This is the flat cross-section companion to the 3D cave: glowing fungal caps carpet the cave floor and a still, glowing pool sits at its center, while beaded glow-worm silk threads hang from the ceiling like the famous glow-worm grottoes of Waitomo. Each glow source pulses on its own slow cycle rather than staying at a constant brightness, the way real bioluminescent light output fluctuates with the organism's metabolism.
- Glow density — how many fungal caps and hanging threads populate the cave; a sparse cave lets more of the dark rock show through, a dense one turns the ceiling and floor into a field of light.
- Brightness — scales every glow source's peak intensity and halo size at once, standing in for how much luciferin-driven light each organism is producing.
- Spore drift speed — controls how fast the luminous spore particles rise and drift through the cave air, carried by the faint convection currents inside an enclosed cavern.
- Glow color — different bioluminescent species and pigments shift the emitted wavelength: teal/green mirrors the luciferin-luciferase reaction common in glow-worms and fungi, while violet and pink stand in for other biochemical variants used for comparison.