The climb, as an exhibit

What it is

The scene that launched as khaylub.com on 2026-06-24 and still serves the public domain (this site takes over only at a later phase), kept as it shipped at tag v1.0.0-3d-experiment and ported into this site as an island: the Wanderer walking from night into day, the Phoenix igniting at the midpoint and filling the sky at the summit, the same models and camera choreography, the same six beats, the words as shipped (except the availability line, which is this site’s), and the atmosphere plates re-encoded. What the port leaves out is listed under “What changed in the port”. It opens from “Enter the climb” on the home page or from “Tap to explore” on its own page, and nothing from it downloads before that press.

What loads, and when

Before the press: nothing from the climb, on any page (a test asserts zero such requests on the home page and the climb page). After the press, measured on 2026-09-12 with Playwright over one full scroll (scripts/capture-climb.mjs): 7.36 MB in total (7,355,051 bytes, served uncompressed by the local test server), made of the island’s code (1.02 MB), its React runtime (0.19 MB), its stylesheet (9 KB), the two models (the Wanderer 1.82 MB and the Phoenix 0.92 MB), and the four atmosphere plates (fog 1.32 MB, dawn grass 0.69 MB, embers 0.76 MB, summit clouds 0.62 MB). The two plates that belong to later beats are fetched only as you approach them. For comparison, the first version requested 14.5 MB across thirteen files before its gate could be tapped (The 16 MB front door).

What changed in the port

• The scene, models, plates, camera, beats, and copy are the first version’s. The plates were re-encoded to this site’s video rules (H.264 CRF 23, capped at 5 Mbps, no audio track), which took the four from 19.06 MB to 3.39 MB (file sizes on disk) without changing their length or resolution.
• Scrolling is the browser’s own; the first version’s smooth-scroll library is not included, so the page around the climb behaves like every other page here.
• The five concept-film cards of the Camps beat are not included: the films and their posters have no recorded generator or terms yet, and this site publishes no media without a record. Their cards remain as narrative; two link to project pages, three say plainly that they are concepts.
• The far mountain vista of the summit is not included for the same reason; the distant ridges you see are drawn procedurally.
• The first version’s own header, entry gate, and case-study dialogs are replaced by this site’s header, door, and project pages; the availability line is this site’s one statement.

How to use it

Scroll to walk. Near the summit the cursor steers the Phoenix and fans its fire. “Skip the climb” stays visible at the top of the island and returns you to the door; the Tab key reaches it and every link in the climb. With reduced motion set in your system, the plates stay paused and hidden, the copy is solid instead of revealing, and the models still load because you asked for them.

Where the assets come from

The Wanderer and the Phoenix began as Tripo generations and were finished in Blender by the author; the four plates were generated with Higgsfield from the author’s prompts. Each file under public/climb/ has an entry in public/climb/provenance.yaml, and the build fails if one is missing.