Magical gene / fields and regions

Kite Bloom

Angular, jewel-toned panels tile the coat like a stained-glass leaf, each one salted with pale flecks and seamed with the coat beneath. A third allele carries the same marking worked in greys instead of white - dark where the pale form is light, and the same number of steps.

What it can come out as

Outcome	Carrying
Kite Bloom, pale	`Kbw/Kbw` · `Kbw/n` · `Kbw/Kbk`
Kite Bloom, black	`Kbk/Kbk` · `Kbk/Kbc` · `Kbk/n`
Kite Bloom, washed	`Kbw/Kbc`
Kite Bloom, coloured	`Kbc/Kbc`
Wild type	`Kbc/n` · `n/n`

How each one is actually drawn - region by region, and the layers it is built from - is on the coding tab.

Crossing two of them

Finding one

About 1 in 1,786 wild horses is born showing this. That is the whole of the supply: catch one, or make one with the carrot below. Breeds set their own pools and a breed built around this gene will carry it far more often than the wild population does.

Wild pair	Shows as	How often
`Kbw/Kbw`	Kite Bloom, pale	0.002% — 1 in 50,000
`Kbw/Kbk`	Kite Bloom, pale	0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
`Kbw/Kbc`	Kite Bloom, washed	0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
`Kbw/n`	Kite Bloom, pale	0.038% — 1 in 2,632
`Kbk/Kbk`	Kite Bloom, black	0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
`Kbk/Kbc`	Kite Bloom, black	0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
`Kbk/n`	Kite Bloom, black	0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
`Kbc/Kbc`	Kite Bloom, coloured	0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
`n/n`	Wild type	99.944%

Its gene carrot

The file

common/src/main/resources/horsegenetics/genes/kite_bloom.json — a data-driven gene, not a Java class. It is listed in the index.json beside it and registered by Genes' class initialiser at startup.

Key	`horsegenetics.kite_bloom`
Phase	magical — it adds signed colour in phase 3, after the pigment has resolved
Priority	282 — where it sits in the one `(priority, key)` paint order
Alleles	`Kbw` · `Kbk` · `Kbc` · `n`
Varies per horse	6 values drawn once off the expressing allele copy, so a foal that inherits the copy inherits the look
Built from	CRACKLE, PARTS, RAMP, SPOTS, TOWARD

Why it is built this way

The import asked for a RAMP whose colour came from the angle between the surface and the CAMERA, so a panel would shift hue as the horse turned. That is not a tuning gap and it is not going to be built: the coat is a texture baked once per horse, and nothing in this module ever learns where a viewer is. What did get built is the NORMAL mask, which reads the direction the SURFACE faces - see Carapace Sheen, where the same request landed - and here the per-panel colour comes off the panel instead, which is the other honest reading of 'iridescent'.

The colour is a RAMP on axis 'cellId', sharing the panels' own seed and scale: one key drawn per cell and constant across it, so neighbouring panels take unrelated colours and meet at the seam. That is the difference between a stained-glass leaf and a gradient.

The seam between panels is left unpainted rather than drawn, so what shows there is the horse's own coat - which is what makes the panels read as laid over the horse rather than as the horse.

The black allele is the white one with the light taken out of it, and it sits one rung under white in the dominance series - so every combination that existed before it keeps the outcome it had, and only the pairs carrying Kbk are new. The re-toning is a mapping rather than a repaint: every achromatic target moves into the dark end of the scale keeping its order and its spacing, and every SATURATED one is left alone, because that colour is the gene rather than its lightness.

What it paints

Each outcome, described the way the gene file describes it, and then the layers that draw it in the order they are painted. The prose is the part a reader checks a bake against; the list underneath is what the engine actually did.

Kite Bloom, pale

A faint silvery lattice of panels ghosts over the coat, catching the light without much colour in it.

the panels — PARTS × CRACKLE, painted with TOWARD

Kite Bloom, black

The same marking as the white form with the light taken out of it: a single near-black tone.

the panels — PARTS × CRACKLE, painted with TOWARD

Kite Bloom, washed

The lattice shows through more clearly, each panel tinted with a muted wash of colour under the pale overlay.

the panels, each its own colour — PARTS × CRACKLE, painted with RAMP

Kite Bloom, coloured

Bold facets tile the coat edge to edge, every panel its own deep colour and every one dusted with small pale flecks.

the panels, each its own colour — PARTS × CRACKLE, painted with RAMP
and the flecks salted over them — PARTS × CRACKLE × SPOTS, painted with TOWARD

Wild type

Nothing.

Paints nothing.