This repository has been archived on 2026-09-16. You can view files and clone it. You cannot open issues or pull requests or push a commit.
Files
Syplheed-Reborn/docs/re/ui-title-build-map.md
Sylpheed RE agent c176fa53bc re: the 2.3 s pulse is the PRESS (A) plate, not the title
Closing the residual I left explicitly unidentified last iteration, and
correcting my own claim twice over in the process.

The cheap test first: is the oscillation global? No -- the bottom-right
corner is flat at sd 0.003 and uncorrelated with the whole frame. So a
per-tile amplitude map over an 8x6 grid, which localises it hard: sd 7.65
in the band x 318..954, y 560..672 at lag 2.3 s, against 0.06 on the
wordmark. That band is the PRESS (A) BUTTON plate's rest position.

Decoding ptbtn00f.rat, the plate's highlight variant, gives the pulse
itself: alpha 0x00 -> 0x06 -> 0x4a -> 0x50, held, then back down through
0x4a to 0x06 across t=6..105. A glow that fades in and out, which is
exactly what a press-start prompt does.

So "the title screen loops at 2.2 s" was wrong in both halves. The title
ART is near-static apart from the two decoded sweeps at 7.5 s and 9.5 s;
what pulses is the PLATE, and the plate is build 2, not build 4. REFUTED
carries it under my own name.

Still amber, and said so rather than rounded off: the cycle LENGTH is not
readable. The keyframe group's last block has no time -- that slot
belongs to the next group -- so the declared span is at least 105 units,
1.75 s, against a measured 2.3 s. Consistent with a final block
extending the tail. Not confirmed.
2026-08-28 20:58:49 +00:00

304 lines
15 KiB
Markdown
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters
This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.
# Which `GP_TITLE` build is which screen — measured against the running game
**Status:** ✅ `CONFIRMED` for the four screens the boot path actually shows
(title art, `PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON`, main menu, `EXTRAS`); 🟡 `PROBABLE` for their
Japanese twins; ❔ open for the two `DELTASABER` plates.
Answers [MISSION Q2](../port/MISSION.md). The previous statement — *"build 4
title, 5 main menu, 6/8/9 submenus"* — is **partly wrong** and is withdrawn:
build 8 is the **Japanese main menu**, not a submenu, and `GP_TITLE` holds
exactly **one** submenu (`EXTRAS`), in two languages.
## The archive is eight screens, each shipped twice
`GP_TITLE.pak` has 16 entries; `sylpheed-cli screen list` calls 12 of them
composable builds. The 16 fall into **eight pairs**, and each pair's two members
have near-identical sizes and name hashes that differ by a constant — one
character of the name apart:
| entry | hash | bytes | build idx | pair |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | `01a2db9c` | 483 958 | 0 | A |
| 1 | `0ff0b8a8` | 483 958 | 1 | A |
| 2 | `285d8849` | 267 014 | 2 | B |
| 3 | `369773cb` | 267 014 | 3 | B |
| 4 | `a60fcb85` | 12 278 666 | 4 | C |
| 7 | `b483e6e6` | 13 363 328 | 7 | C |
| 5 | `a715f485` | 6 977 437 | 5 | D |
| 8 | `b58a0fe6` | 6 931 653 | 8 | D |
| 6 | `a81c1d85` | 6 549 126 | 6 | E |
| 9 | `b69038e6` | 6 548 438 | 9 | E |
| 10 | `cdba806e` | 426 473 | — | F |
| 13 | `db2ea1f8` | 423 333 | — | F |
| 11 | `cec0a96e` | 999 643 | — | G |
| 14 | `dc34caf8` | 999 643 | — | G |
| 12 | `cf2a8ccd` | 1 774 639 | 10 | H |
| 15 | `dd56d99b` | 1 774 639 | 11 | H |
For the three pairs whose members differ visibly — C, D, E — **the difference is
English versus Japanese**: build 7 is the title art with the katakana subtitle
プロジェクト シルフィード, build 8 the main menu reading 新規 / ロード /
チュートリアル / オプション / エクストラ, build 9 the `EXTRAS` submenu as
エクストラ. That is the whole of the language split we can see. In pairs A, B and
H the two members render **byte-identical PNGs** — the archive still carries two
copies, but the artwork does not change with the language.
Pairs F and G are the four entries `screen list` does *not* classify as builds by
default. **They are the developer splash**, and they render — see below.
## The map
Contact sheet of every render:
[`captures/title-builds/title-build-contact-sheet.png`](captures/title-builds/title-build-contact-sheet.png).
| build | what it is | confirmed how |
|---|---|---|
| 0, 1 | a `DELTASABER / SYLPHEED A.I.` plate low-left on black, no background | ❔ **not observed running.** Never seen in the boot path, the main menu, `EXTRAS` or `MISSION SELECT` |
| **2**, 3 | the `PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON` plate — **an overlay build of its own**, not a state of build 4 | ✅ seen composited over build 4 on the live title, at the same rect our render puts it |
| **4** | title art, English (`PROJECT SYLPHEED`, ™, `(C)2006,2007 SQUARE ENIX`) | ✅ [`live-title-press-a.png`](captures/title-builds/live-title-press-a.png) |
| 7 | the same, Japanese | 🟡 renders as the JP twin of build 4; the container runs an English locale, so it was not seen |
| **5** | main menu, English: NEW GAME / LOAD GAME / TUTORIAL / OPTIONS / EXTRAS, footer `Ⓐ : OK` | ✅ [`live-main-menu.png`](captures/title-builds/live-main-menu.png) — element for element |
| 8 | the same, Japanese | 🟡 as above |
| **6** | the `EXTRAS` submenu, English: MISSION SELECT / MOVIE THEATER / BACK, footer `Ⓐ : OK Ⓑ : Back` | ✅ [`live-extras.png`](captures/title-builds/live-extras.png) |
| 9 | the same, Japanese | 🟡 as above |
| 10, 11 | the same `DELTASABER` plate as build 0, over a dark circuit-line background | ❔ **not observed running** |
## ✅ The splash — the four "non-build" entries, rendered
`screen list --all` widens the enumeration to every composable bundle and shows
all **16** entries. The four that the default listing drops are the two halves of
the developer splash, each shipped twice:
| entry | elements / sprites | what it is |
|---|---|---|
| **10, 13** | 3 / 2 | the white **`SQUARE ENIX`** publisher logo |
| **11, 14** | 7 / 6 | **`GAME ARTS` / `SETA` / `studio anima`** — the developer logos |
[`splash-entries-rendered.png`](captures/title-builds/splash-entries-rendered.png).
Rendered with `screen render --all --primitives --black`. Entry 11's seven
elements are the three logos, their three `_eff` glows and the
`palogo_eff0.prm` black backdrop — exactly the composition
[`structures/ui-paint-order-key.md`](structures/ui-paint-order-key.md) measured
for the splash.
### ✅ Confirmed against the running game — 2026-08-28
The 🟡 above ("no framebuffer capture to diff against") is closed. Recording the
boot from the moment the window appears, at 2 fps, catches the splash before the
movie:
[`live-splash-publisher.png`](captures/title-builds/live-splash-publisher.png),
[`live-splash-developer.png`](captures/title-builds/live-splash-developer.png).
Edge-correlated against the renders, **with the other half as a negative
control**:
| capture | vs entry 10 | vs entry 11 |
|---|---|---|
| publisher frame (t ≈ 2.0 s) | **0.9146** @ (0,0) | 0.027 ✗ |
| developer frame (t ≈ 6.0 s) | −0.033 ✗ | **0.9792** @ (0,0) |
Both halves match their own render at zero shift and are firmly rejected by the
other. The `13`/`14` twins score 0.876 / 0.966 — near-identical artwork, so this
test cannot tell a pair apart, only a screen from a different screen.
### ✅ The splash's timing is DECODED, and the capture confirms it
Re-recorded at **10 fps** (the 2 fps pass below was ±0.5 s and could not see
ramps at all). The splash **fades, both ways** — it does not cut — and the
bundle's own keyframes say so:
```
$ sylpheed-cli screen info --all --build 10 GP_TITLE.pak
1 palogo_sqex.t32 7 kf [15 30 235 239 251 255 -]
2 palogo_sqex_eff.t32 4 kf [15 30 45 -] (the glow, child of 1)
$ ... --build 11
1 palogo_gamearts.t32 7 kf [15 30 190 194 206 210 -] (seta, anima identical)
2 palogo_gamearts_eff 4 kf [15 30 45 -]
```
Under Q1's `1 unit = 1/60 s`:
| | declared | measured at 10 fps |
|---|---|---|
| `SQUARE ENIX` ramp in | `15 → 30` = 0.25 s | rise 0.4 → 0.8 s |
| `SQUARE ENIX` hold | `30 → 235` = **3.42 s** | ≈ 3.5 s (0.8 → 4.3 s) |
| `SQUARE ENIX` fade out | `235 → 255` = **0.33 s** | **≈ 0.3 s** (4.4 → 4.7 s) |
| developer hold | `30 → 190` = **2.67 s** | ≈ 2.4 s (5.6 → 8.0 s) |
| developer fade out | `190 → 210` = **0.33 s** | **≈ 0.3 s** (8.1 → 8.4 s) |
The offset between declared and measured start is ≈ 0.35 s, which is simply that
the recording's `t = 0` is when the *window* appears, not when the guest starts
drawing. Everything downstream of that lines up.
**The overshoot is the glow.** The measured rise peaks (6.21) at 0.8 s and settles
back (5.39) by 1.1 s, which looks like a bloom. It is the `_eff` child element:
its keyframes are `15 → 30 → 45`, so it ramps in *after* the logo and then back
down, while the logo itself holds. Decoded, not a rendering artifact.
So the port can **read** the splash's timing off the disc rather than author it —
the first screen's animation is not a measurement it has to trust.
### The wall-clock sequence, for orientation
| | |
|---|---|
| `SQUARE ENIX` on screen | **≈ 0.5 → 4.0 s** after the window appears |
| black | ≈ 4.5 s |
| `GAME ARTS` / `SETA` / `studio anima` | **≈ 5.0 → 7.5 s** |
| black | ≈ 9.0 s |
| `ADV.wmv` begins | **≈ 9.5 s** |
⚠️ The frames at ≈ 9.5–12.5 s show `SQUARE ENIX` again in **cyan**. That is not a
third splash — it is the intro movie's own opening, which the milestone-2 notes
describe as "white SQUARE ENIX + cyan glow + red diamonds". A capture-only reading
would have recorded a third logo screen that does not exist.
**So the first of the five screens now has a reference composite, a framebuffer
capture, and its on-screen durations.**
**Reach of the two negatives.** Builds 0/1 and 10/11 were looked for in: the whole
boot sequence (a 5 s-cadence filmstrip from launch to the title, ~190 s), the
title, the main menu, the `EXTRAS` submenu, the `LOAD GAME` slot list, the
transition into `MISSION SELECT` (a 40-frame burst), and the attract cycle. They
appear in none of them. The obvious remaining candidate is a *long* load — a
mission launch — which is out of this objective's scope; they are most likely a
loading/AI-chatter plate. That is a hypothesis, not a result.
## Three things the captures settle beyond the map
**The live title is two builds composited.** Build 4 draws the art; build 2 draws
`PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON` on top, and it **fades in a beat later** — a screenshot taken
2.5 s after arriving at the title has the art and no plate, one taken ~1 s later
has both. The port must treat the plate as its own timed element.
**The attract-loop title carries the plate too.** After ~8–10 s idle the title
fades to black, a full-motion video plays for ~85 s, and the title comes back —
*with* `PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON`
([`live-attract-title-press-a-band.png`](captures/title-builds/live-attract-title-press-a-band.png)).
This is consistent with, and adds nothing to, the draw-quad comparison in
[`canary-scripted-input-traps.md`](canary-scripted-input-traps.md): the plate is
not the tell that distinguishes the boot title from the attract title.
**`EXTRAS` is the only main-menu destination inside `GP_TITLE`.** Ⓐ on `EXTRAS`
opens build 6 — measured. The other four destinations leave the archive: Ⓐ on
`LOAD GAME` opened a `LOAD GAME` slot list, and Ⓐ on `MISSION SELECT` inside
`EXTRAS` opened a `MISSION SELECT` screen, neither of which is a `GP_TITLE`
build. `dat/` carries `GP_SAVE_LOAD.pak`, `GP_TUTORIAL.pak`, `GP_OPTIONS.pak`,
`GP_MISSION_SELECT.pak` and `GP_MOVIE_THEATER.pak`; **that those are the archives
behind the other four buttons is an inference from the names, not a measurement.**
## How to reproduce
```bash
sylpheed-cli screen list "$SYLPHEED_DISC/dat/GP_TITLE.pak"
sylpheed-cli screen render --build 6 "$SYLPHEED_DISC/dat/GP_TITLE.pak" /tmp/b6.png
tools/re-capture/boot_menu.sh q2 # boots to the main menu, cursor on NEW GAME
tools/re-capture/pad.py dpad down 0.35 # x4 -> EXTRAS
tools/re-capture/pad.py tap A 0.30
```
Mind the d-pad hold — see [`METHOD.md`](METHOD.md).
## ✅ The title is not a still image — it loops, ≈ 2.2 s
Recording the title at 10 fps for 22 s shows the screen **never settles**. After
the build-in it oscillates by about ±0.5 in mean luminance, continuously:
```
peaks at 5.6 7.8 10.0 12.7 15.2 17.1 19.2 21.3 s
intervals 2.2 2.2 2.7 2.5 1.9 2.1 2.1
mean 2.24 s
```
**measured**, n = 7 intervals, spread 1.9–2.7 s — peak-picking a low-amplitude
signal is coarse, so read it as **≈ 2.2 s ± 0.4**, not a precise period.
The mechanism is already decoded: build 4 declares **`ptloop01.rat` /
`ptloop02.rat`**, and `loop*.rat` is a **looping sprite animation** rather than a
composition ([`INDEX.md`](INDEX.md), UI screen layout row). So the title carries a
looping element by construction; what is new is that it runs at ≈ 2.2 s and never
stops.
### ✅ The loop records ARE decoded — and they are not what I measured
`ptloop01.rat` is an **`opt `-linked leaf record**: in build 4 the chunk `opt `
(size `0x0c`) carries the name, immediately followed by a `RATC` blob at
**`0xbb5966`** (`ptloop02.rat` the same at `0xbb5a82`). Its pivot fields read
`200`/`90`, matching `screen info`'s `pivot (200,90)` — the right blob.
**The keyframes use the ordinary 40-byte block layout**, starting at `+0x68`:
| | `ptloop01` → `pteff03.t32` | `ptloop02` → `pteff03a.t32` |
|---|---|---|
| kf0 | `t=150` x=**−639** α=`ff` | `t=150` x=**1721** α=`00` |
| kf1 | `t=540` x=−39 α=`80` | `t=630` x=1111 α=`80` |
| kf2 | `t=600` x=**1521** α=`ff` | `t=720` x=**−839** α=`ff` |
| scale | 100 × 600 | 100 × 800 |
| span | 150 → 600 = **450 units = 7.5 s** | 150 → 720 = **570 units = 9.5 s** |
Y is constant at 270 and X runs off one edge to the other, so these are
**horizontal light sweeps** — `loop01` left → right, `loop02` right → left.
### 🔴 Two things I wrote last iteration are wrong
**1. "A leaf record's keyframes are not in the build's 40-byte layout."**
Withdrawn — they are, exactly. The scan that "found nothing" demanded **29**
strictly-increasing times because I read the word at `+0x004` (`0x001e0000`) as a
keyframe count. These records hold **three** keyframes. A filter that hard-codes
the expected count rejects the right structure; whatever the `30` is, it is not
the number of keyframes here.
**2. "The ≈ 2.2 s oscillation is the `ptloop` elements."** Withdrawn — I asserted
the link because build 4 declares those elements, not because anything showed it.
The decoded sweeps run **7.5 s and 9.5 s**. A 22 s capture would show ~3 peaks
from a 7.5 s cycle; it showed **8**. So the loops are *not* what the oscillation
measured.
### ✅ Identified: it is the `PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON` plate pulsing
A per-tile amplitude map over the capture (8 × 6 grid, 18 s after build-in)
localises the 2.3 s period precisely:
| region | sd | dominant lag |
|---|---|---|
| band x ≈ 318–954, y ≈ 560–672 | **7.65** | **2.3 s** |
| wordmark centre | 0.06 | — |
| bottom-right corner | 0.003 | — |
That band is the `PRESS Ⓐ BUTTON` plate's rest position (`ptbtn00.rat`, rest
`(383,550)`, pivot `(256,25)`). It is **build 2**, composited over the title — not
build 4.
Decoding `ptbtn00f.rat`, the plate's highlight variant, gives the pulse directly:
| kf | t | alpha |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 6 | `0x00` |
| 1 | 29 | `0x06` |
| 2 | 35 | `0x4a` |
| 3 | 50 | `0x50` |
| 4 | 58 | `0x50` (hold) |
| 5 | 97 | `0x4a` |
| 6 | 105 | `0x06` |
A glow that fades in to `0x50` and back out — exactly a "press start" pulse.
🟡 **The cycle length is still not readable.** The group's last block has no time
(that slot belongs to the next group), so the declared span is **≥ 105 units =
1.75 s** against the measured **≈ 2.3 s** (138 units). Consistent with a final
block extending the tail; not confirmed.
### ❔ The declared 4.08 s build-in was not tested
That was the intent of this recording and it did not work. The title was reached
by **skipping the movie with Ⓐ**, which cuts to black and brings the title up on a
path that may not be the normal one; and the visible rise (≈ 2.7 s, from t ≈ 0.8
to 3.5) is a *luminance* curve, which
[`screen-transitions.md`](screen-transitions.md) already establishes is **not**
the fade quad's ramp. So ≈ 2.7 s neither confirms nor contradicts build 4's
declared `16 → 261` (4.08 s); the two are not measuring the same thing.
Testing it properly needs the title reached **without** a skip, and a way to
separate the quad from the elements — neither of which this recording had.