Sylpheed/docs/port/FORMAT.md

# The open export format — v3

The format the disc is converted *into*, and the one the Godot project and any
modding tool read. **It is versioned, so a change is a deliberate act with a
version bump**, not a silent edit. [Changes from v2](#changes-from-v2) and
[Changes from v1](#changes-from-v1) are at the bottom, with a reason for each.

Design rules, in priority order:

1. **A human can read and edit it.** Modding is a goal of this port, which makes
   the layout part of the product rather than a temp directory.
2. **Names, never hashes.** Where the disc's own name was never recovered — the
   six `*2D` archives and `GP_READY_ROOM` — emit a stable synthetic id **and say
   in the file that the real name is unknown**. A modder must be able to tell a
   recovered name from an invented one.
3. **Provenance travels with the data.** Source archive, entry index, exporter
   version, decoder revision. This is what keeps the export auditable against the
   disc instead of drifting into an unverifiable fork.
4. **Say what is unknown.** A field we could not decode is absent and listed in
   `unresolved` — never guessed, never silently defaulted.

**JSON, not XML.** Godot parses JSON natively with `JSON.parse_string`; its
`XMLParser` is a SAX-style API that would need a hand-written binding per schema.

**The format is executable.** `sylpheed-export check --out export` validates a
tree against this document with no disc in hand, reading it the way Godot will —
as a stranger. Where the prose here and `crates/sylpheed-export/src/check.rs`
disagree, that is a bug in one of them and worth saying which.

## Layout

```
export/                     # DERIVED. Regenerable. Gitignored. Never hand-edited.
  manifest.json
  screens/title/*.json
  sprites/title/<screen>/*.png
  audio/music/*.ogg  audio/sfx/*.ogg  audio/cues.json
  video/*.ogv
authored/                   # AUTHORED. Hand-written. Committed. Survives re-export.
  screen_names.json         # which build is which screen
  flow.json                 # boot sequence + what each button does
  cue_bindings.json         # which cue fires on move / confirm / back
```

Sprites are **per screen**, not a flat pool: a sprite name is unique within a
bundle and not across them, and `main_menu`'s `ptbase.t32` and `extras`'
`ptbase.t32` are different pictures.

`authored/screen_names.json` is the one authored file the *exporter* reads; the
rest are applied by the runtime over `export/`.

## Common header

```json
{
  "format": "sylpheed.screen/3",
  "exporter": "sylpheed-export 0.1.0",
  "formats_rev": "8b6dbcf",
  "source": { "archive": "dat/GP_TITLE.pak", "entry": 5, "build": 5 }
}
```

`source.entry` is the pak **entry index** — the stable locator. `source.build` is
the index into that pak's list of screen builds (what `sylpheed-cli screen
--build N` takes), which is stable only as long as the enumeration rule is.
`formats_rev` pins which decoders produced the file.

## `screens/*.json`

```json
{
  "format": "sylpheed.screen/3",
  "exporter": "sylpheed-export 0.1.0",
  "formats_rev": "8b6dbcf",
  "source": { "archive": "dat/GP_TITLE.pak", "entry": 5, "build": 5 },
  "name": "main_menu",
  "name_source": "authored",
  "name_why": "HANDOFF Q2: builds 5/8 are the five-button main menu; 5 is English…",
  "design": [1280, 720],
  "elements": [
    {
      "index": 10,
      "id": "ptbtn01",
      "declared": "ptbtn01.rat",
      "role": "button",
      "kind_raw": "0x3002",
      "sprite": "sprites/title/main_menu/ptbtn01.png",
      "focus_sprite": "sprites/title/main_menu/ptbtn01f.png",
      "opt_link": "ptbtn01f.rat",
      "pivot": [42, 22],
      "layer_source": "sprite",
      "layer": "0x00008110",
      "rest": { "pos": [542, 162], "scale": [100, 100],
                "tint_rgba": "0xffffffff", "fade_argb": "0xffffffff", "t": 64 },
      "keyframes": [
        { "t": 28, "pos": [542, 142], "scale": [100, 100],
          "tint_rgba": "0xffffffff", "fade_argb": "0x00ffffff" }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "paint_order": [1, 3, 4, 2, 5, 8, 9, 6, 7, 15, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 0],
  "buttons": ["ptbtn01", "ptbtn02", "ptbtn03", "ptbtn04", "ptbtn05"],
  "unresolved": ["keyframe_time_unit", "paint_order_ties", "fade_out_duration"]
}
```

### `name` / `name_source` / `name_why`

`name_source` is `"authored"` or `"index"` and nothing else. `"authored"` means
the name came from `authored/screen_names.json` and **requires** a `name_why`
saying who decided it and on what evidence. `"index"` means nobody has
identified this build and the name is `build_NN` — a locator, not a claim.

### `elements[]`

`index` is the declaration index and is also the key `paint_order` uses; it
always equals the element's position in the array. `id` is `declared` with its
extension stripped.

**`role`** comes from the decoded element kind: `0x3002` → `button`, `0x10`
without a sprite → `primitive`, `0x0` → `decoration`. Anything else is
`"unknown"` with the raw value in `kind_raw`. Do not invent a name for a kind
nobody has decoded.

> ⚠️ `0x3002` is **not** a general button test. It is one member of a `0x3000`
> family with sub-bits, and `GP_READY_ROOM` uses `0x3000` / `0x3004` / `0x300c` /
> `0x3008` with zero `0x3002`. Every screen in this milestone is `GP_TITLE`,
> where the mapping is decoded. A consumer meeting `role: "unknown"` should read
> `kind_raw`, not assume.

> ⚠️ **`kind & 0x4` is a repeated instance of a template.** On the title screen
> those are motion-trail ghosts and are *not* on screen at rest — the draw
> capture shows one quad where the bundle declares three. A runtime should skip a
> `kind & 0x4` element **when another element in the same screen has the same
> `id` and does not have that bit**, and only then: 174 elements on the disc are
> `0x4` with no such template, and a blanket skip erases them. Both are visible
> in this format from `kind_raw` and `id`.

**`pivot`** is the declared pivot, and it is the **anchor scale grows about** —
`pos` is the element's top-left at 1:1, and at scale `s` the drawn top-left is
`pos − pivot·(s−1)`. At 100 % the pivot cancels, which is why it went unnoticed
for a long time.

> 🟡 The decoders document the pivot as "exactly half the decoded texture's
> dimensions (verified 7/7 on the tutorial bundle)". **That does not hold on
> `GP_TITLE`**: 38 of its 93 sprite-bearing `.t32` elements disagree, some
> grossly (`ptlogo_back2`, 1118×262, pivot 500,117 where half is 559,131). It is
> not a problem for this port — the exporter emits the declared pivot and never
> derives one — but it is a claim a consumer should not lean on. Raised in
> `docs/port/BLOCKED.md`.

**`sprite`** / **`focus_sprite`** are paths relative to `export/`. The highlight
pairs **by name** on the sprite — `ptbtn01.t32` ↔ `ptbtn01f.t32` — which is 🟡 a
naming convention that holds for all 54 real pairs on the disc, not a decoded
field.

**`focus`** is the focused state, and it **supersedes `focus_sprite`**. A
focused button is not a sprite swap: `ptbtn0Nf.rat` is a nested `.rat` **leaf**
declaring *two* elements — the spinning ring `ptbtneff01.t32` and the bright
label — and **the parent bundle declares no element for the record at all**, so
the leaf is the only source of placement for both and there is nothing for it to
inherit.

```json
"focus": {
  "record": "ptbtn04f.rat",
  "elements": [
    { "id": "ptbtneff01", "sprite": "…/ptbtneff01.png", "pivot": [21, 23],
      "rest": { "pos": [500, 396], "rotation_deg": 0, "t": 120, … },
      "keyframes": [ { "t": 120, "rotation_deg": 0, … },
                     { "rotation_deg": 360, … } ] },
    { "id": "ptbtn04f", "sprite": "…/ptbtn04f.png", "rest": { "pos": [535, 395], … } }
  ]
}
```

Elements are back-to-front in the leaf's own declaration order — ring first,
then label. Positions are **absolute design-space top-left**, not offsets from
the button.

> The label's `(−7, −7)` against its base is load-bearing, not noise:
> `ptbtn0Nf.t32` is 13 px larger per axis, and −7 keeps the two **concentric**
> (535 + 96/2 = 583 against 542 + 83/2 = 583.5). Drawing the highlight at the
> base position pushes it 7 px down-right and off-centre.

> ⚠️ **Leaf placement is authoritative for an `f` record and NOT for a base
> record.** A base record's leaf *duplicates* its parent's placement and the two
> can disagree by a unit (`ptbtn04`: parent y=401, leaf y=402) — there the parent
> wins. The `f` record is the case where the parent declares nothing.

> ❔ **The ring spins, and its period is unresolved.** Its two keyframes differ
> in `rotation_deg` alone, 0 → 360. But the second is untimed, and what an
> untimed keyframe means *inside a leaf* — as opposed to at screen level, where
> it is the exit ramp — is untested. A consumer should draw the resting angle
> rather than invent a spin rate. This is listed in `unresolved`.

**`opt_link`** is the raw `opt ` link inside the element's `.rat` record, carried
through unresolved. ⚠️ **It is not a focus link.** That reading was measured and
refuted: on the main menu it chains `ptloop01 → ptloop02 → ptbtn01`, across two
decorations and into a button. It is exported so whoever decodes it has it, and
named so nothing downstream mistakes it for navigation.

**`layer` / `layer_source`** are the paint-order key. `"sprite"` means it was
read from the `u16` at `+0x0A` of the element's `T8aD` header — a decoded disc
field. `"implied"` means the element carries no header and the key came from the
decoders' table of keys **measured off the running game**. `"none"` means neither
is known, and the element sorts last. A consumer that needs to know whether a
layer is a fact or a measurement reads `layer_source`.

**`size`** appears only on a `primitive`, which has no texture to take a size
from: the quad is `pivot × 2`, and its colour is the keyframe's `fade_argb`.

**`keyframes`** carry the on-disc time verbatim in `t`. A keyframe is the
**start of a ramp toward the next**, not a pose that is held, and the ramp is
linear.

🔴 **Every keyframe has a `t`, including the last**, and this paragraph said the
exact opposite until 2026-08-29. A placement group is an 8-byte header followed
by `frames` × `{u32 time; 36-byte pose}`, so **pose 0's time is the group's
lead-in word** and no pose is untimed. The old reading — that a group's data
stopped four bytes short of its final block's time slot — paired every pose with
the *next* pose's time, and `sylpheed-export check` enforced it as a rule. A file
with an untimed keyframe is now the wrong one.

⚠️ Two things went with that correction. The **exit ramp is gone**: there is no
untimed final keyframe to give a synthetic time to, so `authored/timing.json`'s
`exit_ramp_units` — an authored *measured* constant since P3 — is **deleted**,
which is what MISSION §3 means by a deletion being the measure of progress. And
`rest.t` moved on several screens: `publisher_logo` settles at t=30 rather than
t=235.

The unit of `t` is still measured rather than on the disc, so it stays in
`authored/` and is applied in exactly one place.

**`rotation_deg`** is screen-plane rotation in degrees, clockwise-positive,
decoded from the keyframe's `+12`. **The game renders it**, confirmed twice by
the RE agent on different screens and different elements: the title's `ptloop`
sweeps declare +30 / −45 and a GPU capture submits their quads at +30.26 /
−45.28, and the main menu's focus ring ramps 0 → 360 with position, scale, alpha
and tint all constant — a capture caught it mid-spin.

Rotation is **about the declared pivot**, which is measured rather than assumed:
the `ptloop` sweeps scale 600 %/800 % vertically, where the pivot term is worth
450 and 630 px, and the capture puts both quad centres at y 359.1/360.0 against
the pivot formula's 360.0 (top-left predicts 810/990, centre-as-position
predicts 270).

> ⚠️ `sylpheed-cli screen render` does **not** draw rotation yet — its `blit` is
> axis-aligned. A rotation disagreement between it and a consumer that does draw
> rotation means the CLI is behind, not that the consumer is wrong.

**Two colours multiply.** `tint_rgba` is RGBA and is `0xffffffff` on essentially
every keyframe; `fade_argb` is **ARGB**, and its high byte is the alpha that ramps
during a fade. The byte order is in the key name because getting it backwards is
silent and looks like an art bug. The drawn modulate is their per-channel product.

**`rest`** is the resting pose: **the hold** — the longest run of consecutive
keyframes with an identical pose that does not end the group. Neither the first
nor the last keyframe, and not the longest-dwell frame either: a long gap after
keyframe *k* means the screen spends that time *arriving at* `k+1`.

> ⚠️ **`rest` is a heuristic over the keyframes, and it misfires.** The rule
> excludes a run that ends the group, because that run is usually the exit. On
> an element with **no exit animation** the trailing run *is* the hold, and the
> rule then falls back to an earlier run — usually the invisible pre-roll. Six
> elements in this export are affected, and the condition that identifies them
> exactly is *"the final untimed keyframe has the same pose as the last timed
> one"*: `ptframe1`/`ptframe2` on both main menus, and `pteff02` on both titles.
> A live capture of the running main menu shows `ptframe1`/`ptframe2` on screen;
> `rest` says they are invisible.
>
> A consumer that wants the pose after arrival should therefore take **the last
> timed keyframe**, not `rest`. `rest` is kept in the format because it is what
> the pinned decoders say and removing it would hide the disagreement — see
> `docs/port/DECISIONS.md`. The format is unchanged at **v2**: no field changed
> meaning, this is a warning about one of them.

**`paint_order`** is back-to-front, as declaration indices, and is a permutation
of them. It is the stable sort by `layer`. See `unresolved: paint_order_ties`.

**`buttons`** is navigation order: `button`-role elements sorted by resting Y.
This is **geometric, not a decoded neighbour graph** — the disc's real navigation
structure is unknown. It is right for a vertical menu and should not be trusted
for anything else.

**`unresolved`** lists what this file does not answer; a consumer needing one of
those must get it from `authored/`. An empty list is a claim that nothing is
missing; an absent list is a gap, and `check` rejects it.

## `authored/screen_names.json`

Which build is which screen, keyed by archive and build index, each with a
`why`. The exporter reads this and stamps `name` / `name_source` / `name_why`
into the screen file. A build with no entry exports as `build_NN`.

## `authored/flow.json`

```json
{
  "format": "sylpheed.flow/1",
  "boot": ["splash_developer", "intro_video", "title", "main_menu"],
  "screens": {
    "main_menu": {
      "actions": {
        "ptbtn01": { "label": "NEW GAME", "goto": "new_game_intro",
                     "why": "label read off the sprite; target is a placeholder for HANDOFF Q4" }
      }
    }
  }
}
```

`goto` may name an exported screen or a **GamePart id** from the executable's own
table (29 entries at `.rdata 0x820A1630` — that table is a disc fact; which button
reaches which entry is Q4 and is not).

## `export/manifest.json`

```json
{
  "format": "sylpheed.manifest/1",
  "exporter": "sylpheed-export 0.1.0",
  "formats_rev": "8b6dbcf",
  "disc": "/disc",
  "screens": [{ "name": "main_menu", "file": "screens/title/main_menu.json",
                "sprites": 18, "missing_sprites": [] }],
  "videos": [{ "name": "ADV", "file": "video/ADV.ogv",
               "command": "ffmpeg -i …", "why": "HANDOFF Q9: …" }],
  "audio":  [{ "kind": "se", "name": "move", "file": "audio/se/move.ogg",
               "command": "ffmpeg -i …", "why": "HANDOFF Q8, measured: …",
               "peak_dbfs": -3.2, "duration_s": 0.533,
               "name_match": "SE_UI_CURSOR" },
             { "kind": "bgm", "name": "main_menu", "file": "audio/bgm/main_menu.ogg",
               "command": "ffmpeg -i …", "why": "AUTHORED, an arbitrary choice: …",
               "peak_dbfs": -1.1, "duration_s": 173.8, "loop_mode": "restart" }],
  "warnings": ["GP_READY_ROOM not exported -- out of scope"]
}
```

`videos` and `audio` are **absent** until a milestone writes one, rather than
present and empty: an empty array reads as "we looked and there is none", and
that is not what an export taken before P4 or P6 means.

### `command` and `why`, on every media entry

`command` is the exact ffmpeg invocation that produced the file. MISSION §6: a
modder who dislikes the quality re-runs one line rather than reverse-engineering
what was done to their asset. `why` is where the value came from, in the
project's three-way vocabulary — **decoded** off the disc, **measured** off the
running game, or **chosen**. A `why` that does not say which of those it is has
not done its job.

### `audio`, field by field

| field | |
|---|---|
| `kind` | `se`, `bgm` or `voice`. The runtime dispatches on it, so it is a field rather than a prefix on `name` that a consumer would have to parse |
| `name` | the **role**, not the disc asset: `move`, `confirm`, `back`, `main_menu`. Which bank plays a role is authored and expected to change; a rename on the disc side must not be a change to the Godot project. ⚠️ **`voice` is the exception and keys by MOVIE NAME** (`ADV`, `S00A`), because there is no role to name: the binding of recording to picture came off the disc's own movie manifest, so unlike a music bed nothing about it was chosen |
| `peak_dbfs` | measured off the finished file. **Required.** Silence is the audio failure that looks like success — right duration, right channel count, right size, full of zeroes — and clipping is the other one, which the BGM can produce because it is a sum of two stems at unity gain. `sylpheed-export check` refuses a tree whose peak is ≤ −90 dBFS, and applies a **kind-dependent** upper bound. 🔴 This paragraph used to state a flat *≥ 0 dBFS* and was wrong about the port's own export: `confirm` ships at **+0.18** and the `ADV` voice at **+0.31**, so a consumer implementing a validator from this file would have rejected a valid tree. The rule is: a **`bgm`** is a sum *we* produced, so a peak at or above full scale is our arithmetic and is refused outright; an **`se`** or **`voice`** is a single wave off the disc, mastered near full scale, and a lossy decode of it overshoots by a fraction of a dB — those are allowed to **+1.0 dB**. ⚠️ The +1.0 is a judgement, not a measurement: a few tenths is reconstruction overshoot and a whole dB is not, and if a cue ever trips it the right response is to measure the overshoot distribution, not to loosen the bound |
| `duration_s` | measured off the finished file, so that a claim about a cue's length can be checked against the finding that produced it |
| `name_match` | the game's own cue identifier **guessed by name**. Absent means nobody claimed one — never that the binding is unknown. The binding is the measured part; the name is not |
| `loop_mode` | what the runtime does at the end of the file, where that was authored. Absent on a cue: a cue ends |

**A `voice` entry is a cutscene's dialogue, and it is a separate file on
purpose.** On this disc a movie's `.wmv` carries music and effects only; the
voice is a byte region of one continuous XMA stream in `sound.pak`, bound by the
movie manifest. A consumer plays the two together, **from the same instant** —
there is no offset and none is authored. A movie with no `voice` entry is
genuinely unvoiced, which is the honest answer for most `hokyu_*` cutscenes;
nothing is substituted, and the manifest carries a warning naming the movie.

⚠️ The `why` on a `voice` entry names every region chunk the exporter **dropped**
and its measured length. That is not commentary: which chunks of a region are the
track is an open decoding question (see `docs/port/BLOCKED.md`), and a consumer
reading a shorter file than it expected should be able to see what was left out
rather than infer it.

## Changes from v2

v2 was written before the keyframe's `+12` was decoded and before anyone could
reach a `.rat` leaf through the public decoder API.

| Change | Why |
|---|---|
| `rotation_deg` on every keyframe and on `rest` | Decoded at keyframe `+12`, and **the game draws it** — confirmed on two different screens with two different elements against GPU captures. Dropping it would have made the focus ring's whole animation invisible. |
| `focus` (a record with its own elements) added; `focus_sprite` kept but demoted | The focused state is two elements in a nested leaf, not one sprite. v2's single `focus_sprite` could not carry the ring at all, and drew the highlight label 7 px off-centre by inheriting the base's position. `focus_sprite` stays because it is still the 54-pair naming convention and a consumer may want the bare texture. |
| `unresolved` gains `focus_ring_spin_period` | The ring's rotation ramps 0 → 360 across two keyframes whose second is untimed. The screen-level rule for an untimed keyframe (the exit ramp) is not established to apply inside a leaf, so the period is unknown and is not being invented. |

## Changes from v1

v1 was written before HANDOFF answered Q1 and Q3, and before the two-colour
modulate was known. Each change below is a thing v1 could not have said.

| Change | Why |
|---|---|
| `rest.tint` (one `#rrggbbaa`) → `tint_rgba` **and** `fade_argb` | There are two modulate colours on the disc, in *different byte orders*, and they multiply. One field could not carry both, and a single `#rrggbbaa` silently discarded the alpha that every fade ramps. |
| `scale` is percent integers, not floats | It is a percent integer on the disc. Emitting `1.0` invents a precision the file does not have. |
| `paint_order` added, `"paint_order"` dropped from `unresolved` | Q3 decoded it: a `u16` layer key at `+0x0A`, stable-sorted. It is now derived, so it belongs in `export/` rather than `authored/`. `paint_order_ties` remains unresolved. |
| `layer` / `layer_source` added | Some keys are read from the file and some are measured off the running game. A consumer must be able to tell which. |
| `focus_sprite` now pairs by sprite **name**; `opt_link` exported raw | v1 implied `opt ` was the focus link. That was refuted. Pairing by name is the convention that survives. |
| `kind_raw` on every element, not only on `unknown` | The `0x3002` button test is not general and `kind & 0x4` changes whether an element draws at all. Both need the raw value present unconditionally. |
| `index`, `declared`, `parent`, `size`, `layer` added | Needed to reconstruct the screen: `paint_order` keys on `index`, primitives have no texture to take a size from, and `declared` keeps the disc's own spelling next to the derived `id`. |
| `name_why` required whenever `name_source` is `authored` | Rule 2. A name presented without its evidence is indistinguishable from a recovered one. |
| sprites moved from `sprites/*.png` to `sprites/<subdir>/<screen>/*.png` | Sprite names collide across builds. `main_menu` and `extras` both ship a `ptbase.t32`, and they are different pictures. |
| `unresolved` is required, and may be empty | An empty list is a claim; an absent one is a gap. |