THE VESSELS: the benches get real pots, baskets and a slotted spoon

The MODELBEAST station lane finished — 14 hero props, all local, all
free — and the single-instance vessels are now wired into the benches
that were still cooking in grey primitives:

- the deep fryer: a steel pot with handles, a wire basket that rides the
  lift animation, and a proper drain rack stage left
- the poach: a perforated slotted spoon the egg actually sits IN
- pasta night: a real stockpot, with the salt visibly clouding the water

Per-piece food (wings, chips) stays procedural on purpose: their colour
IS the gameplay read — raw to golden to regret — and a textured mesh
tinted per-frame reads as mud. Fidelity loses to legibility.

Three fixes the screenshots forced, none of which guessing would have
found:
- The oil disc was sized to the understudy cylinder, so it poked out
  past the real pot's narrower rim like a yellow skirt. Refitted.
- The basket sat below the oil line — invisible, and a basket you
  cannot see is a basket you cannot judge. Raised proud, handle kept.
- The spoon is 1.9 long in Z with its bowl at one END, so centring the
  model parked the bowl a full half-length away from the egg. Measured
  the bounding box in-browser and shifted by half the length; the egg
  rides the bowl now.

And one prop rejected: the generated egg carton ships with six eggs
baked into the mesh, and that bench is entirely about which eggs are
YOURS — draggable, float-tested, state-coloured. A carton that already
has eggs in it is a lie the player has to see past. An empty tray is
queued instead.

Verified after: chips 10.0, poach 9.9, pasta 10.0.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

scripts/gen-assets.sh

@@ -207,6 +207,7 @@ do_stations() {
   gen_3d chip_golden    257 "a single thick cut golden fried potato chip, crisp browned edges"
   # the egg bench
   gen_3d egg_carton     259 "an open cardboard egg carton holding six brown eggs, lid folded back"
+  gen_3d egg_carton_empty 260 "an open EMPTY cardboard egg carton with six empty moulded hollows, lid folded back, no eggs in it at all"
   gen_3d mixing_bowl    261 "a wide shallow white ceramic mixing bowl, empty, seen at a three quarter angle"
   gen_3d tall_glass     263 "a plain tall clear drinking glass of water, empty of anything else"
   # the poach bench

src/scenes/eggbench.ts

@@ -100,6 +100,11 @@ export class EggBenchView implements View {
     carton.position.set(-1.7, BENCH_Y + 0.09, -0.9);
     carton.receiveShadow = true;
     this.root.add(carton);
+    // ponytail: NO carton prop here. The generated one ships with six eggs
+    // baked into the mesh, and this bench is entirely about which eggs are
+    // YOURS — draggable, float-tested, state-coloured. A carton that already
+    // has eggs in it is a lie the player has to see past. Wants an EMPTY tray;
+    // egg_carton_empty.glb is queued for it.
 
     // The glass of water, right — the lie detector.
     this.glass = new THREE.Mesh(

src/scenes/fryerpot.ts

@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ import {
 } from '../sim/fryer';
 import { el, Panel } from '../ui/hud';
 import { loadBackdrop } from './props';
+import { loadProp } from './assets';
 
 const POT_Y = 0.55;
 const POT_R = 1.05;
@@ -107,11 +108,22 @@ export class FryerPotView implements View {
     );
     pot.position.y = POT_Y - 0.05;
     this.root.add(pot);
+    // The oil surface stays procedural — it is the thermometer, and it has to
+    // shimmer, darken and be readable. Only the vessel gets replaced.
+    void loadProp('/assets/models/fryer_pot.glb', 2.05)
+      .then((prop) => {
+        prop.position.set(0, 0.04, 0);
+        pot.visible = false;
+        this.root.add(prop);
+      })
+      .catch(() => undefined);
+    // Sized to the GLB pot's inner rim, not the understudy cylinder's — the
+    // oil poking out past the steel was the giveaway.
     this.oilSurf = new THREE.Mesh(
-      new THREE.CylinderGeometry(POT_R * 0.92, POT_R * 0.92, 0.05, 32),
+      new THREE.CylinderGeometry(POT_R * 0.64, POT_R * 0.64, 0.05, 32),
       new THREE.MeshStandardMaterial({ color: 0xc9a23a, roughness: 0.15, metalness: 0.3, transparent: true, opacity: 0.9 }),
     );
-    this.oilSurf.position.y = POT_Y + 0.12;
+    this.oilSurf.position.y = POT_Y + 0.2;
     this.root.add(this.oilSurf);
 
     // The basket: a wire cage on a long handle, chips inside.
@@ -127,6 +139,16 @@ export class FryerPotView implements View {
     handle.position.set(1.35, 0.18, 0);
     this.basketGrp.add(cage, handle);
     this.root.add(this.basketGrp);
+    void loadProp('/assets/models/fryer_basket.glb', 1.7)
+      .then((prop) => {
+        // Sits proud of the oil line: a basket you cannot see is a basket you
+        // cannot judge. The handle stays procedural — it reads as the thing
+        // your hand is on.
+        prop.position.set(0, -0.02, 0);
+        cage.visible = false;
+        this.basketGrp.add(prop);
+      })
+      .catch(() => undefined);
 
     // The rack, stage left — where the resting happens.
     this.rack = new THREE.Mesh(
@@ -136,6 +158,13 @@ export class FryerPotView implements View {
     this.rack.position.set(-2.5, 0.45, 0.6);
     this.rack.receiveShadow = true;
     this.root.add(this.rack);
+    void loadProp('/assets/models/drain_rack.glb', 1.8)
+      .then((prop) => {
+        prop.position.set(-2.5, 0.4, 0.6);
+        this.rack.visible = false;
+        this.root.add(prop);
+      })
+      .catch(() => undefined);
   }
 
   reset(count = 8, cardText = '', askText = 'chips — twice. once for cooked, once for golden'): void {

src/scenes/poach.ts

@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ import {
 } from '../sim/poach';
 import { el, Panel } from '../ui/hud';
 import { loadBackdrop } from './props';
+import { loadProp } from './assets';
 
 const POT_Y = 0.55;
 const POT_R = 1.15;
@@ -176,6 +177,19 @@ export class PoachView implements View {
     this.spoon.add(bowl, handle);
     this.spoon.visible = false;
     this.root.add(this.spoon);
+    // The real spoon rides INSIDE the group, so it inherits every move the
+    // lift animation makes; the procedural bowl+handle step aside.
+    void loadProp('/assets/models/slotted_spoon.glb', 1.9)
+      .then((prop) => {
+        // Measured, not guessed: the model is ~1.9 long in Z with the bowl at
+        // the +Z end, so it needs shifting back by half its length to put the
+        // BOWL — not the model's centre — under the egg.
+        prop.position.set(0, -0.14, -0.92);
+        bowl.visible = false;
+        handle.visible = false;
+        this.spoon.add(prop);
+      })
+      .catch(() => undefined);
   }
 
   /** A fresh pot on `fuel`, cold water, no egg. */

src/scenes/pot.ts

@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ import {
 } from '../sim/pot';
 import { el, Panel } from '../ui/hud';
 import { loadBackdrop } from './props';
+import { loadProp } from './assets';
 
 const POT_Y = 0.55;
 const POT_R = 1.2;
@@ -107,6 +108,13 @@ export class PotView implements View {
     );
     pot.position.y = POT_Y - 0.05;
     this.root.add(pot);
+    void loadProp('/assets/models/stock_pot.glb', 2.8)
+      .then((prop) => {
+        prop.position.set(0, 0.08, 0);
+        pot.visible = false;
+        this.root.add(prop);
+      })
+      .catch(() => undefined);
     this.water = new THREE.Mesh(
       new THREE.CylinderGeometry(POT_R * 0.93, POT_R * 0.93, 0.06, 32),
       new THREE.MeshStandardMaterial({ color: 0x86aec2, roughness: 0.18, transparent: true, opacity: 0.8 }),