Two places checked for the key a .prm element sorts by, both empty:
* the declaration entry's four unread words are constant across every element
of all three measured screens (+28=0, +36=0xffffffff, +56=0, and +44 is a
button ordinal 1-5, 0xffffffff elsewhere);
* the bundle carries NO data for a primitive at all - the menu build declares
pteff00.prm, pteff02.prm and pteff05.t32 and has zero RATC children for any
of them, its 34 children being 21 T8aD sprites and 13 .rat records.
So the layer comes from the game code. But it is consistent, which is what makes
a per-name table a measurement rather than a fudge. Bracketing each unkeyed
element between the keys of its measured neighbours: pteff02.prm falls in
(0x8010, 0x8040) on BOTH screens it appears on, pteff00.prm is past the maximum
on both, and palogo_eff0.prm is below the minimum on the splash.
implied_layer_key records exactly those and nothing else; an unlisted primitive
keeps u32::MAX and still sorts last. With it, derived_paint_order produces the
same layer-key sequence as the order read off the running game on all three
measured screens - primitives included - and matches element-for-element on four
of the five bundle instances. The fifth is the title, differing only inside its
tied groups, which is a separate open question.
This does not make include_primitives safe by default: the 36 builds that come
out one colour are wiped by pzeff00.prm and pceff00.prm, never measured, hence
not in the table.
14 disc tests green.
fill_quad composites an untextured primitive as a solid rectangle of the
keyframes fade colour, pivot x 2 in size, placed and scaled exactly as a sprite
is. Behind ComposeOptions::include_primitives and screen render --primitives.
On the title screen, whose paint order is ground truth, it is measurably right:
mean luminance 76.30 -> 63.72 against the captures 64.58, i.e. from +18% to
-1.3%, and mean absolute difference 16.07 -> 13.08. The background was ~40% too
bright; pteff02.prm, a 25% black dim, was what was missing. The wordmark is not
dimmed by it because the measured order paints that quad at slot 4, beneath the
logo. Edge correlation moves 0.9538 -> 0.9480, which is not informative here: a
uniform dim scales gradients uniformly so a normalised edge score barely sees it.
OFF BY DEFAULT, and that is the finding. A primitive has no T8aD header, so no
layer key, and derived_paint_order sorts the keyless to the end. GP_DIALOGs
pzeff00.prm is a single keyframe of opaque black at full screen; painted last it
wipes the build. Of the 125 builds that draw a visible primitive, 36 come out
>99% one colour with the derived order.
No constant default works, because the two screens read off the running game
disagree: the splash paints its primitive FIRST (the black backdrop) while the
title paints one at slot 4 and another LAST (the fade-out). Declaration order
fails the title too. A disc test measures the damage rather than asserting the
feature works, so the number moves when the ordering is solved.
Also records a false alarm worth keeping: a first pass reported 36 GP_DIALOG
builds at "100% black", which was a crude near-black pixel threshold and not a
black screen - those dialogs are dimmed 50% and perfectly legible. The genuinely
wiped builds are a different set.
369 .prm elements exist in the disc's screen builds and every composite is
missing them. Swept statically:
* none of the 369 has a RATC child of its own name — no payload, nothing to
draw, so .prm is a primitive and not a sprite;
* kind & 0x10 and a .prm name agree with ZERO exceptions in either direction
over all 965 builds, so the format marks primitives as a decoded field and a
port need not parse filenames;
* 361 of 369 are exactly 1280x720 at scale 100% in the corner, and their
keyframe 'fade' ARGB is overwhelmingly black at some alpha — these are the
fade-to-black, dim-behind-menu and flash layers, i.e. the PRMD dim-quad the
compositor's backdrop has been standing in for.
Refuted before believing: drawing them at Element::rest() is wrong. The title's
pteff00.prm is opaque -> transparent -> transparent -> opaque, a transition whose
resting pose is the transparent plateau; rest() picks by longest dwell and lands
on the opaque endpoint, which is painted LAST on that screen and would black out
the title. A test asserts that wrong answer deliberately so that fixing the
resting rule fails it and leads to the note.
No compositing change: the resting rule is not .prm-specific and has to be A/B'd
against the title framebuffer capture first.
