skate-3-rust-engine/docs/session-markers.md

Native session markers

PLAY-SESSION-MARKER.bat runs this task's private executable and original HUD overlay, starting paused. Resume, hold LB, press D-pad Down to place; hold LB + D-pad Up to return. These are the original input.cfg bindings (SessionMarkerSet, SessionMarkerUse), including pressed versus held behavior. An unset marker cannot return. Releasing cancels the hold. A completed hold does not repeatedly teleport until released. Automatic bail recovery retains its own checkpoint. Successful map changes clear the manual marker; pause and replay cancel an active return and require releasing LB before accepting another one.

The branch includes map-transition baseline 4a92ad1, cherry-picked as 1d89d85. No game, recomp, controller harness or GPU gameplay validation was launched for this task. The launcher is for the user's manual validation.

Original evidence

Addresses are TU3 virtual addresses in the owned default.xex image, with the local disassembly image based at 0x82000000. Local generated PPC and the community symbol map corroborate function boundaries. No game binary, extracted art, original shader bytecode, fonts or private research files are committed.

SHA-256 provenance:

Owned default.xex: 1db39496585c521d17a2137804f42cf73ebed2b32cac166ec42dbf772f4dcf7f
TU3 disassembly image: f4aa113eb541bfba03dbc108cf5ab43f58c965b20fa3b82f9c40938a0ad841c4
HUD-corrected private manual executable: 169d6258cb2a62b4e6caa0ad54788ab66f2d9587231a9d056b9dc984169040d4

Native owner	Behavior represented
82898FC8 PlayerUI::UpdateSessionMarker	Actions42/43; set/return ordering; retained timer and release latch
82DB6EC0, 82BE1AE8	Skeleton output+416 is animation-to-world translation, used for distance to the saved marker
825DF618 FrontEndManager::RenderButton	Full texture-sized quad, minimum corner (-24,-24), rather than the authored 32px placeholder
825D6B68, 82CA1FD8	Futura Shadow draws black first; original futuraheavy draws text color at local X+1
8289B6D8, 8289B140	Saved transform, foot-forward and on-board byte; marker initially unset
8289B928, 8289BAE0	Ground/biped eligibility; wheel count, deck Up.Y threshold, excluded states
82BFBC18	Downward10m line from Y+.1; VLT slope/drop/clearance; surface switch
82591E30	Deck+.2 capture; normalized travel velocity above squared speed.25; cross-product threshold.9
82592B68, 82B97388, 82B970D8	Foot-forward is natural/relative stance equality, inverted by fakie
82592C08, 82B97350, 82B97308, 82B972A8	Foot-forward setter and orientation/mirror/relative-stance publication
828977A8	Flag69, pending wipeout teleport and state702 return gates
825926F8, 82DB8998	Actor-reset packet and ordinary board/skeleton/velocity reset; camera cut publication
827A9C60, 827AAF10, 827AB790	cMsgTeleportEffectAmount (FAF37802) publication
827EDE58	Progress to f_NoiseFade (F0F1D438), (1-p,p,0,0); random UV scroll and channel weights
827ED7E8, 82A8AF10	64x64 four-channel binary noise texture, native six-word generator

Return duration is.2s through100m,1s from1000m, and a native fused linear ramp between them (3A690453, 3DE38E39). The timer adds 3C888889 per UI tick. The host budgets those ticks from real UI time, once per frame, and consumes them alongside controller input; physics substeps no longer supply the clock. Distance uses the animation-root translation, not the board+.2 capture position. At 100m, 550m and 1000m the strict comparison fires on ticks 13, 36 and 61. Relocation uses a strict greater-than comparison. Within.5m there is no effect or relocation; the native timer still accumulates. The trigger tick and next two UI ticks publish full effect. The shader's recovered noise contribution uses the original10x5.625 and11x6.625 UV scales and channel interpolation, rather than a generic random-pixel or scanline effect.

The validation collection is Hash_12B64C0E804B0853/default, with fields Hash_ADD032CACF6A1C15 (slope.75), Hash_8ABE098D3806D273 (drop1m), Hash_C0526C883AF0ECCA (sweep length.4), and Hash_CEB092E418A5B001 (radius.5). Values load from installed VLT data. The CTR branch chain at 82BFBE30, including its zero-case fallthrough, rejects surface categories5,6,9,12,13; category8 is allowed by this geometry function.

Original HUD extraction and future integration

tools/extract_session_marker.py uses the existing private UI toolkit. Example:

python tools/extract_session_marker.py --game OWNER_GAME_DIRECTORY --ui-toolkit UI_TOOLKIT_DIRECTORY --output .local/session-marker/overlay

The toolkit directory contains the skate3_ui_extract Python package. Its existing APT/GEO/RX2/font readers perform extraction; this adapter compiles only the marker subtree. Re-running updates its source cache incrementally.

Sources: hud2/hudphonelist, imported controls/button_item2, the Xbox360 button_DPad_Up_hud.Texture, button_DPad_Down_hud.Texture and button_B_hud.Texture, original Futura Shadow and futuraheavy atlases/metrics and English language labels. The compiler emits fifteen triangle meshes and seven private RGBA textures. futuraheavy declares its bitmap font family as Futura Std Medium. The root hudintro endpoint14, quick-menu maximized endpoint49 and three-item label endpoint18 supply the actual placements. No replacement typeface or redrawn panel is used. Source texture and extraction-manifest hashes remain in the private compiled manifest. Textures copy the extracted RGBA payload directly except for shadow coverage. Following the retail/current comparison screenshots, the host linear-light compositor uses shadow alpha 1-(1-a)^2.2 and panel opacity 0.75. These are screenshot-calibrated presentation adjustments, not recovered native constants or proof of native gamma equivalence. The shadow's original atlas footprint and RGB, foreground font, icon bytes and all geometry are preserved. Both source and output texture hashes are recorded in the private manifest. Object Dropper is shown as unavailable; its 0.3 opacity is a host presentation choice, not recovered ActionScript behavior. This change does not add Object Dropper functionality.

Runtime accepts SKATE3_SESSION_MARKER_OVERLAY, falling back to ASSET_ROOT/private/session-marker. This is the narrow interface for a future shared HUD extraction/setup owner: emit hud.json schema1 and its referenced RGBA files there. This task does not install another whole frontend pipeline. The launcher uses .local/session-marker/assets.path, or SKATE3_ASSETS.

Audio integration emits SessionMarkerAudio(u64) with original GlobalFEPlaySound IDs: place 0D6C88A3B91C828F, rejected place 66B3AFE3B602918C, return 7F135F9FD28F7F21. There is currently no audio consumer in this implementation.

Verification and limits

Release compilation passed with the existing static-CRT Windows target flags:

cargo build --release --locked --target x86_64-pc-windows-msvc -p skate-game --no-default-features

The first staged executable was subsequently found to be an older build from the shared target directory: it contained neither --start-paused nor the marker shader. The compile result did not verify the staged artifact. That executable has been superseded by .local/session-marker/skate3-session-marker.exe. Build-SessionMarker.ps1 now links directly into the task's private build directory with a distinct artifact name, checks the CLI/marker strings without executing it, and verifies the staged SHA-256. Use that script for future builds; -DependencyTargetDirectory can select an existing dependency cache.

Four standalone hold-state tests passed (cancellation/latching, unset/nearby/ blocked returns and tail, distance ramp, actual distance-dependent trigger ticks). The WGSL previously passed offline Naga27 parsing and validation. Original HUD manifest counts, triangle structure and every RGBA payload size passed data checks. These checks initialize no game or GPU device. A CPU-only rendering of the compiled HUD was inspected for font layering, icon size and the three-row panel. The corrected release was rebuilt and staged through Build-SessionMarker.ps1; its artifact/hash checks passed. The subsequent shadow/panel adjustment changes only the extracted HUD overlay; the same executable reads it on launch. Offline checks verified all output hashes, unchanged foreground/icon bytes, unchanged shadow footprint and increased shadow coverage. In-game comparison remains manual.

Manual validation remains necessary: place/replace, return from riding and biped states, switch/fakie stance, interrupted holds, bail recovery, camera cuts, replay/pause and successful/failed map changes. No gameplay result is claimed.

This is not a claim of complete frontend/render parity. The native region membership service (82BFBB48), challenge/online mode restrictions and disabled row ActionScript alpha behavior have no corresponding owner here yet. The HUD uses the recovered timeline endpoints, not a general ActionScript runtime. The noise stream starts from the original static generator words but is isolated from unrelated original renderer callers, so its exact pixel sequence differs. The compositor implements the marker noise contribution; general TV/fisheye and vignette passes are outside this feature. Native render scheduling/color-space equivalence and stance/reset timing still need manual observation. Map marker invalidation is a deliberate host lifecycle rule, not a recovered serialization claim. These gaps are explicit integration work, not synthetic substitutes.

Bail-recovery integration

Manual marker returns and automatic bail checkpoints share Actor82592B68's leading-foot query and the deferred Actor82592C08/82B97350 stance request. The teleport motion graph applies the saved stance after ResetSkaterAnimation; manual return no longer edits animation flags immediately before that reset. Marker placement and automatic checkpoint history remain separately owned.