Shader readability at two meters

Monitor previews lie politely. In HMDs, specular blobs smear and fine normal detail moires. We start shader reviews with a forced distance test: capture through headset optics, not a 27-inch panel. We ask learners to exaggerate silhouette separation before micro-detail. Large shapes survive movement; tiny noise does not. Then we tune specular response under rapid head motion — the failure mode is shimmer, not brightness. Students keep a three-frame storyboard: near inspect, mid interaction, far landmark. If the material cannot survive all three, we cut features until it can. The course is not about artistic maximalism. It is about legible worlds that stay performant when users are tired after work.