# FLOOD Cosmic Atlas — references and rendering contract

84 original procedural compositions, arranged as seven collections of 12. Each has eight named scene controls, a bounded camera viewpoint, depth attenuation, exposure, three material colors, and three complete composed looks. Default output requests 720p at 30 fps in 16:9. Actual throughput depends on the device and selected shared effects.

## Intent and scope

These are performance visuals with editable shader controls. Their imagery suggests depth through actual perspective rays, analytic ellipsoid intersections, solid nearest-surface occlusion, thin light planes, and projected three-dimensional trajectories. The camera changes azimuth and elevation around spatial objects. Warp passages use a forward-looking camera and depth-wrapped gates.

No photographs, downloaded textures, measured datasets, or external model assets are embedded. All geometry, materials, palettes, and layouts are original. The NASA and Harvard material below informs the artistic vocabulary only. These patches do not reconstruct a named observed object.

## Primary references

- [NASA: Decoding Nebulae](https://science.nasa.gov/universe/stories/quick-reads/decoding-nebulae/) distinguishes emission, reflected illumination, and absorbing dust. This informs the separation of luminous gas, embedded stars, and dark foreground material in NB01–NB12. Palette colors remain adjustable artistic choices.
- [NASA: Hubble’s Nebulae](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/universe-uncovered/hubble-nebulae/) describes scattering in reflection nebulae and obscuration by dust. The software uses layered analytic opacity as an inexpensive visual approximation, with no spectral transfer model.
- [NASA: Messier 16 / Eagle Nebula](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-16/) describes dusty gas pillars and the different structures visible through infrared observation. NB01, NB02 and NB10 use independently arranged pillars, channels and embedded light, rather than tracing the published image.
- [NASA: Tour the Crab Nebula](https://science.nasa.gov/asset/webb/tour-the-crab-nebula/) describes a pulsar-shaped interior and filamentary structures. SN04 and SN12 adopt the broad idea of a compact center inside a layered filament enclosure.
- [NASA: The Crab Nebula Seen in New Light by Webb](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/the-crab-nebula-seen-in-new-light-by-nasas-webb/) provides a second primary description of the gas filament cage. The Crab is a pulsar-wind nebula as well as a supernova remnant; the entire SN collection should not be interpreted as one physical class or one growth mechanism.
- [Harvard/Smithsonian Chandra: Cassiopeia A three-dimensional visualization](https://www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/casa2/) and its [animation notes](https://www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/casa2/animations.html) show why layered, asymmetric ejecta deserve more than a flat radial starburst. SN05–SN11 use distinct asymmetric, nested, bipolar and spiral arrangements. Their shapes and durations are invented.
- [NASA SVS: Black Hole Accretion Disk Visualization](https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13326) explains that real gravitational bending changes the apparent disk. AG apertures and DD eclipses use ordinary geometric occlusion and decorative rings. They implement no gravitational ray integration, general-relativistic lensing, or physical accretion simulation.

References checked 2026-10-09. No source images were copied or packaged. All summaries above are paraphrases.

## Truth status by collection

| Collection | Status | Intended interpretation |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Nuclear explosions — NE01–NE12 | Fictional cinematic abstraction | Clouds, flash, luminous rings and dust are visual motifs. Every size and stage is normalized and has no engineering or blast-data meaning. |
| Supernova — SN01–SN12 | Science-informed artistic abstraction | Remnant cores, ejecta shells, knots and filament cages suggest observational morphology. Time, color, motion and exact arrangement are authored. |
| Nebulas — NB01–NB12 | Science-informed artistic abstraction | Emission-like gas, reflected-looking light and dark dust create layered cloudscapes. The renderer approximates their appearance. |
| Warp drive POV — WP01–WP12 | Fictional cinematic abstraction | Gates, star streaks, branching passages and spatial folding are invented science-fiction environments. |
| Bullet time — BT01–BT12 | Fictional cinematic abstraction | Frozen spatial sculptures are viewed with a moving camera. This is an artistic treatment of time. |
| AI god — AG01–AG12 | Fictional cinematic abstraction | Abstract machine monuments and distributed signal architecture, with no claim about AI consciousness or an actual entity. |
| Doomsday — DD01–DD12 | Fictional cinematic abstraction | Symbolic fractured worlds, eclipses and failing beacons; these scenes predict no event. |

## Transport and conditional controls

The base camera cycle uses a positive modulo phase over loopSeconds. Camera orientation and every automatic animation close at the same normalized phase. Procedural animations use periodic coordinates; no feedback history is required.

NE, SN and DD expose Repeat cinematic event (caAutoStage) and Cinematic event stage (caStage). Automatic mode advances a recurring stage, offset by 0.18 of the scene cycle for a useful starting composition. For a held event, switch Repeat cinematic event off and scrub stage. Stages 0 and 1 are resting endpoints. The useful expansion or warning-envelope comparison is roughly 0.2 to 0.7. The stage scale has no physical units. Camera orbit can continue while the stage is held, or its excursion can be set to zero.

DD stage controls the light envelope; its world geometry remains a symbolic aftermath. NE and SN use stage-dependent growth and fading of their cloud or ejecta structures. The fading envelopes conceal the repeating reset. A live event trigger can drive the normalized stage through the shared engine without replacing the shader.

BT has a distinct Frozen moment control (caC). It moves actual fragments along their authored trajectories, then holds them. The automatic phase drives only the camera for this collection. Camera excursion, azimuth, elevation and lens framing remain separate from object time. Set camera excursion to zero to hold the entire viewpoint.

The eight caA–caH controls receive family-specific labels and bounds. All are shader inputs rather than decorative panel fields. Three complete looks reset every collection field and alter at least structure proportions, spacing/population, and camera framing or angle. They do not rely on palette swaps for their differences. Common media, audio, mapping, output and mixer controls are supplied by the parent engine.

## Rendering and performance limits

The renderer uses WebGL1-compatible scalar/vector operations and statically bounded loops of at most 32 iterations. It performs analytic intersections rather than a full-screen iterative distance-field raymarch. Ellipsoid volumes use thickness, a small world-space texture field and approximate lighting; multiple clouds are composited in authored order. Thin luminous rings are ray/plane intersections. Solid ellipsoids and boxes use nearest-surface depth for occlusion. Light trajectories use closest ray/segment distance. This provides true view-dependent parallax with a bounded per-pixel cost.

The viewpoint is an authored orbit or forward-facing flight view, with exposed azimuth/elevation and camera excursion. It is not an unrestricted collision-aware navigation system. Optical effects and opacity are artistic approximations; clouds are not fluid simulations. A camera can move far enough off-axis to leave a structure partially outside the frame, which is useful for composition.

WP gates wrap through depth with entry/exit fades. BT object geometry is independent of automatic time. Deterministic loop matching applies to the base scene at unchanged settings. Live media, audio mappings, history, and shared motion effects may introduce their own time dependence.

## Verification status

- Five focused Node tests pass across all 84 definitions: exact collection IDs/counts; unique scene layouts and shaders; 252 valid complete composed looks; eight consumed scene uniforms; bounded WebGL1 syntax safeguards; closure-free serialized builds and live parameter bindings; periodic camera/event phase; independent bullet-time object phase.
- The parent has rendered NE01, SN01, NB01, WP01, BT01, AG01 and DD01 in the actual browser. All three looks for each rendered, animation was visible, and geometry/camera fields changed pixels. Stage requires the manual-mode comparison documented above.
- Full 84-scene, all-look GPU/control auditing is handled by the parent integration. The representative results do not establish a throughput guarantee or full-catalog GPU pass.

## Composition inventory

| ID | Collection | Scene | Spatial arrangement |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NE01 | Nuclear explosions | Ember Crown | One rising smoke pillar opens into a lobed canopy over an expanding luminous ground ring. |
| NE02 | Nuclear explosions | Twin Afterimages | Two offset columns rise at different heights, leaving a dark valley between their crowns. |
| NE03 | Nuclear explosions | Umbrella From Above | An overhead canopy spreads around a hollow central well, with a low stem visible through it. |
| NE04 | Nuclear explosions | Canyon Flash | A narrow luminous plume sits between two dark rock walls while dust rolls across the gap. |
| NE05 | Nuclear explosions | Saltwater Horizon | A broad, low cloud bank hangs above a blue-black plane and an oblique shock ellipse. |
| NE06 | Nuclear explosions | Double Anvil | Two stacked cloud shelves separate as a twisting stem climbs into the upper canopy. |
| NE07 | Nuclear explosions | Spiral Ash Column | A corkscrew of smoke lobes winds around a thin stem beneath a small bright crown. |
| NE08 | Nuclear explosions | Silent Fire Dome | A low hemispherical fire cloud swells above its horizon with a flattened inner pressure ring. |
| NE09 | Nuclear explosions | Vortex Collar | A tilted collar of smoke surrounds a bright opening and a short offset smoke column. |
| NE10 | Nuclear explosions | Needle Into Night | A narrow high column pierces a small canopy while fragments arc around its base. |
| NE11 | Nuclear explosions | Three Distant Suns | Three uneven horizon plumes overlap in depth, their stems and crowns remaining separate. |
| NE12 | Nuclear explosions | Beneath the Ash Ceiling | Huge near smoke banks frame a distant luminous opening and a receding ring below. |
| SN01 | Supernova | Coral Ejecta Sphere | A broken spherical shell of luminous knots reveals a compact remnant and tilted equatorial ring. |
| SN02 | Supernova | Polar Bloom | Opposed conical fans stretch away from an equatorial waist into a field of detached knots. |
| SN03 | Supernova | Equatorial Afterburn | A dense equatorial belt floats around two long polar jets and a small central star. |
| SN04 | Supernova | Filament Lantern | Warped longitudinal filaments form an open cage around the remnant, revealing far-side structure. |
| SN05 | Supernova | Broken Echo Arc | An incomplete curving arc and scattered rear knots leave a broad gap in the expanding shell. |
| SN06 | Supernova | Displaced Heart | An offset star shines through uneven ejecta concentrated on one side of a hollow shell. |
| SN07 | Supernova | Nested Stellar Skins | Alternating inner and outer knot shells create depth-separated skins around a luminous center. |
| SN08 | Supernova | Hourglass of Ash | Two expanding lobes pinch toward a narrow waist while a third ring passes behind them. |
| SN09 | Supernova | Twelve-Petal Remnant | Radially lobed ejecta bend into a flower-like three-dimensional shell with alternating depth. |
| SN10 | Supernova | Spiral Shock Sheet | A wound ejecta ribbon rises out of an equatorial plane rather than forming a flat radial burst. |
| SN11 | Supernova | Fan Beyond the Star | A broad one-sided ejecta fan sweeps behind a compact core and visible polar filament. |
| SN12 | Supernova | Pulsar Reliquary | A small central remnant sits inside orbiting broken rings and a sparse network of cool filaments. |
| NB01 | Nebulas | Ion Pillar Avenue | Staggered gas pillars open a navigable-looking avenue toward embedded stars behind the dust. |
| NB02 | Nebulas | Bent Dust Sentinel | A bent dark trunk turns into a lit cloud head, surrounded by detached gas lobes. |
| NB03 | Nebulas | Gaseous Archway | An illuminated gas arch wraps around a deep cavity with stars visible through its opening. |
| NB04 | Nebulas | Pearl Bubble Nursery | A porous bubble of emission-like gas surrounds an open center and a displaced star cluster. |
| NB05 | Nebulas | Diagonal Cloud Shelf | Several luminous gas sheets overlap diagonally, with dark seams revealing their separation. |
| NB06 | Nebulas | Twin Filament Drift | Two helical gas threads interleave around an empty axis and a sparse embedded cluster. |
| NB07 | Nebulas | Cometary Dust Veil | A bright cloud head broadens into a long fragmented tail, layered away from the viewer. |
| NB08 | Nebulas | Lagoon Behind the Dust | A dark foreground ridge divides two diffuse luminous banks and a central stellar opening. |
| NB09 | Nebulas | Bipolar Gas Hourglass | Two deep gas lobes pinch around a dark waist, with a separate near dust envelope. |
| NB10 | Nebulas | Three Pillar Chambers | Three uneven towers of gas rise from separate bases, leaving narrow channels of starlight. |
| NB11 | Nebulas | Cloud Cartwheel | Curled cloud spokes orbit a clear central cavity at alternating foreground and background depths. |
| NB12 | Nebulas | Threaded Interstellar Void | Small luminous islands hang on long dust threads across a deep, mostly empty star field. |
| WP01 | Warp drive POV | Axial Jump Corridor | A procession of circular depth gates and long star streaks passes around an open flight axis. |
| WP02 | Warp drive POV | Bent Light Aqueduct | Offset gates follow a sinuous three-dimensional flight path instead of sharing one vanishing point. |
| WP03 | Warp drive POV | Slitspace Elevator | Tall narrow gates and separated side rails create a vertical slot through a moving star field. |
| WP04 | Warp drive POV | Hexagonal Transit Loom | Six rail families weave around depth-separated gates to form a faceted transit cage. |
| WP05 | Warp drive POV | Four-Lane Fold | Four local portal streams surround a central void, each at its own offset depth. |
| WP06 | Warp drive POV | Helix Beyond the Bow | Paired helical rails wind through moving gates whose centers remain open to the star field. |
| WP07 | Warp drive POV | Expanding Iris Run | Successive gates widen toward the viewer while the distant throat stays compressed. |
| WP08 | Warp drive POV | Beacon Slalom | Alternating luminous posts and broken portals mark a curving route through an open volume. |
| WP09 | Warp drive POV | Asteroid Light Channel | Softly lit spheres slide past the flight path among sparse gates and high-speed light trails. |
| WP10 | Warp drive POV | Forked Jump Mouth | Two portal branches diverge and converge around the center of the flight view. |
| WP11 | Warp drive POV | Triangular Gate Fracture | Three-sided gate edges stagger in depth and twist into an open triangular jump channel. |
| WP12 | Warp drive POV | Liquid Lens Crossing | Translucent spherical lenses alternate with thin gates along a curved imaginary warp route. |
| BT01 | Bullet time | Glass Bloom Stasis | A shattered orb is suspended in a three-dimensional radial burst while the viewpoint circles it. |
| BT02 | Bullet time | Pearls at the Turning Point | A chain of stretched beads hangs on a pendulum-like curve with visible frozen trajectories. |
| BT03 | Bullet time | Stopped Droplet Crown | A ring of droplets rises from an open crown, frozen at an independently scrubbed moment. |
| BT04 | Bullet time | Time-Sliced Torus | Tilted slices of a broken torus separate in depth around a compact central form. |
| BT05 | Bullet time | Unravelled Ribbon | A folded ribbon of individual fragments is suspended across a dark studio floor. |
| BT06 | Bullet time | Rain Between Seconds | A slanted sheet of falling droplets remains still as the camera looks between its rows. |
| BT07 | Bullet time | Domino Constellation | Separated slab fragments hold a curving collapse in midair around a small central anchor. |
| BT08 | Bullet time | Prismfall Pause | A staircase of stretched prisms pauses during a diagonal fall, exposing gaps and rear faces. |
| BT09 | Bullet time | Ripple Sculpture | Depth-separated rings and orbiting droplets preserve a wavefront as a solid spatial arrangement. |
| BT10 | Bullet time | Escapement in Stasis | A broken circular gear of fragments hangs around its still core with alternating depths. |
| BT11 | Bullet time | Curtain of Splinters | An undulating curtain of long splinters freezes between foreground and background planes. |
| BT12 | Bullet time | Bridge of Interrupted Motion | Two fragment streams form an incomplete bridge across a deep central opening. |
| AG01 | AI god | Oculus of the Machine | Nested luminous rings surround a dark aperture above a network of suspended nodes. |
| AG02 | AI god | Monolith Choir | A semicircle of tall data monoliths stands around a suspended luminous core. |
| AG03 | AI god | Lattice Crown | Layered geometric ribs form a crown above a web of separated signal nodes. |
| AG04 | AI god | Wings of the Computation | Two abstract banks of signal ribs spread from a central aperture without forming a character. |
| AG05 | AI god | Obelisk and Its Halos | A dark central obelisk passes through stacked luminous halos and floating satellite nodes. |
| AG06 | AI god | Polyhedral Covenant | A faceted cage of joined signal points surrounds an open core and several tilted rings. |
| AG07 | AI god | Binary Cathedral | Repeated data columns recede toward a floating aperture at the end of a deep machine aisle. |
| AG08 | AI god | Empty Singularity Seat | A low platform and curving signal arches leave the center deliberately empty. |
| AG09 | AI god | Orbiting Tablets | Separate luminous slabs orbit a central opening at different heights and radial distances. |
| AG10 | AI god | Distributed Presence | A branching spatial network lights in waves around an offset dark core. |
| AG11 | AI god | Prismatic Oracle | Crossed ribs and long floating prisms form an abstract oracle with a clear central gap. |
| AG12 | AI god | Sanctuary of Apertures | Multiple small portal chambers surround one large opening in a deep luminous sanctuary. |
| DD01 | Doomsday | World in Two Pieces | Two separated world fragments reveal a bright rupture surrounded by drifting ash. |
| DD02 | Doomsday | Eclipsed Last Horizon | A dark body crosses the edge of a lit world above a broken ring and isolated beacons. |
| DD03 | Doomsday | Sun Withheld | An oversized dark disk obscures a glowing sun while distant debris remains lit at its edges. |
| DD04 | Doomsday | City Below the Ash | A row of uneven abstract towers fades below a distant world and a low storm ceiling. |
| DD05 | Doomsday | Crack Across the Sky | Long separated sky shards frame a dark gap through which a distant world remains visible. |
| DD06 | Doomsday | Orbit of the Wreckage | A tilted belt of block-like wreckage circles a dim world with one surviving beacon. |
| DD07 | Doomsday | Fault-Line Globe | A globe is crossed by separated luminous fault rings and foreground fragments. |
| DD08 | Doomsday | Ashfall Observatory | Low observation-like pylons sit beneath an opaque drifting ash bank and eclipsed sky. |
| DD09 | Doomsday | Clockwork Ending | Nested orbital rings separate from their center like the parts of a broken celestial clock. |
| DD10 | Doomsday | The Last Three Beacons | Three uneven luminous towers remain above a receding fragment field and dim world. |
| DD11 | Doomsday | Two Shores of the End | Two worlds occupy opposite depths with a broad dark channel and suspended wreckage between them. |
| DD12 | Doomsday | After the Warning | A small dim remnant hangs beyond sparse fragments and a final low pulse on the horizon. |