# Skybound Stylized Casual Magitech Ingame Asset Fix

**Date**: 2026-04-24  
**Project**: Skybound Protocol  
**Author**: Codex  
**Status**: Raw follow-up fix from gameplay screenshot review  

## 1. Screenshot Issues

The reviewed screenshots exposed three in-game visual problems.

Observed issues:

- `SUPPLY` air drop was rendered as a simple cyan ring and text label instead of a proper magitech supply crate.
- Enemy sprites showed a faint rectangular transparency box around the aircraft body.
- Large falling translucent circular hazards were rendered as plain gray circles and did not match the Stylized Casual Magitech tone.

## 2. Cause

### Supply Drop

The supply drop was not using an image asset.

It was drawn directly in `GameRenderer.renderAirDrops()` as:

- animated circle stroke
- translucent cyan fill
- white `SUPPLY` text

### Enemy Rectangle Artifact

The procedural generator used glow layers and Lanczos downsampling.

This left very low alpha pixels across the image canvas. In gameplay, those tiny alpha values became visible as a faint rectangular box around enemies.

### Falling Circular Hazard

The falling translucent circle was an `EMP_CLOUD` hazard.

It was drawn directly in `GameRenderer.renderHazards()` as a generic gray filled circle.

## 3. Fixes Applied

### Supply Drop Asset

A new stylized magitech crate sprite was generated:

- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/public/sprites/supply_crate.png`

The renderer now draws this crate for air drops while preserving a small dashed cyan capture ring.

### Alpha Cleanup

The procedural asset generator now clamps very low alpha values to `0` during PNG export.

This removes transparent rectangle artifacts while keeping intended outlines, glow, and silhouettes.

Verified enemy sprite alpha:

- normal enemy corner alpha: `0`
- elite enemy corner alpha: `0`
- boss corner alpha: `0`
- no alpha values below the cleanup threshold remain

### Hazard Assets

New hazard sprites were generated:

- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/public/sprites/vfx/vfx_hazard_emp.png`
- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/public/sprites/vfx/vfx_hazard_asteroid.png`
- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/public/sprites/vfx/vfx_hazard_debris.png`

`EMP_CLOUD` now renders as an arcane rune-field instead of a plain gray circle.

`ASTEROID` and `DEBRIS` can render as stylized magitech rock fragments instead of fallback circles.

## 4. Changed Runtime Paths

Important changed or generated paths:

- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/scripts/generate_magitech_assets.py`
- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/src/features/game/hooks/useGameAssets.ts`
- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/src/features/game/systems/GameRenderer.ts`
- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/src/features/game/utils/SpriteUtils.ts`
- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/public/sprites/supply_crate.png`
- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/public/sprites/vfx/vfx_hazard_emp.png`
- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/public/sprites/vfx/vfx_hazard_asteroid.png`
- `/Volumes/Data/project/Antigravity/Skybound/public/sprites/vfx/vfx_hazard_debris.png`

## 5. Verification

Asset generation completed successfully.

Alpha inspection confirmed transparent corners and no low-alpha rectangle residue for the checked enemy/boss/supply/hazard sprites.

Production build completed successfully with:

```bash
npm run build
```

The build still reports the existing `/sprites/player.png` static path warning, but it remains non-blocking and the production bundle was generated successfully.

## 🔗 Knowledge Connections
### Related Concepts (Auto-Linked)
* [[Blocking]]
* [[Reports]]
* [[Scripts]]
