- ensure player transform sync is not gated by third-person so player shadow stays consistent
- hold shadow projection center during movement and snap once on stop to remove delayed catch-up
- smooth foliage caster transitions using blended phase-shifted UV samples
- tune foliage motion frequencies/amplitudes for less popping
- increase shadow map resolution to 2048 and retune terrain PCF texel scale
- increase global shadow strength from 0.62 to 0.68 for stronger, clearer shadows
- keep shadow projection center fixed while moving to remove per-frame projection churn flicker
- replace delayed post-move catch-up with immediate stop transition and idle smoothing
- rework foliage shadow caster motion to use blended phase-shifted UV samples for continuous position transitions
- reduce high-frequency foliage threshold popping by removing threshold warping path
- sharpen terrain receive filtering with tuned 5-tap PCF weights/offset for more detailed shadows
- raise shadow map resolution to 1536 and keep light-space texel snapping for stable sampling
- set shadows enabled by default and lower global shadow strength from 0.65 to 0.62
- keep foliage animation speed consistent between moving and idle at 80%
- reduce per-tile ground clutter generation pressure and enforce tighter caps to avoid spikes
- remove expensive detail dedupe scans from the hot render path
- add progressive/lazy clutter updates around player movement to smooth frame pacing
- lower noisy runtime INFO logging to DEBUG/throttled paths
- keep terrain/game screen updates responsive while preserving existing behavior
- normalize humanoid NPC clothing geosets at spawn time to avoid conflicting overlays\n- force pants-first selection for group 13 to prevent robe/kilt meshes on trouser NPCs\n- hide cloak groups for NPCs unless a renderable cape texture can actually be resolved\n- avoid falling back to missing equipment texture paths during region compositing\n- stop model-scope type-2 cape texture writes that could leak cape/white textures across shared model IDs\n- add group texture override usage in character renderer draw path\n- update character preview equipment application to reuse preview applyEquipment path\n- keep hand-only keybone fallback for attachments to prevent helmet/anchor misbinds
Hide NPC cloak/object-skin mesh when no cape texture resolves by using a transparent texture fallback, preventing skin-texture bleed on cloaks. Tighten NPC equipment region compositing by slot and add safe humanoid geoset selection to avoid robe-over-pants conflicts and odd pants texturing.
Reduce login/runtime hitching by deferring non-critical world-system initialization across frames, lowering per-frame transport doodad spawn budget, and demoting high-volume transport/MO_TRANSPORT diagnostics to debug. Gate M2 glow diagnostics behind WOWEE_M2_GLOW_DIAG and make zone music prewarm opt-in via WOWEE_PREWARM_ZONE_MUSIC.
- Add per-frame cap for first-time creature model loads to spread expensive model/texture decode work across frames instead of burst loading.
- Keep cached creature spawns flowing while deferring uncached display IDs, preserving world population updates with smoother frame pacing.
- Defer transport WMO doodad instancing into a queued batch processor with a strict per-frame budget to avoid multi-hundred-ms spikes when ships/elevators register.
- Process deferred transport doodad batches in both normal gameplay update and loading-screen warmup loop so heavy transport setup can be amortized before and after world entry.
- Cleanup pending transport doodad batches on gameobject despawn to prevent stale work and avoid attaching children to removed parents.
- Lower character texture cache miss logging from INFO to DEBUG to reduce log I/O contention during movement-heavy asset streaming.
Selection ring rendering has been upgraded to better match WoW-like target feedback and remain readable across complex geometry.
Visual updates:
- Reworked ring mesh/shader from a simple two-band strip to a unit-disc + radial fragment shaping.
- Implemented a thinner outer ring profile.
- Added an inward color/alpha gradient that fades from the ring toward the center.
Placement/anchoring updates:
- Added CharacterRenderer::getInstanceFootZ() to query model foot plane from instance bounds.
- Added Application::getRenderFootZForGuid() to resolve per-GUID foot height via live instance mapping.
- Updated GameScreen target selection placement to anchor the effect at target foot Z.
Ground/surface stability:
- In renderSelectionCircle(), added floor clamping against terrain, WMO, and M2 floor probes at target XY.
- Raised final placement offset to reduce residual clipping on uneven surfaces.
Depth/visibility behavior:
- Added polygon offset during ring draw to reduce z-fighting.
- Disabled depth testing for the selection effect draw pass (with state restore) so the ring remains visible through terrain/WMO occluders, per requested behavior.
State safety:
- Restored modified GL state after selection pass (depth test / polygon offset / depth mask / cull).
Build validation:
- Verified with cmake build target "wowee" after each stage; final build succeeds.
- SHADOW_MAP_SIZE 2048→1024: 4x fewer pixels rasterized in depth pass
- Replace 9-tap manual PCF loop with single hardware PCF tap in all 4 receiver
shaders (terrain.frag, wmo_renderer, m2_renderer, character_renderer).
GL_LINEAR + GL_COMPARE_REF_TO_TEXTURE already gives 2×2 bilinear PCF per
tap for free, so quality is maintained while doing 9x fewer texture fetches.
- Throttle shadow depth pass to every 2 frames; OpenGL depth texture persists
between frames so receivers always have a valid shadow map. 1-frame lag at
60 fps is invisible.
- choose run only when movement speed is above threshold
- prefer walk for duration-less synthesized movement deltas
- keep animation fallback behavior when specific sequence is unavailable
- use movement animation (prefer run, fallback walk) for server-driven creature moves
- synthesize short movement duration for duration-less movement deltas to avoid glide/attack-pose sliding
- return to idle after both walk/run movement states
- drive target circle from entity latest position and always interpolate selected/engaged targets
The binary DBC files for all expansions use the same field ordering
(VariationIndex=4, ColorIndex=5, Texture1=6), but classic/tbc/turtle
dbc_layouts.json had swapped texture and variation/color fields, causing
all skin/face/hair/underwear lookups to fail. Also adds generalized
NxN texture scaling and a second video to README.
clearCompositeCache() now only clears the lookup map without deleting
GPU textures, preventing NPC and other instance textures from being
accidentally destroyed during player equipment changes.
Corrected CharGeosets group assignments verified via vertex bounding boxes:
- Group 4 (401+) = gloves/forearms, Group 5 (501+) = boots/shins,
Group 8 (801+) = sleeves (chest-controlled), Group 9 = kneepads,
Group 13 (1301+) = pants/trousers, Group 20 (2002) = bare feet
- Changed bare shin default from 501 to 502 for better width match
with thigh mesh (0.39 vs 0.32, thighs are 0.42)
- Added clearCompositeCache() to prevent stale composite textures
from being reused across equipment changes
- Fixed character preview geoset defaults to match corrected mapping
Implement full mail send/receive: SMSG_SHOW_MAILBOX, CMSG_GET_MAIL_LIST,
SMSG_MAIL_LIST_RESULT, CMSG_SEND_MAIL, SMSG_SEND_MAIL_RESULT, mail take
money/item/delete/mark-as-read, and inbox/compose UI windows.
Fix periodic stuttering in Stormwind caused by synchronous per-line disk
flushes in the logger — remove fileStream.flush() and std::endl, downgrade
high-volume per-packet/per-model/per-texture LOG_INFO to LOG_DEBUG.
Use authoritative WoW Model Viewer atlas coordinates (256x256 reference)
for face, underwear, and body region placement. Previously all coordinates
were hardcoded at 512x512 scale causing overlays to be clipped on the
256x256 base skin. Also include face upper+lower textures from
CharSections.dbc in compositing for both player and other-player characters.
Cache composite textures by input key so identical NPC equipment
combos share one GPU texture. Use DBC layout system for
ItemDisplayInfo texture component fields instead of hardcoded
indices (cross-expansion support). Selective player equipment
re-emission on item query response instead of broadcasting to
all players.
Mount Animation System:
- Property-based jump animation discovery using sequence metadata
- Chain linkage scoring (nextAnimation/aliasNext) for accurate detection
- Correct loop detection: flags & 0x01 == 0 means looping
- Avoids brake/stop animations via blendTime penalties
- Works on any mount model without hardcoded animation IDs
Mount Physics:
- Physics-based jump height: vz = sqrt(2 * g * h)
- Configurable MOUNT_JUMP_HEIGHT constant (1.0m default)
- Procedural lean into turns for ground mounts
- Smooth roll based on turn rate (±14° max, 6x/sec blend)
Audio Improvements:
- State-machine driven mount sounds (jump, land, rear-up)
- Semantic sound methods (no animation ID dependencies)
- Debug logging for missing sound files
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed mount animation sequencing (JumpStart → JumpLoop → JumpEnd)
- Fixed animation loop flag interpretation (0x20 vs 0x21)
- Rider bone attachment working correctly during all mount actions
Add SkySystem coordinator that follows WoW's actual architecture where skyboxes
are authoritative and procedural elements serve as fallbacks. Integrate lighting
system across all renderers (terrain, WMO, M2, character) with unified parameters.
Sky System:
- SkySystem coordinator manages skybox, celestial bodies, stars, clouds, lens flare
- Skybox is authoritative (baked stars from M2 models, procedural fallback only)
- skyboxHasStars flag gates procedural star rendering (prevents double-star bug)
Celestial Bodies (Lore-Accurate):
- Two moons: White Lady (30-day cycle, pale white) + Blue Child (27-day cycle, pale blue)
- Deterministic moon phases from server gameTime (not deltaTime toys)
- Sun positioning driven by LightingManager directionalDir (DBC-sourced)
- Camera-locked sky dome (translation ignored, rotation applied)
Lighting Integration:
- Apply LightingManager params to WMO, M2, character renderers
- Unified lighting: directional light, diffuse color, ambient color, fog
- Star occlusion by cloud density (70% weight) and fog density (30% weight)
Documentation:
- Add comprehensive SKY_SYSTEM.md technical guide
- Update MEMORY.md with sky system architecture and anti-patterns
- Update README.md with WoW-accurate descriptions
Critical design decisions:
- NO latitude-based star rotation (Azeroth not modeled as spherical planet)
- NO always-on procedural stars (skybox authority prevents zone identity loss)
- NO universal dual-moon setup (map-specific celestial configurations)
Reset NPC animation to idle when health goes from 0 to >0 (respawn), prevent
dead NPCs from being moved by server movement packets. Fix faction hostility
to check factionGroup Monster bit and individual enemy arrays, not just
enemyGroup. Add level-based mob coloring: grey (no XP), green (easy), yellow
(even), orange (hard), red (very hard) for target frame and selection circle.
Restore unconditional verticalAccel/effectStartTime reads in spline parser
with pointCount safety cap at 256. Load player hair texture from
CharSections.dbc instead of hardcoded path, and restrict render fallback
to not apply skin composite to hair batches. Change loot/gossip/vendor
windows to re-center on each open via ImGuiCond_Appearing.
Split inventory into bags-only (B key) and character screen (C key). Vendor window
auto-opens bags with sell prices on hover and right-click to sell. Add camera intro
pan on all login/spawn/teleport/hearthstone events and idle orbit after 2 minutes.
Add quest log UI, SMSG_MONSTER_MOVE handling, deferred creature spawn queue, and
creature fade-in/movement interpolation for online mode.
Use CharHairGeosets.dbc to map (race, sex, hairStyleId) to the correct
group 0 scalp mesh instead of the broken 101+hairStyleId formula. Filter
group 0 submeshes so only the body base and correct hair mesh render
(prevents overlapping scalp variants). Fix ItemDisplayInfo.dbc column
indices (5→7) and geoset formulas for equipment. Add CharSections.dbc
hair texture lookup and CharacterFacialHairStyles.dbc support.
For body part batches (group 0) that resolve to white/fallback texture,
fall back to the first valid texture in the model. This handles humanoid
NPCs where body parts use different texture slots that may not be set.
Baked NPC textures must be applied to all skin-related texture slots
(type 1 char skin, type 2 object skin, type 6 hair) since body parts
use different texture slots. Removed separate hair texture lookup as
baked textures already include the complete NPC appearance.
M2 humanoid models have duplicate body meshes - one set for baked textures
and another for skin compositing. Skip body part batches (group 0) that
resolve to white/fallback texture to avoid rendering the wrong set.
Group 0 (body parts 0-18) always renders all submeshes since they represent
different body parts. Other groups filter by exact submeshId match to show
only one variation per group.
Body parts (submeshId 0-99) now always render regardless of activeGeosets.
Other geoset groups (hair, chest, etc.) still require explicit enabling.
This fixes missing body parts while maintaining equipment filtering.
Expanded body part geoset range from 0-18 to 0-99 to cover all humanoid
submesh IDs. Added per-model debug logging to track submesh IDs and
geoset filtering behavior.
M2 batches have a geosetIndex field that determines the geoset group for
filtering (0-18=body, 1xx=hair, etc.). We were incorrectly using submeshId
from the submesh struct instead. Now properly stores and uses geosetId.
Baked NPC textures already include complete appearance (skin, features,
armor). Equipment component textures are designed for player characters
with different UV layout and were causing body parts to disappear.
