P2b — The Descent (first-run cinematic)

The emotional payload IS the product moment — WebGL earns its cost here (Praxvon framework: interactive brand piece where interaction = emotional payload). Non-negotiables: skippable always, prefers-reduced-motion bypasses straight to walkthrough, never-show-again persisted (aide.onboarding.descent=done), zero network during playback.

Sequence storyboard (operator canon)

1. SPACE: avatar floats among stars over a binary-matrix field (0/1 glyph points, green/pink/purple/blue palette). Title: FSI AIDE.
2. CREDO card (typewriter reveal over matrix rain) — see Credo below. Banner: developed by neuro_nomad.
3. GATE: "Are you ready for the descent?" [Begin] [Skip] — Begin only after fonts/ assets preloaded (honest progress counter, DeepSee pattern).
4. FALL: camera follows avatar through atmosphere (heat-glow shader rim, speed lines as particle streaks). ~6-8s.
5. IMPACT + SHATTER: pre-fractured mesh explodes on contact; 200ms color snap-back (ZERO timing law); camera dives WITH the shards between cracks underground.
6. REASSEMBLY: shards converge/morph into the cockpit layout silhouette; pull-back reveals the real landing page underneath (scene fades as DOM fades in — one continuous motion, no pop).
7. Handoff → P2 spotlight walkthrough starts automatically.

Tech stack (per tier, auto-selected)

Tier	Trigger	Treatment
A discrete GPU	navigator.gpu || high-end dGPU heuristic	Full Three.js: starfield points, atmosphere shader rim, fracture shards, bloom-lite post
B integrated	default	Same scene, no post-processing, half particles, baked shadows
C fallback	prefers-reduced-motion OR WebGL unavailable OR user skips	Pre-rendered MP4/WebM (rendered ONCE from the same Blender scene) → still ends at walkthrough

Hard budgets (ZERO-case proven): final assets ≤10 MB total (KTX2/ETC1S textures, Draco geometry); ≤50k triangles avatar+shards combined; DPR clamped at 2; lazy-init AFTER app shell paints (never the LCP element); adaptive quality monitor steps pixel-ratio/effects down when rolling frame-time buffer degrades.

Asset pipeline

Blender avatar (stylized low-poly robot w/ neon emissive edges matching palette) → fracture modifier for shard set → export GLTF+Draco → gltf-transform KTX2 encode → bundle under assets/descent/. Matrix field + stars are procedural (no assets). Video fallback rendered from the same Blender file (Cycles bake → MP4 ~4 MB).

The Credo (draft v1 — operator approves final wording)

We build for the local developer. Your machine. Your models. Your data. Your revenue. Sovereign. Private. Nothing leaves without your hand. We verify before we claim. We ship what works, offline, out of the box. We give tools back to the people who build — and help them own their work. FSI — Ferrell Synthetic Intelligence. First deployment in production. developed by neuro_nomad

Pitfalls (from researched failures)

• Shader precision: force highp float (mobile mediump broke ZERO's animations).
• GPU texture uploads block frames: chunk atlas tiles, upload one per frame.
• Escape/listener leaks on overlay teardown (VS Code review findings).
• Never gate the product on the scene: Skip visible from frame one; failure to init WebGL must fall through silently, not error.
• Bundle discipline: Three.js loaded dynamic-import after shell paint (~140 KB gz).

Verification battery (compile ≠ shipped)

scripts/descent-battery.mjs (headless):

1. First boot shows descent (state flag absent) → second boot skips it (flag set).
2. Skip button visible within 500ms of scene start; clicking lands on walkthrough.
3. Reduced-motion env → no canvas ever created, straight to walkthrough.
4. Frame-time probe: avg ≥45fps on Tier-A profile (forced via debug override), ≥30fps Tier-B, over the full sequence.
5. Asset weight: assets/descent/ total ≤10MB (CI gate).
6. No network calls during playback (egress audit extension).
7. End-state: walkthrough scenario #1 active after completion OR skip.