magicciv/.project/team-leads/asset-sprite.md

id	name	specialization	objectives
asset-sprite	Asset — Sprite	Generate, commission, and ship unit / building / wonder sprite art per the sprite-rendering capability contract	p2-22 p2-23 p2-24 p2-25 p2-26 p2-27 p2-28

Mandate

Ship the .png sprite files that the renderers expect when ThemeAssets.load_sprite() is called. The rendering capability landed under p0-23 (shipwright): renderers draw procedural primitives first (unconditional baseline), then overlay a sprite if one exists at the resolved path. Asset-Sprite's job is producing the sprites — game-ready, style-consistent, tier-appropriate.

The game is shippable with zero sprites (p0-23's design rule: draw baseline never deletes). Asset-Sprite's delivery progressively replaces the circle-and-letter placeholders with real art.

The single objective p2-17 previously bundled all of this work; it was split on 2026-04-17 into seven narrower children (p2-22 … p2-28) so each workstream can report integrity-correct status independently. p2-17 is retained as a status: superseded index stub.

Owned objectives

ID	Workstream	Gates
p2-22	Pipeline readiness — tools/sprite-generation/ end-to-end	Gates p2-23 … p2-27
p2-23	Unit sprites — Dwarf-racial roster (m/f variants)	Depends on p2-22
p2-24	Unit sprites — wild creatures (generic key)	Depends on p2-22
p2-25	Building sprites — base roster	Depends on p2-22
p2-26	Wonder sprites — 24 distinct at higher fidelity	Depends on p2-22
p2-27	City population-tier sprites — city_q1 … city_q5	Depends on p2-22
p2-28	LICENSES.md per-file attribution	Runs continuously alongside p2-23 … p2-27

Owned surface

• public/games/age-of-dwarves/assets/sprites/units/<unit_id>_<race>_<sex>.png — one pair (m/f) per Dwarf-racial unit; key format from SPRITE_LOOKUP_RACE_SEX_FORMAT in src/game/engine/src/rendering/unit_renderer.gd.
• public/games/age-of-dwarves/assets/sprites/units/<unit_id>.png — generic fallback (applies to wild creatures and as race/sex-less fallback for Dwarf units).
• public/games/age-of-dwarves/assets/sprites/buildings/<building_id>.png — one per building id in data/buildings/*.json (including mundane_wonders.json).
• public/games/age-of-dwarves/assets/sprites/cities/city_q<N>.png — N ∈ [1, 5], key format from SPRITE_LOOKUP_CITY_FORMAT in src/game/engine/src/rendering/city_renderer.gd.
• public/games/age-of-dwarves/assets/sprites/LICENSES.md — per-file attribution (schema in p2-28).
• tools/sprite-generation/ — the generation pipeline (CLI orchestrator, prompt library, generator, ranker, Theater GUI, installer, SQLite registry spritegen.db).

Does NOT own:

• src/game/engine/src/rendering/*_renderer.gd — runtime sprite load + overlay path. Owned by shipwright via p0-23. Asset-Sprite reads the path conventions and produces files that match; renderer bugs hand off back.
• Sprite generation model selection beyond the CLAUDE.md rule ("NEVER use anime models for game art — use juggernaut-xl-v9, juggernaut-xi-v11, epicrealism-xl, illustrious-xl-v2").
• tools/gen-fallback-sprites.py — the procedural SVG fallback tool is part of the dev baseline, not ship art.

Working constraints

• PNG with alpha channel. Square canvas, 256×256 or 512×512 (choice consistent across a roster; 512² for wonders per p2-26). Resolution choice documented once in LICENSES.md header.
• Transparent background — renderer composites onto hex; any baked background would render incorrectly.
• Style coherence across a roster — MTG-color-coded palette per the sprite-generation pipeline docs. Dwarf is the only playable race in Game 1, so cross-race coherence is a Game 2 concern.
• License must be commercial-use compatible — approved-model AI output or commissioned art with assigned rights. Ship-time license re-verification is required; escalate conflicts to the user.
• SHA256 per file in LICENSES.md for binary-diff traceability.
• Budget: 256² PNG ≈ 30–80 KB, 512² ≈ 100–250 KB. Full library target ≤ 20 MB.
• Prior user directive (2026-04-17): 7 previously-authored sprites were deleted because quality bar not met. Slate is clean; regenerate via p2-22 or commission — do not restore the deleted files.

Acceptance loop

Per the acceptance bullets of each child objective. Deliveries land incrementally — every sprite added to assets/sprites/ renders the next time the game boots, and the baseline procedural draw keeps working for anything not yet shipped. An objective flips to done only when every acceptance bullet is ✓ with cited evidence, per .claude/instructions/objective-integrity.md.

Sequencing:

1. p2-22 first — without a green pipeline, there's no way to produce style-consistent sprites at quality bar.
2. p2-27 is smallest (5 PNGs) and can be the first delivery child to close, giving a visible proof that the split works.
3. p2-23 / p2-24 / p2-25 / p2-26 run in parallel once p2-22 is green; p2-28 accumulates rows as they ship.
4. The asset-sprite role is "done for EA" when the player's-most-seen units (worker, warrior, archer, spearmen) in p2-23 plus the ten base buildings in p2-25 have sprites with rows in LICENSES.md. Full coverage (wild creatures, all wonders, all city tiers) can land post-EA as progressive visual polish — coordinate with shipwright on which slices block release.

Escalation

• Model license conflict at ship time → escalate to user; a different base model may be required.
• Style drift between batches → stop generating, iterate prompt library / post-process pipeline (inside p2-22's surface) before shipping more; do not push drifted art into the delivery children.
• Renderer can't load a specific PNG (format bug, alpha-channel issue, etc.) → handoff to shipwright / godot-renderer. Asset-Sprite does not patch renderer code.
• Budget / timeline pressure → coordinate with shipwright; all sprite work is p2 by design, so slipping past EA is acceptable as long as the baseline draw path (from p0-23) continues to cover any missing sprite.