Overview
Why it's here. Same author as SNOWFLOW; the viral desert demo that preceded the snow/waterbending work. GPU clipmap dunes, permanent sand deformation, cloth robe, six sand spells, physically based sky. Direct lineage for the snow brief.
u/Any-Reputation8118 / NonivControls
WASD · 1–5 + RMB cast · F3 perf · F1 settings
Prompt status
Author did not save the original prompt (stated in comments: "Sadly I did not save it… original prompt was like 20% of the result, then I was working with Claude incrementally").
See notes.md for process reconstruction and a prompt seed inferred from OP's public description + the later SNOWFLOW brief (which is fully preserved).
Workflow that mattered
"giving Claude its own instruments: a headless-Chrome harness that boots the app, screenshots it and reports per-subsystem GPU cost, so changes were made against measured numbers."
Notes
Desert explorer — process notes + reconstructed seed
What OP publicly described
a browser desert you walk around in third person. The terrain is a procedural dune field on a GPU clipmap — no meshes, no textures, no downloaded assets; every surface is generated in shader code. Sand deforms permanently where you walk and slowly erodes back. There's a hooded robe simulated as GPU cloth, a physically-based sky marched per pixel, and six aimed sand spells (1–5 and right mouse) that dig real craters into the terrain and raise real dunes you can ride.
Reconstructed seed (NOT original — for experimentation)
Use this as a starting point, then iterate with screenshot + GPU-cost feedback like OP did. Prefer the full SNOWFLOW brief in ../01-snowflow-waterbending/prompt.md for the mature version of the same design language.
You are the sole engineer and technical artist on a real-time graphics tech demo.
Build a third-person desert sand-mage tech demo end to end.
PRIME DIRECTIVE: Visual quality is the product. No gameplay loop, no progression UI.
A player walks dunes for 90 seconds, casts sand spells, and either thinks "this is AAA" or closes the tab.
STACK: Modern JS (ES modules), Three.js latest with WebGPURenderer + TSL, Vite.
TARGET: Chrome desktop, discrete GPU, 1440p, 90 FPS sustained / 60 FPS floor.
NO WebGL fallback. If navigator.gpu is missing, show one line and stop.
NO downloaded meshes/textures/HDRIs if procedural can win. Everything in shader code where possible.
SYSTEMS (must ship):
1. Geometry clipmap dune field, wind-anisotropic layered noise height, far ridge impostors.
2. Custom sand material: multi-scale normals, sparkle, wet/compressed states, triplanar on steep faces.
3. Persistent player-following deformation render target (depression + berm mass + compression). Feet, surf, and spells all write the same buffer. Trails refill slowly and self-shadow.
4. Physically based sky (per-pixel march or high-quality analytic) with long low sun and soft cascaded shadows (PCSS).
5. Procedural hooded-robe character, GPU cloth on hem/sleeves, foot planting IK, footfall spray.
6. Six aimed sand abilities (keys 1–5 + RMB) that dig real craters / raise rideable dunes — displacement is geometry, not decals.
7. Post: TAA, restrained bloom, tonemap (AgX/ACES), grain. Every effect toggleable from F1 overlay with frame-time graph + 1% lows.
PERFORMANCE: Zero allocations in the render loop. Prewarm every pipeline before the loading screen dismisses. Instrument with a headless Chrome harness that screenshots and reports per-subsystem GPU cost.
MILESTONES (hard gates — screenshot each, do not proceed if ugly):
Foundation → Terrain+sand look → Deformation → Character/cloth → Spells → Polish+perf.
Do not stop when it works. Stop when every captured frame looks polished and cohesive.Follow-up loop OP used
- 1. Build milestone
- 2. Human playtests + Claude screenshots
- 3. Feed bugs / "looks wrong" / GPU ms back into next prompt
- 4. Character model was weak → redesigned as fully robed so cloth hides cheap geometry