixel scale) resamples to mush. 480-snap (scale quantized to the pixel grid) is crisp but the animation steps — it kills a smooth idle. Native-HD (on the overlay layer) is the only path that's crisp and smooth, retaining ~3× the detail.

Plasma · electric · ember — one ribbon, three looks

A projectile/spell trail is a camera-facing ribbon rebuilt every frame from a ring buffer of the head's recent positions (the same strip technique the effects library uses for its ribbons). The shader scrolls two-rate noise along the length with a bright transverse centerline; a ridge lever thresholds it thin for the electric arc. Head→tail fade and taper are carried in the vertex color.

Summon black hole · dimensional cut · shockwave — one kernel

The cinematic-tier screen-space posts, refactored onto a single ScreenFX rig (CanvasLayer + back-buffer copy + full-screen shader). A small diegetic in-world rift opens the reel; then the full-screen summon black hole (gravitational lensing + chromatic aberration, verified pixel-identical after the refactor), the dimensional cut (a slash tears the screen apart onto an energy void), and the new shockwave (an expanding radial impact ring).

Heat-haze over lava — caveat

A diegetic screen-read shimmer rising off a hot surface. Also the best look at the molten lava (Worley crust + glowing cracks + downhill flow on the real fluid sim).

Wall-fade · x-ray silhouette · gated nameplate

For a unit you command, total occlusion is bad UX — so this is the anti-occlusion doctrine. A camera→unit raycast (against a real collider pillar) drives three responses as the camera orbits: wall-fade (the blocking pillar goes translucent), x-ray silhouette (a cyan ghost shows the unit through the wall), and a gated nameplate (the label fades while the unit is hidden). Note: dither "screen-door" fade was verified unimplemented in this renderer, so wall-fade uses real alpha.