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.

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[proggeramlug]

Virtual visibility raster checkpoint pushed through 1fce846. Evidence: docs/evidence/issue-131-virtual-visibility-raster-v1.{md,json}.

Qualified: collision-free compatibility/virtual Rg32Uint IDs, raw cooked-page vertex pulling into ID+depth, fail-closed feature/limit/count gates, masked compatibility ownership, and a real Metal four-draw readback oracle. Governed quick lane passed (406 shared tests; 59s) plus native/wasm models3d. Default renderer remains allocation/work/pixel identical.

No acceptance boxes move yet; next is exact virtual PBR/four-MRT reconstruction before renderer registration.

[proggeramlug]

Checkpoint pushed:

• 9b3130f — production-qualified virtual visibility PBR reconstruction, render-ready 32-byte selections, cross-mesh ownership validation, redundant mesh-table fetch removed, exact four-MRT renderer bridge.
• 311b6ff — revision-qualified [Renderer] Build virtualized meshlet geometry with automatic LOD and streaming #131 evidence.

Validation: governed quick lane PASS in 122 s; 410 shared tests + negotiated device, 59 golden, visibility parity/runtime, wasm, strict lint/contracts, cooker/governance. Real Metal production-layout and reconstruction oracles pass. Hardware quick scenes built/captured, but visual comparison remains unqualified because approved portable baselines are absent.

Default frames remain unchanged; the next slice is explicit renderer routing/composition.