# Round 2: Wayfinding

## Concept

The site is a night drive, so the reading layer should follow the rules of a road.
Round 1 added effects around the drive (a boot terminal, a cursor headlight, a grain
overlay, an operations ticker). Round 2 removes those effects and gives everything a
single sign language. Every chapter is an **exit**, numbered the same way everywhere:

- the 3D roadside sign that drives past (`EXIT 03`, then the next exit, an exit arrow),
- the chapter panel (a chamfered `EXIT 03` tab on the top edge, plus `THEN → Infrastructure`),
- the navigation gantry (leading-zero exit counters at wide widths),
- the dash cluster (exit tab, route %, chapter, Bucharest local time),
- project registration plates (`05.1 / PRIVATE / ACTIVE`) and lettered evidence stops (A–D).

Each exit uses its chapter accent (rose, violet, cyan, coral) in both CSS and the sign
texture, so the world and the page tell you the same thing at the same moment.

## Changes

- **Sign faces** (`src/scene/world/sign.ts`): redrawn as exit signs, with an accent tab, a
  "THEN" line, a fitted label, a lane rule and a 45° exit arrow that mirrors for left-side
  signs. The emissive edge takes the chapter accent. This also fixes a numbering defect:
  signs used to say Profile = ROUTE 02 while the CSS numerals said 01.
- **Exit plates** (`src/styles/wayfinding.css`, which replaces `nightshift.css`): all labels are
  CSS generated content with empty alt text (`/ ''`), so the no-JS semantic document is
  unchanged. On arrival the current chapter's tab flickers on once, like a neon tube
  catching (this is gated behind reduced motion).
- **Soundtrack coupling** (`src/audio/music-pulse.ts`): an analyser tap on the mixer output
  reads the low bins once per frame inside the existing scene loop. While audio is running
  and audible, kicks push the terrain surge and the sun bloom. When audio is muted or off
  it reads 0 and adds no work.
- **Mask win** (`sign-stage.ts`): the opening reading-mask reveal is quantized to 24 steps,
  so the mask-image string, and the repaint it triggers, changes at most 24 times instead
  of every scroll frame.
- **Hero scrim**: its bottom is feathered with a static mask, which removes the dark band
  that showed while scrolling.
- **Vignette**: plain alpha with no blend mode, so it is never re-blended against the canvas.

## Cut from round 1

- `useHeadlight` (the beam and spotlight): a pointer-follow effect that cost work on every frame.
- `BootSequence`: a terminal-log cliché that delayed the hero.
- `OperationsStrip`: a third bottom pill. Its clock moved into the dash cluster, and uptime was dropped.
- The soft-light grain overlay over the canvas, which cost compositing on every frame.
- The hover font-weight change on the hero name, which caused layout work.

## Alternatives considered

- **Editorial dossier** case studies with sticky media columns. This is blocked because the
  live reading stage translates `.portfolio-main`, so `position: sticky` does not work inside it.
- **Grain or film post pass** in the WebGL composer. Rejected for its fill-rate cost on low tiers.
- **Physical sign assets from Blender**. Deferred, because the signs are procedural
  geometry with canvas faces, so the redesign needed no GLB changes and kept the first-scene budget.
- **Per-chapter sky events** (meteors, a city skyline on approach). Worth doing, but it is scene work
  that needs its own performance pass.