Freeze players during map load: kill gravity and hide own mesh

- PlayerCharacterController: GravityEnabled toggle. When off, hold
  vertical velocity at zero and skip steep-slope sliding so a frozen
  avatar neither falls nor drifts; true is byte-for-byte the old path.
- GameModeManager: during Loading, additionally disable gravity and
  hide the local body (SkinnedMesh + fur shell), re-asserted each frame
  to catch the mid-load lobby->match respawn. Restored (body shown,
  gravity on) before ActiveMode.Enter() on release to Hide.
- MatchManager: enter Loading *before* SwapScenes so still-bound lobby
  avatars are frozen before their floor unloads. Fixes the player
  falling into the void during the lobby->map scene swap.

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

Assets/Scripts/GameMode/GameModeManager.cs

@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 using System.Collections.Generic;
 using UnityEngine;
 using Unity.Cinemachine;
+using Chameleon.Components;
 #if ENABLE_INPUT_SYSTEM
 using UnityEngine.InputSystem;
 #endif
@@ -329,14 +330,24 @@ public class GameModeManager : MonoBehaviour
         // without a camera jump (exactly like SetPaused's resume - the mode was never Exited).
         if (MovementGated())
         {
-            if (player) player.ControlEnabled = false;
+            if (player)
+            {
+                player.ControlEnabled = false;
+                player.GravityEnabled = false; // hover in place; don't settle to the floor while loading
+            }
             if (painter) painter.PaintingEnabled = false;
+            // Hide the own body so the frozen avatar doesn't hang in the half-loaded world. Re-asserted every
+            // frame (not once) because a lobby->match respawn rebinds `player` mid-load, so the fresh avatar
+            // must be hidden too.
+            SetOwnerBodyHidden(true);
             _loadFrozen = true;
             return;
         }
         if (_loadFrozen)
         {
             _loadFrozen = false;
+            if (player) player.GravityEnabled = true; // Enter() doesn't touch gravity, so restore it here
+            SetOwnerBodyHidden(false);                 // show the body, then let Enter() re-hide it if first-person
             ActiveMode?.Enter();
         }
 
@@ -382,6 +393,35 @@ public class GameModeManager : MonoBehaviour
                match.LocalSubPhase == MatchManager.MatchSubPhase.Loading;
     }
 
+    // Cached body/fur renderers of the currently bound local avatar, re-resolved only when `player` changes
+    // (a lobby->match respawn rebinds mid-load), so the per-frame Loading hide doesn't walk the hierarchy each tick.
+    private PlayerCharacterController _bodyHideOwner;
+    private SkinnedMeshRenderer[] _bodyHideRenderers;
+    private FurShellRenderer[] _bodyHideFur;
+
+    /// <summary>Hides/shows the LOCAL player's own body (skinned mesh + fur) during the pre-match loading freeze,
+    /// so the owner doesn't watch its frozen avatar hang in the half-loaded world. Local-only (renderer.enabled
+    /// is not replicated, so remotes are unaffected - their view is driven by <see cref="NetworkPlayerSetup"/>).
+    /// On show the freeze release re-enters the active mode, so first-person re-applies its own-body self-hide.</summary>
+    private void SetOwnerBodyHidden(bool hidden)
+    {
+        if (player != _bodyHideOwner)
+        {
+            _bodyHideOwner = player;
+            _bodyHideRenderers = player ? player.GetComponentsInChildren<SkinnedMeshRenderer>(true) : null;
+            _bodyHideFur = player ? player.GetComponentsInChildren<FurShellRenderer>(true) : null;
+        }
+
+        if (_bodyHideRenderers != null)
+            foreach (var r in _bodyHideRenderers)
+                if (r) r.enabled = !hidden;
+        // Fur draws via a GPU-instanced camera hook, not a Renderer, so the skinned-mesh toggle misses it;
+        // disabling the component unsubscribes that hook (mirrors FirstPersonController.SetMeshHidden).
+        if (_bodyHideFur != null)
+            foreach (var f in _bodyHideFur)
+                if (f) f.enabled = !hidden;
+    }
+
     /// <summary>First non-Paint mode index at or after <paramref name="start"/> (wrapping once through the
     /// cycle); -1 if the set has no non-paint mode (a degenerate paint-only configuration).</summary>
     private int FirstNonPaintFrom(int start)