Operator asked for placeholder sprites for playtest feel. Actors now
render the hand-authored pixel maps (tools/aseprite/maps -> assets/
sprites_ph, committed) via code-created Sprite2D — no scene texture
UIDs to hand-author. Dynamic feedback preserved: grunt/burster heat
tint + hit flash drive sprite.modulate, heat-aura ring stays a _draw
overlay; salvage fade drives modulate.a. Arena floor/walls, HUD, and
FX stay primitives. CLAUDE.md greybox-art note updated (was 'no
sprites'); real art (watercolor scenery + pixel sprites) still later.
Smoke gate 3/3 green on nh3-dev headless 4.7.1.
tools/aseprite/maps/ holds the source of truth: char-grid pixel maps +
shared palette for five _ph placeholder sprites (M03 32px per MOE.md
design law cues — round silhouette, mismatched eyes, bolted hardpoint,
pillar feet; grunt 16px untagged olive; burster 20px HEAT glow band;
KINETIC slug; scrap diamond). Two interchangeable renderers:
gen_sprites.lua (aseprite -b, emits .aseprite + .png — run on any
machine with Aseprite) and preview.py (Pillow, identical PNGs headless
+ nearest-neighbor zoom for review). Outputs gitignored; greybox
scenes untouched — art stays out of the game per the greybox rule.
vh