Renderer: IR/thermal palette, bilinear default, searchlight (fog) + night egg

- IR / predator-vision thermal: the cockpit IR button toggles it via the
  wire (dpl_Effect on action 0x1b, mode -1 ON / -2 OFF -> board.pvision).
  vrview_gl present pass remaps scene luminance to a thermal palette
  (default heat/Predator; mono|green|amber via VRVIEW_PVISION_PALETTE;
  VRVIEW_PVISION / bridge 'v' key force it on). Exact palette + HUD-exempt
  pending crew review.
- Texture filter default flipped to bilinear (operator preference); the
  i860 board itself point-sampled, so VRVIEW_FILTER=nearest reverts. (A CRT
  present-pass bleed/scanline prototype was built and rejected; removed.)
- Searchlight: no code needed -- night A/B proved it is a VIEW-FOG push-back
  (fog near 5->60, far 400->500 on), already rendered by the existing view
  fog path. Not a light cone. Added TESTNITE.EGG (arena1/night/fog) +
  gauge_arena_night_pipe.conf for the test.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

emulator/render-bridge/gauge_arena_night_pipe.conf

@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+[sdl]
+output=opengl
+# higher,higher not highest: HIGH_PRIORITY_CLASS starved the host desktop;
+# with the retry patches a rare dropout self-recovers (see gauge_rio.conf).
+priority=higher,higher
+[dosbox]
+memsize=32
+machine=svga_s3
+[cpu]
+core=dynamic
+cputype=pentium
+cycles=max
+[sblaster]
+sbtype=sb16
+sbbase=220
+irq=5
+dma=1
+hdma=5
+[mixer]
+# match the EMU8000s' native rate (no resample) and buffer ~60ms so brief
+# emulation-thread stalls (RIO retry recovery) don't audibly chop
+rate=44100
+blocksize=1024
+prebuffer=60
+[ne2000]
+# real pods loaded the ODI stack in AUTOEXEC before ANY game launch --
+# weapons-fire test: bare -egg run WITH the packet stack resident (the game's
+# WATTCP identity is 200.0.0.113 from REL410\BT\WATTCP.CFG). nicbase 340:
+# 300 clashes with the VDB and blanks heads. backend=slirp: THIS build lacks
+# pcap ("Backend not supported"); slirp = user-mode NAT, no LAN peers, but
+# the packet driver functions and accepts sends -- enough for a solo fire
+# test. For pod<->console runs use a pcap-enabled build (net_full.conf).
+ne2000=true
+nicbase=340
+nicirq=3
+backend=slirp
+[serial]
+# RIO on COM1 with the low-latency options (rxpollus/rxburst) so the board's
+# few-ms ACK deadline is met; plasma display on COM2 (real pod has both).
+serial1=namedpipe pipe:vrio rxpollus:100 rxburst:16
+serial2=namedpipe pipe:vplasma
+[autoexec]
+mount c "C:\VWE\TeslaRel410\ALPHA_1"
+mount d "C:\VWE\TeslaRel410\emulator\net-boot"
+d:
+echo === loading NE2000 packet-driver stack (as production AUTOEXEC did) ===
+d:\lsl
+d:\ne2000
+d:\odipkt
+c:
+cd \REL410\BT
+set VIDEOFORMAT=svga
+rem production pod card init (PARAMETR.BAT:181-186): DIAGNOSE + AWEUTIL per
+rem card -- AWEUTIL /S does the EMU8000 bring-up and DRAM detect the HMI SOS
+rem driver relies on; skipping it left the cards uninitialized (silent).
+rem aweutil /s SKIPPED for now: it verifies the AWE32 GM ROM, which the
+rem emulated cards lack (hangs in a retry loop) -- restore once the ROM is
+rem dumped from a real card. diagnose /s kept (passes, sets mixer config).
+set BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
+c:\sb16\diagnose /s
+set BLASTER=A240 I7 D3 H6 P300 T6
+c:\sb16\diagnose /s
+set BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
+set TEMP=c:\
+rem arena1 city mission (testnite.egg: map=arena1, time=day), RIO attached,
+rem bare -egg launch (no netnub) = the user's real-world test-egg setup.
+set HEAPSIZE=15000000
+set L4GAUGE=640x480x16
+call setenv.bat r f s p
+32rtm.exe -x
+rem stdout -> log: this optimized build still emits DEBUG_STREAM lines (the
+rem RIO retry spam proved it) -- capture the weapon fire-refusal reason.
+rem DOS flushes in 4KB chunks; the tail lands on clean exit (mission timer).
+btl4opt.exe -egg testnite.egg > c:\weaponlog.txt
+32rtm.exe -u
+echo ALPHA1-RUN-DONE
+pause
+
+

emulator/render-bridge/live_bridge.py

@@ -454,6 +454,15 @@ def render(board):
                               flush=True)
                     except Exception:
                         pass
+                if ev.key == pg.K_v:         # IR/thermal (pvision) manual toggle
+                    try:
+                        import vrview_gl
+                        vrview_gl.PVISION[0] = not vrview_gl.PVISION[0]
+                        print(f"IR/thermal (pvision) "
+                              f"{'ON' if vrview_gl.PVISION[0] else 'OFF'}",
+                              flush=True)
+                    except Exception:
+                        pass
                 if hstep or fstep:
                     print(f"eye trim: height {UPOFF[0]:+.1f}  "
                           f"forward {FWDOFF[0]:+.1f}", flush=True)