Combat Wallpapers v04
This pass is a useful correction toward promotional wallpaper art, but the current active direction is superseded by Combat Wallpapers v05. v04 removed too much realistic warzone grit while still letting the background Scourge glow break into speckled point lights.
Why v04
The previous passes fixed composition but kept a fatal surface problem: high-frequency speckled lighting. In wallpaper-scale art, Scourge cores, backlit tendrils, sparks, and red fog can collapse into dots when the generator fakes glow with tiny point lights.
Wallpaper art should use:
- clean official promo/render/poster language;
- big readable squad silhouettes;
- realistic warzone grit on large readable forms;
- cracked ground, smoke, rubble, embers, and weathered armor when they stay broad and cinematic;
- distant Scourge silhouettes with one readable smooth core glow or blade shape;
- smooth bloom, not speckled glow, on background monsters.
Rejected for this lane:
- dotted texture, stipple, halftone, pixel grain, dirt speckles;
- speckled bloom, tiny point-light particles, firefly glow, fake star fields;
- tangled Scourge closeups, micro scratches, photobash grit;
- anything that turns the image into a surface-noise test.
Preferred Anchor
Use this as the current wallpaper anchor: the foreground squad reads first, the Scourge is a distant boss silhouette, and the background is broad atmosphere instead of noisy ruin texture.
Alternate Clean CGI Pass
Use this as a secondary direction for a sharper CGI-style promo render.
Asset Custody
- Master path:
packages/assets/masters/art/wallpapers/combat-v04/ - Generated source mirror:
packages/assets/sources/generated/2026-06-17/lore/wallpapers/combat-v04/ - Raw generator cache:
packages/assets/_archive/raw-generator-cache/codex-generated-images/2026-06-17/raw/019ed273-1c2a-7320-9b42-92655439fad6/
Runtime promotion requires crop/export to WebP, manifest registration, and a license/provenance record.