3D View and Game Screen

3D View and Game Screen

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flowchart TD
  refresh["session refresh 0x5436"] --> vp["viewport 0x5382"]
  vp --> mode{"view mode -$79E2"}
  mode -- "0" --> persp["3D first-person 0x2ECE"]
  mode -- else --> alt["auto-map / text -$7D34"]
  persp --> floor["floor backdrop"]
  persp --> sky["sky / ceiling backdrop"]
  persp --> cells["wall-cell builder 0x2900"]
  cells --> paint["paint walls back-to-front"]

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Reverse-engineered from EXTRACTED/mm2.capstone.asm (code hunk 0). All d(A4) offsets are global-state fields; A4 = $7FFE (see 02-runtime-memory-map.md). The single blit primitive used everywhere is the thunk JSR -$7C20(A4) — blit(sheet_ptr, frame, y, x) (4 longword/word args, LEA $A(A7),A7 after each call).

[TOC]

1. Tileset roles per environment

The area-load dispatcher (0x1786..0x187E, jump table at 0x1880, 7 env types) resolves filename pointers (filename-pointer table at DATA 0x7B0, 4 bytes/entry) into per-environment graphics handles:

Field (A4)	Role	town env	cavern	castle	outdoor
-$7A06 ($85FA)	walls	town.32 (13)	cave.32 (17)	castle.32 (21)	— (uses layers)
-$7A22 ($85DE)	floor	townf.32 (10)	cavef.32 (14)	castlef.32 (18)	outf.32 (26)
-$7A1E ($85E2)	ceiling	townt.32 (11)	cavet.32 (15)	castlet.32 (19)	—
-$7A1A ($85E6)	auto-map	townb.32 (12)	townb.32 (16)	townb.32 (20)	outb.32 (25)
-$7A16 ($85EA)	outdoor sheet 0	—	—	—	outdoor1.32 (22)
-$7A12 ($85EE)	outdoor sheet 1	—	—	—	outdoor2.32 (23)
-$7A0E ($85F2)	outdoor sheet 2	—	—	—	outdoor3.32 (24)

(townb.32/outb.32 are the small 36-frame 14×11 auto-map tiles documented in the cartography notes; town.32/cave.32/castle.32 are the big ~57 KB wall sets whose frames are stored at decreasing sizes for depth scaling, e.g. town.32 frame dims 160×92, 96×55, 48×27, 16×10.)

-$7A02 ($85FE) is a separate sky/backdrop sheet used by the ceiling fill.

2. Render pipeline (interior dungeon view)

session refresh (LAB_5436 / LAB_545E, 0x5436/0x545E)
  └─ viewport refresh (0x5382)
        ├─ if -$79E2 (view mode) == 0 → JSR 0x2ECE   (3D first-person)
        └─ else                        → JSR -$7D34   (alternate: text/auto-map)

3D master — 0x2ECE

1. -$79E0 = 0xFFFF, clears input latch (-$7C3E).
2. Floor backdrop: blit(floor -$7A22, frame 0, …) (0x2EE2).
3. Ceiling/sky backdrop: blit(sky -$7A02, frame, …) (0x2F00); the frame index comes from 0x2BCC (a solid test) so it picks sky.32 frame 0 vs 1 = closed-ceiling vs open-sky.
4. Clears the 20 frustum-cell slots -$F0D..-$F20.
5. JSR 0x2900 — builds the visible-cell wall codes from map data.
6. Paints walls back-to-front (painter's algorithm): for each non-zero frustum slot it calls one of the wall-piece primitives with a depth/column argument (0x01..0x04 near→far, +0x80 = mirrored/right column).
7. JSR -$7D04 (flush), addq #1, -$755E (animation frame counter).

How the "window" is drawn and how colour is chosen

There is no flat-colour rectangle fill — the viewport is composited entirely from image sheets, each carrying its own 32-entry Amiga 0x0RGB palette:

• The scene area is a 208-wide viewport built from two stacked 208×60 backdrops: sky.32 (the ceiling/sky) on top and the per-environment floor image on the bottom, then perspective walls painted over them.
• sky.32 is a global sheet (loaded once at 0x25FA6 from filename-table entry 6) with 2 frames — the engine selects frame 0/1 via the 0x2BCC solid test (closed ceiling vs open sky).
• The floor image is the per-environment one (-$7A22): townf.32, cavef.32, castlef.32, or outf.32 — each a single 208×60 frame. This is where the inside/outside colour difference comes from: the env dispatcher (0x1786..0x187E) loads a different floor/wall/ceiling sheet set per environment, so the "colour" is just whichever sheet's palette is active.
• nwcp.32 (300×90) is the bottom HUD panel drawn beneath the viewport.

So inside vs outside = different sheet sets (town/cave/castle vs outdoor1-3 + outf), not a colour flag. The editor's Maps → Window (3D backdrop) tab reproduces this sky+floor composition per area.

Cell builder — 0x2900 (helpers 0x2BCC)

Reads the materialized neighbourhood bytes around the party (A4-$55C9..-$55D4, filled by map_row_sampler @0x190C from map.dat page 0 (A4-$55BA centre page and adjacent $51BA/$50BA/$53BA/$52BA buffers) and ANDs them with direction-bit masks (d1/d4/d5, plus shift counts -$75C7/-$75C8/-$55D7) to extract each cell's 2-bit field code into the frustum slots A4-$F0D..-$F20.

Each page-0 direction field uses the same (dark<<1)|wall bit layout as page 1, but 3D rendering treats all non-zero field codes as visible surfaces (ASM cell & mask != 0). Code 1 = plain wall, 2 = door-variant wall (+0x10 frames in wall_piece_*), 3 = door (+ separate overlay blit). Code 2's "dark" semantics apply to page-1 movement/light only, not to the 3D hood. Values 3 adjacent to an open cell are normalised to 1 (0x2B6A..0x2BBC).

Page 1 (A4-$54BA) is loaded separately for movement, events, and darkness (A4-$55D6 current-cell copy after hood refresh) — not the hood source for 3D wall sampling.

Page-0 visual layout (2 bits per side — walls only)

Each cell is one byte, four 2-bit fields. No event bit on page 0.

bits	field	values
0-1	North	0 open, 1 wall, 2 wall+torch, 3 door
2-3	East	same
4-5	South	same
6-7	West	same

Example: 0x08 → E=2 (torch); 0x80 → W=2 (torch); 0xB3 → N=3 and S=3 (doors). The 3D hood (0x2900) reads only these bytes from A4-$55BA.

Page-1 collision layout (2 bits per side + darkness + event)

Per cell, each direction is (dark << 1) | wall: low bit = wall, high bit = darkness. West's high bit (0x80) is the event flag (not a fourth wall type).

bits	mask	field
0-1	0x01/0x02	North wall / dark
2-3	0x04/0x08	East wall / dark
4-5	0x10/0x20	South wall / dark
6	0x40	West wall
7	0x80	EVENT flag (collision only)

Darkness (collision high bit per direction). Entering a dark square drains one party light factor. The "can't see" overlay flag -$79E1 is (re)computed each frame in session_interaction_gate (0x53A0): it is forced to 0 while the light flag -$79AB is non-zero (active light suppresses darkness), otherwise it is set from the materialized current-cell bits (-$5600/-$55D6). This is why the Cleric has two light spells: Light grants +1 light factor ("light a darkened square") and Lasting Light grants +20 ("dispelling darkness") — each factor covers one dark square. The per-direction darkness bits are sparse (N=206, E=950, S=125 cells).

Event flag (0x80 on page 1 only). Marks "this tile has an event.dat entry" on the collision page (A4-$54BA; copied to A4-$55D6 after hood refresh). Verified: every tile-event triplet lands on a collision cell with 0x80 set. event_tile_scanner @0x175E2 uses tile id (y<<4)|x. Do not treat page-0 visual 0x80 as an event — that byte is W=2 (torch) in the visual encoding.

Wall-piece primitives (each blits from the wall set -$7A06)

Addr	Piece	Depth tables (per slot, A4)
0x2C1A	front wall	pos -$75AE/-$75B6, frame from slot value
0x2C9A	left side	pos -$75A2/-$759A & -$7592/-$758A, frame -$75A6, side toggle +0x10
0x2DB4	right side	pos -$757E/-$7576 & -$756E/-$7566, frame -$7582, +0x08/side toggle

Each takes (depth_index, frame/flags) on the stack, decrements the depth (subq #1, $b(a5)), indexes the depth tables to get screen x/y and the wall frame, then blit(-$7A06, frame, y, x). The +0x80/+0x10/+0x08 adjustments select mirrored geometry and near/far frame variants. Distance scaling is inherent: deeper slots pick smaller frames from the multi-resolution wall set.

Auxiliary 0x2BCC returns whether a given cell/edge is solid (mask test against -$75BE), used to decide which side pieces to draw.

Extracted geometry tables (DATA hunk; 4 depth bands, near→far)

Resolved via data_offset = $7FFE - disp and dumped from MM2BOOT/mm2. Each table has 4 entries (depth 0 = nearest). The blit anchor is top-left and the call is blit(sheet, frame, y, x) (verified against the auto-map call site).

front wall:  y (-$75AE @0xA50) = [22, 40, 54, 62]  (d=0 → screen 23)
             x (-$75B6 @0xA48) = [32, 64, 88, 104]
left side:   x1(-$75A2 @0xA5C) = [8, 32, 64, 88]    y1(-$759A @0xA64) = [8, 22, 40, 54]
             x2(-$7592 @0xA6C) = [8, 8, 40, 88]     y2(-$758A @0xA74) = [22, 40, 54, 62]
right side:  x1(-$757E @0xA80) = [192,160,136,120]  y1(-$7576 @0xA88) = [8, 22, 40, 54]
             x2(-$756E @0xA90) = [192,160,136,120]  y2(-$7566 @0xA98) = [22, 40, 54, 62]
left frame:  (-$75A6 @0xA58) = [12, 14, 2, 3]
right frame: (-$7582 @0xA7C) = [13, 15, 2, 3]
dir mask:    (-$75BE @0xA40) = [1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128]

Far corners at depth 2–3 reuse the same sheet frames as the front wall at that depth (2 / 3); only the blit position comes from the far tables -$7592/-$758A (left) or -$756E/-$7566 (right). Dedicated far sprites exist only for d0–d1 (frames 12–15). See ref-layout-town-frames.png rows 4–5.

Lateral × depth lattice (rows −3=far..0=near): the engine paints five lateral slots only — x=−2 far left, x=−1 near left, x=0 front, x=+1 near right, x=+2 far right. Deepest row: (-2,-3) / (2,-3) far corners (reuse front frame 3 at far-table coords); (-1,-3) / (1,-3) near. Reference: ref-layout-town-coords.png (5×4, x = −2..+2).

Front-wall frame = depth band (0..3) into the wall set; +0x10 for field code 2 (wall_piece_front @0x2C4E). Code 3 normalises to 1 for the wall frame and triggers a separate door-overlay blit (jsr -$7cfe). The nearest front wall (depth 0) is town.32 frame 0 (160×92) placed at (32, 23); frames 16–31 are the code-2 (+0x10) variants of the same geometry.

Blit placement — where (x, y) come from

All 3D sprites are pasted with the same primitive:

JSR -$7C20(A4)     ; blit(sheet, frame, y, x)

Stack layout is [sheet.l][frame.w][coord0.w][coord1.w]. Backdrops and side pieces push y then x; wall_piece_front @0x2C6E alone pushes x then y. The blit always reads screen x from the second-to-last word, screen y from the last (verified: sides at table (8,8) render correctly; front joins side inner edges at x=32 / x=192 with depth-0 y=23).

Coordinates are absolute top-left positions inside the 208×120 viewport (sky 60 px + floor 60 px). They are not relative to a second origin — the table values are used verbatim by wall_piece_* (0x2C6E..0x2C7E loads -$75AE/-$75B6 and pushes them straight to the blit).

Backdrops (hardcoded in view_3d_master @0x2ECE)

Pass	Sheet (A4)	Frame	x	y	ASM
Floor	-$7A22	0	8	68 (0x44)	0x2EE2
Sky/ceiling	-$7A02	0x2BCC	8	8	0x2F00

Only the backdrops use the (8, 8) / (8, 68) pair. The 8 is the left margin that centres the 208-wide .32 sheet inside the playfield; it is not added again when painting walls.

Indoor walls (DATA tables indexed by depth 0..3)

Loaded from A4-$75xx by wall_piece_front/left/right after subq #1 on the paint-depth argument (callers pass 1..4; table index = depth−1).

Piece	A4 table (disk)	values d=0	screen (x, y)
Front	-$75AE / -$75B6	22 / 32	(32, 23) — d=0 y +1 vs table
Left near	-$75A2 / -$759A	8 / 8	(8, 8)
Left far	-$7592 / -$758A	8 / 22	(8, 22)
Right near	-$757E / -$7576	192 / 8	(192, 8)
Right far	-$756E / -$7566	192 / 22	(192, 22)

Front-wall coordinates. wall_piece_front @0x2C6E pushes -$75AE (y) then -$75B6 (x) — same y-then-x order as side pieces. Screen x ← 75B6, y ← 75AE. Reference composites need y + 1 at depth 0 (table 22 → screen 23) to align the nearest front wall with the side-piece joins; deeper bands use the table values verbatim.

Paint order (far → near) is fixed in view_3d_master @0x2F7E; see editor/src/core/View3D.cpp collectBlits().

Dump verified with tools/dump_tables.ps1 against ghidra/mm2_data_00.bin.

Outdoor terrain (separate tables — do not reuse indoor wall coords)

Outdoor first-person rendering is outdoor_3d_master @0x18870, not 0x2ECE. Paint order:

1. outf.32 floor @ (8, 68) — same backdrop anchor as indoor
2. sky.32 @ (8, 8) (or alternate sky sheet when weather flag set)
3. @0x182D8 floor decor — sheet -$7A0A (biome: desert/ocean/tundra/swamp loaded per screen type 41–44), not outdoor1/2/3.32
4. @0x1877A horizon blits — three passes (@0x1844C, @0x184B8, @0x18620).

Map → terrain (sheet index). @0x9544 samples three map page-0 hood rows into -$55C6 / -$55C2 / -$55BE. Each byte is converted by @0x9524 (terrain = kLookup[byte & $1F]) and stored in -$5ADA / -$5AE2 / -$5ADE (at @0x1877A, value−1). That index selects -$7A16[index] → outdoor1/2/3.32. Any sheet can appear in any lane — the map byte decides which art library, not the filename.

Lane → screen coords. The three passes only differ in position/frame tables (which screen band + depth column gets that row's terrain):

Pass	ASM	terrain from	y table	x table (col 0..3)	frame table
L1	@0x1844C	-$5ADA	-$6BC2	-$6BCA [40,40,64,88]	-$6BCE
L2	@0x184B8	-$5AE2	-$6BAA	-$6BB2 [8,16,32,88]	-$6BBA
L3	@0x18620	-$5ADE	-$6B96	-$6B9E [176,152,136,120]	-$6BA2

L2/L3 y can be overridden from -$6BC2 when adjacent columns match.

Reference grids (ref-layout-outdoor{1,2,3}-frames.png) show the same lane×column slots for every sheet — only the art differs. Runtime placement is map row → lane pass → coords, map terrain id → sheet.

Floor decor (separate from horizon walls) — @0x182D8 on sheet -$7A0A uses y = $80 − 6BD6[col] → [108, 93, 78, 68] (bottom of the 120px viewport — foreground grass/terrain detail over the floor band). Three decor branches (push y, x, frame, sheet):

Branch	Condition	frame	x	y
A	map flag -$55C6	col (f0-3)	8	$80−6BD6
B	flag -$55C2	col+4 (f4-7) alt, col+12 (f12-15) main	8	$80−6BD6
C	flag -$55BE	col+8 (f8-11) alt, col+16 (f16-19) main	112 / 6BDE−8	$80−6BD6

Frame art (desert.32, 20 frames): f0-3 centre path; f4-7 left wedge sprites (B alt, x=8); f8-11 separate right wedge sprites (C alt, x=$70) — not mirrored copies of f4-7, distinct triangles/trapezoids in the sheet. f12-15 / f16-19 narrower stepped strips when -$55C6 is also set (main @18344: B+12 left, C+16 at 6BDE−8).

6BDE on disk = [184, 160, 136, 112]. ref-outdoor-floors.png decor C = f8-11; C main = f16-19. Do not place outdoor1.32 frames at these coords — decor art comes from the biome sheet in -$7A0A (e.g. desert.32). Reference grid ref-layout-outdoor1-frames.png (and outdoor2/3) show all three lane tables (L1/L2/L3 rows) for that sheet's art. ref-layout-outdoor-combined-frames.png stacks L1+L2+L3 per column. ref-outdoor-floors.png is the separate -$7A0A decor pass.

3. Outdoor view

Uses outdoor_3d_master @0x18870: outf.32 floor + optional sky.32, then the three outdoor1/2/3.32 layer passes above. Terrain frame/sheet selection comes from the -$5ADA / -$5AE2 / -$5ADE byte tables filled by 0x1877A from map page-0 terrain bytes — not from the indoor frustum builder 0x2900.

2D map / auto-map tile mapping (cell → frame)

The 16×16 overland_map_view (0x223A) and the cell helper it calls (0x2182) turn each map-cell byte into a frame of the auto-map tileset -$7A1A (outb.32 outdoors, townb.32 interior). The helper branches on the view-mode flag -$79E2 (set on screen entry: 1 = outdoor surface):

• -$79E2 != 0 (outdoor/surface, @0x222A): frame = byte & 0x1F. The outdoor map bytes are raw terrain ids; the high bits (0x20/0x40/0x80) are passability/event flags. The low 5 bits index outb.32 directly. (Verified on map.dat: surface screens use a small set of dominant terrain values, e.g. screen 11 = 0x64/0x21/0x8A → frames 4/1/10.)
• -$79E2 == 0 (interior dungeon, @0x21D4): frame = kCartoTile[byte >> 2], a 64-entry wall-bit-decode table at data 0x9D0.

Elemental planes 41..44 override every cell to a fixed frame (8/4/4/5, @0x21EA); their map.dat page-0 bytes are uniform (0x28/0x25/0x27/0x26).

Editor note: the Cartography.h/MapSection auto-map originally applied the kCartoTile wall-decode to all screens, which scrambled outdoor terrain (treating terrain ids as wall-bit patterns). Outdoor screens now use the raw byte & 0x1F path.

4. Game-screen composition

The full play screen is assembled by the session refresh family:

• LAB_545E (0x545E) — session_start_refresh: the "resume interactive play" gate; sets mode via -$7C32/-$7C3E, routes through 0x53A0 then -$7EAE (LAB_5D54) and finishes by re-enabling input.
• LAB_5436 (0x5436) — body invoked by 0x54BA (which brackets it with -$7438 paging counter); draws the play frame and calls the viewport refresh.
• 0x5382 — viewport area refresh (the -$79E2 switch above); also handles the darkness/"can't see" overlay when -$79E1 is set.

4.1 Play-screen chrome is a font-glyph lattice (NOT nwcp.32)

Corrected trace (2026-06). The earlier note that the persistent in-game chrome is the nwcp.32 panel sheet is wrong — nwcp.32 is only used on the title/menu screens. The in-game chrome is drawn entirely with text-engine primitives on the 40×24 grid of 8×8 font cells (x = col*8, y = row*8; cursor thunk -$7BFC → 0x22108, glyph put -$7C62 → 0x218EA, string put -$7BE4 → 0x22376):

• -$7F86 → 0x4032 h_line(col0,col1,row) — glyph 6, 5…, 7.
• -$7F80 → 0x4088 v_line(row0,row1,col) — glyph 9, 0x0B…, 8.
• -$7F7A → 0x422A outer frame — corner glyphs 1/2/3/4 via 0x410A.
• -$7F62 → 0x42DC — cell-rect clear (the old draw_party_status_panel annotation was a mislabel; 0x42DC clears (col*8,row*8) rectangles).
• Line glyphs 1..9,0x0B are the red box-drawing set in the game font; 0x18..0x1B are the arrow glyphs used by the command reference list.

Chrome assembly per refresh (0x52A2 body):

• 0x60F4 chrome init: outer frame; h-lines rows 0x10/0x12 cols 0..0x27; v-line col 0x1B rows 0..0x10 (viewport / right-column divider).
• 0x60B6 status dividers: v-lines rows 0x10..0x12 at cols 0xC/0x15/0x1F.
• 0x62C8 status row 0x11: col 1 'O' Options (new-game flag =1) else 'P' Protect; col 0xD Day= + -$79DE[era] (3 cells); col 0x16 Year= + -$79CA[era] (4 cells); col 0x20 Face= + key char -$79B1.
• 0x6150 party panel rows 0x13..0x16, slots two-per-row at cols 1/0x14: " n) " + name (text attribute 1 via -$7C08 when roster condition byte +$26 != 0) + " /" + HP word +$5E (roster HP max field; values 1..999 print via -$7BDE with trailing-space pad to 3 cells @ 0x6266..0x629A; >999 prints literal "+++" @ 0x62C4 via pea @ 0x625A). Combat reuses the same rule on the bottom party strip @ 0x12910 (cmpi #$3E8 / bcc → "+++" @ 0x129C8). Quick Ref (0x595C) and the character sheet (0x39B4) print full numeric HP/SP with no +++ cap. SP has no +++ rule anywhere traced. Empty slots are cell-cleared via -$7F62.
• Right column cols 0x1C..0x26 rows 1..15: new game → 0x5E28 protection/spell-status panel (h-line row 9, labels Light/Magic/Forces rows 0xA..0xC); otherwise 0x5D54 command reference (string table A4-$741A).

Adjudication note on 0x42DC / A4-$85C2: a parallel trace read 0x42DC as an nwcp.32 portrait blit because it retargets -$619C to A4-$85C2 (allocated @ 0x25F7E). The alloc dims are $BF/$13F = 191/319, i.e. the 320×192 play-area back buffer, not the 300×90 nwcp.32 sheet; -$619C is the text engine's current render-target bitmap. 0x42DC therefore reads: save target + its attribute byte $12, retarget to the play buffer, set mode-2 attribute (-$7BAE), clear the cell rect (-$7C68 takes only a pixel rect ((base+arg)<<3, +7) — no source frame), restore. The runtime publish 0xCBF6/0xCBFE (-$7ED8 frame 0) belongs to the title/menu panel path (callers 0x6EAC/0xA820/0xA906/0xB572), not the exploration refresh chain 0x545E/0x5436/0x52A2.

Remaining gaps: 0x410A frame-corner internals; exact palette effect of text attribute 1 (0x220BE); 0x5EB8.. value printout after the Light/Magic/Forces labels (strings 0x6068/0x6074/0x6080); copy-protection challenge content rows 1..8 of the new-game right column (out of scope); -$7BAE mode-2 attribute semantics (0x22C24 dispatcher) and the per-slot byte tables A4-$8BBF/-$8BB6/-$8BAD/-$8BA4 used by format_party_status_line @ 0x531A (need a data-hunk dump). The character/party stats text formatting is the 0x5312/0x62C8/0x6150 family described above.

0x316E builds the on-screen monster/encounter sprites layered over the viewport (24-entry placement table -$7538).

5. Notes toward an editor preview

To render either view from the data files alone:

• Walls/floor/ceiling: decode the env wall set (town/cave/castle.32) + *f.32/*t.32 with the existing Gfx codec; each .32 already exposes its multi-size frames.
• Geometry: replicate 0x2900 — from a chosen cell + facing, gather the ~5-deep frustum of cells, read map.dat page 0 visual 2-bit direction codes (non-zero field = visible; code 2 = door-variant wall), and emit the front/left/right slot list. Use editor/tests/view3d_trace.cpp for offline verification.
• Composite: floor + ceiling fills, then paint slots far→near using the depth position/frame tables (-$75AE, -$75A2, -$7592, -$757E, -$756E, -$7566, frame tables -$75A6/-$7582). Those tables live in the DATA hunk (resolve each A4-$76xx to data offset $7FFE-disp and dump like the cartography tables) and would need to be extracted for pixel-accurate output.
• The auto-map ("cartography") view is already implemented in the Maps section.

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See also

Page	Why
GFX Loading	Asset table
map dat Format	Page 0 wall bits
3D View Graphics	Gallery composites
Map Walker	Walk every screen