3d-game-dev

name	3d-game-dev
description	3D Game Development guardrails for AI-assisted game creation. Enforces mathematical correctness, asset safety, shader constraints, and Godot/Unity conventions.

3D Game Development Skill

Use when the agent is generating, modifying, or reviewing code/assets for a 3D game project.

Applicability

• Procedural geometry generation
• Shader/material code (GLSL, HLSL, WGSL, Godot Shader Language)
• 3D physics and collision code
• Camera, lighting, and rendering pipeline code
• Asset import/export pipelines
• Spatial audio or XR/VR implementations

Mandatory Guardrails

1. Asset Safety

Polygon/Vertex Budgets:

• Mobile: max 10K vertices per dynamic object, 50K per scene
• PC: max 50K per object, 500K per scene
• VR/Spatial: max 5K per object, 100K per scene
• Auto-generate LOD0/LOD1/LOD2 for anything >5K polygons

Topology Rules:

• NEVER generate non-manifold geometry
• NEVER generate N-gons (polygons >4 sides)
• NEVER generate inverted normals
• All meshes must be triangles or quads only

UV Mapping:

• Overlapping UV islands are FORBIDDEN unless explicitly mirrored
• Texel density must be consistent across adjacent meshes
• UVs must be in [0,1] range unless tiling is intentional

2. Shader Constraints

Texture Sampling:

• Max 16 texture samplers per shader pass (Forward Rendering)
• Max 8 samplers per pass (Mobile/VR)

Branching:

• NEVER use if/else in fragment/pixel shaders
• Use step(), smoothstep(), mix() instead
• Dynamic branching breaks GPU warp synchronization

Loop Bounds:

• All loops must have compile-time determinable bounds
• Max 64 iterations per shader loop
• Unroll small loops (≤8 iterations) explicitly

3. Mathematical Correctness

Coordinate Systems:

• Use right-handed coordinate system
• Y-up is standard (Z-up only for CAD/CAM workflows)
• Document handedness in every file header

Rotation:

• Use quaternions for all continuous rotations
• NEVER use Euler angles for animation (Gimbal Lock risk)
• Normalize quaternions before every transform application
• Verify: assert(abs(q.length() - 1.0) < 0.0001)

Matrix Pipeline:

• Follow Model → World → View → Projection order
• Always validate: MVP = P * V * M (column-major)
• Document matrix convention (row vs column) in file headers

Precision:

• Use double precision for world-space coordinates (large worlds)
• Use float for local/model space
• Use fixed-point for mobile GPU calculations where possible

4. Godot 4.x Conventions

Node Communication:

• Use Signals for decoupled communication
• NEVER use get_node("../../Player") — use exported NodePaths or Signals
• Signal emissions must include type-safe parameters

Threading:

• Use WorkerThreadPool for procedural generation
• NEVER call rendering functions from background threads
• NEVER manipulate SceneTree from background threads
• Use call_deferred() for thread-safe node operations

GDScript:

• Static typing: var velocity: Vector3 not var velocity
• Use @onready for node references
• Use @export for configurable parameters
• Document units in comments: meters, seconds, radians

5. AI-Debuggable Architecture

ECS over Inheritance:

• Use Entity-Component-System, not deep inheritance
• Each component must be serializable to JSON
• Systems must be deterministic and replayable

Semantic Telemetry:

• Report spatial errors semantically: { "event": "Collision_Failure", "entity": "Player_1", "expected_surface": "Floor_Mesh", "actual_contact": "Void" }
• NEVER dump raw float coordinates to LLM context

Headless Mode:

• All scenes must run in --headless for CI testing
• JSON state dumps at frame 0, N/2, and N
• Frame rate, memory, and error logs tracked over 600 frames

Halt Conditions — STOP and Ask User

• Generating shader code without target platform specified
• Proposing mesh generation without polygon budget defined
• Modifying physics code without test scene verification
• Using Euler angles for 3D rotation (quaternions required)
• Dynamic branching in fragment shaders proposed
• Working with unnormalized quaternions
• Modifying rendering pipeline without headless test plan

Compliance Verification

• Run scripts/validate_3d_assets.py on generated meshes
• Run scripts/validate_shaders.py on shader code
• Run scripts/validate_math.py on transform/rotation code
• CI: 600-frame headless test must pass (FPS >30, memory stable)

References

• docs/game-design/3D_GAME_DEVELOPMENT.md — Full guardrails
• docs/game-design/3D_MATHEMATICAL_FOUNDATIONS.md — Math reference
• docs/game-design/3D_MODULE_ARCHITECTURE.md — Architecture blueprint
• docs/game-design/AI_DEBUGGABLE_3D_ARCHITECTURE.md — AI debugging patterns
• docs/game-design/3D_GUARDREL_PROPOSALS_V1.2.md — New rule proposals