rendering-fundamentalslisted

# Rendering Fundamentals ## Purpose Most rendering problems that resist fixing are not bugs in the thing being worked on. They are violations of a fundamental: colour handled in the wrong space, a scene built at the wrong scale, transparency sorted incorrectly, or material inputs that are not physically plausible. This skill covers the concepts the other graphics skills assume. It is deliberately engine-neutral: every renderer implements these, with different names. ## When to use - Before lighting, material, shader or post-processing work, if the fundamentals have not been established for the project. - When everything looks subtly wrong — washed out, too dark, oddly saturated — rather than one asset looking wrong. - When transparent objects render in the wrong order or disappear. - When distant geometry flickers or z-fights. - When lighting cannot be made to look right no matter how it is tuned. - When onboarding to an unfamiliar renderer. ## When NOT to use - A specific artifact in a specific asset. Use `render-debugging`. - Frame cost. Use `gpu-optimization`. - Engine-specific feature configuration. Use the platform's rendering skill. ## Required context | Fact | Why it matters | |---|---| | The renderer and its version | Determines defaults and available features | | Colour space setting | Linear versus gamma changes every subsequent decision | | Working units and world scale | Physically based lighting assumes real-world units | | Whether HDR is enabled | A