• do a presentation for the team for current interface
• need to balance easy to use with presets, and very customizability
• check with AI, use it with ultrathink to come up with some alternative better interfaces
• think of some real VN with particle effects
• think how user will be able to edit those from UI
• list down the limitations, so we check those limitations are acceptable
• present and discuss this with team to get feedback

# Snow effect - just works
- type: particles
  preset: snow

# Available: snow, rain, fire, burst

# Modify preset defaults
- type: particles
  preset: snow
  count: 500                    # More particles
  disableBehaviors: [rotation]  # Remove spinning
  emitter:
    frequency: 0.02             # Spawn faster

# Build from scratch - requires understanding 15+ behavior types
- type: particles
  texture: { shape: circle, radius: 2 }
  behaviors:
    - type: spawnShape          # Where to spawn
      config: { type: rect, data: {...} }
    - type: alpha               # Fade in/out
      config:
        list:
          - { value: 0, time: 0 }
          - { value: 1, time: 0.5 }
          - { value: 0, time: 1 }
    - type: movePoint           # Movement
      config: { speed: {...}, direction: 90 }
  emitter:
    lifetime: { min: 0.5, max: 1.5 }
    frequency: 0.1

Appearance: alpha, alphaStatic, color, colorStatic, scale, scaleStatic Movement: movePoint, speed, speedStatic, acceleration, gravity Rotation: rotation, rotationStatic, noRotation Spawn: spawnShape, spawnBurst

Expand presets with intuitive parameters instead of behaviors:

# Current (requires understanding behaviors)
- type: particles
  preset: snow
  disableBehaviors: [rotation]

# Alternative A (natural language)
- type: particles
  preset: snow
  amount: heavy        # light/medium/heavy → maps to count
  speed: slow          # slow/medium/fast → maps to movement
  drift: gentle        # none/gentle/strong → lateral movement
  fade: in-out         # none/in/out/in-out/pulse → alpha behavior
  spin: false          # true/false → rotation behavior

Pros: Intuitive, no technical knowledge needed, maps cleanly to GUI sliders

Cons: Less flexible, requires many presets to cover use cases

Keep current system but add shortcuts:

# Simple mode
- type: particles
  preset: snow
  simple:
    amount: heavy
    speed: slow
    opacity: 0.8

# Advanced mode (escape hatch)
- type: particles
  preset: snow
  advanced:
    behaviors:
      - type: alpha
        config: { ... }
    emitter: { ... }

Pros: Smooth learning curve, backwards compatible

Cons: Two ways to do everything, maintenance burden

Organize by concept instead of behavior composition:

- type: particles

  appearance:
    texture: circle
    size: { min: 2, max: 5 }
    color:
      from: "#ffffff"
      to: "#ffff00"

  lifecycle:
    spawn:
      every: 0.05s
      amount: 2
    lifetime: { min: 1s, max: 3s }

  movement:
    area: { type: rect, x: 0, y: 0, w: 1280, h: 10 }
    direction: down
    speed: { min: 100, max: 200 }

  effects:
    fade: { in: 20%, out: 80% }
    spin: random

Pros: Self-documenting, grouped by concept

Cons: More verbose, requires schema redesign

Add 15+ presets to cover common cases, keep advanced system:

# New presets cover 95% of use cases
- type: particles
  preset: sparkle     # ✨ Twinkling stars

- type: particles
  preset: petals      # 🌸 Floating cherry blossoms

- type: particles
  preset: fog         # 🌫️ Slow horizontal drift

- type: particles
  preset: fireflies   # 🪲 Glowing particles

# Advanced users still get full control
- type: particles
  behaviors: [...]

Pros: Minimal change, backwards compatible, solves 95% use case

Cons: Preset explosion, still need behaviors for edge cases

Hybrid: Option D + Backend Introspection

1. Keep current interface (it's well-designed)
2. Add 12 new presets: sparkle, petals, fog, fireflies, bubbles, leaves, dust, embers, stars, confetti, smoke, glitter
3. Add schema export API for route-engine/GUI
4. Add natural language shortcuts as syntactic sugar (optional):

   preset: snow
   amount: heavy  # → count: 500
   speed: slow    # → emitter.frequency adjustment
   

Why:

• Solves 95% of VN use cases with presets
• Maintains power for advanced users
• Backwards compatible
• Minimal backend changes
• route-engine can build smart UIs with schema API

Implementation:

• Week 1: Schema export API
• Week 2: 12 new presets
• Week 3: Natural language shortcuts (optional)
• Week 4: Documentation + examples

Architecture Note:

User clicks "Add Sparkles" in routevn-creator-client
  ↓
route-engine queries getAvailablePresets() → sees "sparkle"
  ↓
route-engine generates: { type: "particles", preset: "sparkle" }
  ↓
route-graphics renders sparkles

This is demo for particle emitter, where we borrowed many code from. They have a demo that can be referred.

https://particle-emitter-editor.pixijs.io/#pixieDust

• Try to use values instead of names like "heavy". Use number from 0 to 1 for percentage where possible and exact numbers otherwise (e.g. count: 300)
• Leave abstraction (preset) for client side to deal with, route-graphics just take whatever it gets and then render without caring about preset.
• route-graphics expose interface at behaviors level, keep the behavior, texture and emitter. Maybe decide it better grouped.
• Decide later what options to expose in client side, choose the most important ones that users may use more often. We manage internally those values that are not exposed. JeffY will test whether some options are needed and whether to expose from client side.
• Exposure of fields different for different presets