Worldshaper/docs/kb/systems/graphics-painter.md

# Graphics Painter

## What It Owns

This is the dedicated art-editing environment for tile and sprite graphics. It covers shape tools, erasers, transforms, previewing, and animation timeline editing for the currently opened asset.

## Core Behaviors

- Shape drawing modes:
  - rectangle
  - circle
  - triangle
  - line
- Shape variants:
  - outline
  - fill
  - outline + fill
- Shape erasers:
  - rectangle
  - circle
  - triangle
- Transform workflows available through the painter menu.
- Animation timeline controls, frame order, playback speed, and preview.

## Important UI Surfaces

- Graphic Painter window
- Tool menu and tooltip menus
- Animation timeline row
- Preview card and frame preview

## Important Files

- `src/worldshaperStudio/tileArtEditorWindowController.ts`
- `src/worldshaperStudio/graphicsDocumentHelpers.ts`
- `src/worldshaperStudio/importController.ts`
- `src/worldshaperStudio/dom.ts`

## Known Tool Details

- Shape menus are nested by shape and variant, rather than being a single flat tool list.
- The active draw tool and active eraser shape are tracked separately.
- The painter already knows about animation preview, frame creation, and per-frame editing; many animation requests should be phrased as extensions to an existing timeline rather than brand-new systems.
- The preview and animation controls are editor-side only; runtime rendering requests often cross into `Rendering And Viewport`.

## Relationships

- Depends on `Content Catalog And Records` for source records and saved asset definitions.
- Depends on `Floating Window Shell` because the painter lives inside a movable editor window.
- Feeds `Rendering And Viewport` when edited assets are later shown in the live map renderer.
- Intersects with `Animation`-tagged requests when frame behavior changes.

## Triage Hints

Requests about sprite drawing, tile art tools, frame duplication, painter transforms, selection or move workflows, and editor-side animation controls should usually start here.