Element::rest() picked the keyframe with the largest gap to the next keyframe's
time. That reads a keyframe as a value held until the next one; it is the start
of a ramp toward it. A long gap after keyframe k means the screen spends that
time arriving at k+1, so the settled pose is at the far end of the gap.
The title wordmark zooms in over five frames and holds at (184,193) at 100% from
t=251 to t=264. The old rule picked the frame before the long gap: (179,186) at
101%, still mid-zoom.
Measured against the framebuffer capture of the running title screen, which is a
1:1 crop so frame coordinates map directly (confirmed: the copyright line lands
on row 669 in the capture and in both composites). Edge-correlated over the
wordmark box:
plateau (landed) best 0.4597 at shift (0,0)
longest dwell (old) best 0.1511 at shift (+3,+8), 0.1268 at (0,0)
The old composite scores 3x lower and only peaks after being moved, by about the
(-5,-7) that picking kf4 instead of kf5 predicts.
It also fixes six title elements the old rule rested at alpha 0x00 where the
capture plainly shows them, and pteff00.prm - the full-screen fade quad painted
last - which rested at opaque black. That was the blocker on .prm compositing.
Adds tools/re-capture/align_to_capture.py, which is how this was scored, and
turns the .prm test that deliberately asserted the old defect into a guard on
the fix.
Not settled and now the next item: compose ignores the keyframe fade alpha
entirely (blit modulates by tint only), which is why choosing the wrong keyframe
was invisible until now.
Runtime-capture harness (sylph-re container)
Screenshot-driven scripts for reading the running retail game's menus under Xenia
Canary + lavapipe, headless. They assume the container helpers screenshot,
vgamepad, pad are on $PATH and HOME=/sylph-home/re.
| Script | What it does |
|---|---|
skip_intro.sh |
Boot → main menu, unattended. Taps A only while the intro movie is actually playing (frame-to-frame RMSE), then once at the PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON title. Static logo screens are left alone, so a stray tap can never land on NEW GAME. |
wait_title.sh |
Older variant: wait for the title (green Ⓐ glyph at px 625,618) and tap A. Superseded by skip_intro.sh. |
step.sh |
One Arsenal navigation step (down/up/next/prev/none) + a compact capture: weapon list stacked over the DATA SHEET. |
sweep.sh |
Walk a whole weapon-type list, capturing only rows that show a DATA SHEET — locked rows (a "Conditions to Develop" panel) are detected by the brightness of the Range Class label box and skipped. |
type.sh |
Change weapon-type tab N times (RB) and report the header strip. |
hp.sh / cyc.sh |
Hangar hard-point carousel: cyc.sh steps it (d-pad down, not left/right) and captures the Name + DATA SHEET. |
Input timing under lavapipe: the game polls input at its own low frame rate, so a 60 ms d-pad tap is dropped roughly half the time. 200 ms is reliable; 300 ms starts to auto-repeat (two rows per press).
Findings produced with these: docs/re/weapon-datasheet-runtime.md.
Guest-memory tools (no screenshots)
| Script | What it does |
|---|---|
gmem.py |
Read the live guest address space out of /dev/shm/xenia_memory_* (Xenia's backing file), addressed by guest VA. find / read / words. |
weapon_runtime.py |
Solve the Weapon/Shell struct layouts against the disc records and read the fields the disc defaults. |
unit_discover.py |
Find which runtime class carries a set of ID strings, assuming no vtable: tallies the word at pointer_site - k across distinct IDs. |
unit_runtime.py |
Same solver for the unit\UN_*.tbl definition objects (vtable 0x820af844). Unions several snapshots — unit definitions are per-stage. |
schema_order.py |
Merge a sub-record's field-declaration order across all tables (topological sort); the layout check that pins fields no table ever values. |
order_check.py |
Test offset = base + 4*index for one table's sub-record against solver output. |
grab_tutorial.sh |
Cold-boot Canary, walk to the Nth TUTORIAL entry, wait for the stage load, snapshot guest RAM. One emulator per capture — backing out of a loaded mission wedges it. |
Snapshot first — cp --sparse=always /dev/shm/xenia_memory_* snap.bin (~2 s) — and
point $GMEM_FILE at the copy; the running emulator pegs every core under lavapipe.