The ride out

The opening's ride to The Source was 2.1 km over the ridges: 2.7 minutes at a flat gallop, nine at a trot, with nothing to do on the way. The brief wants a 5–7 minute opening made of a few beats, so the ride got shorter and got company.

850 m beside the dry bed. ride-start moved from (2500, 4000) to (3750, 4000): the camp is 850 m north, bearing +3°, its smoke ahead toward the sun, and the way crosses the dry bed r-108 where it swings north-east to the camp. Flatter country for a horse (4 m of base relief instead of 55). The opening's parts (the flat track along the centre line, the ripple beside it growing toward the horizon, the sun ahead-right) travel with the origin; what changed is the land in view, judged on the gate's shots (art/world/lowwater/gate/board.html).

Paldro rides with her. A second horse and rider (her and her horse's models for now) spawned by the director and driven by AMount::Follow: a slot behind and to her left, her pace plus a catch-up, her turn model, the same movement step as her reins. No order is given and none is needed: she is going to The Source and he keeps his place beside her, through the cinematic (the two pass the lens as one) and the ride, standing by her horse when she gets down. His dust, hooves and prints are his own; his horse is an obstacle to her on foot.

Talk in motion. The written scene Traveling to the Source (Lowwater.scriv) plays as data (data/dialogue/ride_out.json): ten lines in order once control is hers, each on a cue, subtitled over the frame with no bars, the player keeping the reins. The script's last beat, Paldro kicking on past her, is a line's slot: when it ends he moves ahead of her and stays there. The voices wait for a machine with the ElevenLabs key (Paldro's voice design and the ten jobs are in audio/dialogue/ride/); until then a line holds for its reading time.

The camp is seen by its smoke. Tents are four pixels at 850 m; the campfire's new Plume emitter throws a thirty-metre column that leans a little downwind. From the bank above the camp it is the one vertical thing in the frame; from the ride it is a thread on the skyline, faint at this exposure, which is the next thing to tune (PlumeRate, the sprites' alpha).

Decisions: docs/decisions.md, "The ride out". What's next is on the backlog: Paldro's own model and voice, his mark on the minimap, what he does at the camp, and a sim unit for him when the riding model moves into the sim.