ReaperOfVeriod
4776db199b
Asked whether the blocked items could be unblocked, and tried the one that looked
tractable. It did not work, and this records where and why rather than leaving the
attempt implicit.
VERDICT PER ITEM
moby_anim probably -- disc-side work. TRIED, stalled, see below
tfrag morph maybe -- would need the engine's own morph code
volumes no -- needs a count of level 0's trigger volumes from a map
collision no -- needs a debug build or an external format description
THE ATTEMPT
MobyInstance names animSeq, animLayers, jointCnt and jointCache. Those are RAM
pointers and useless on the disc, so the search moved to what they point AT,
reached from the moby class blob.
Level 0, 187 moby classes. The span opens with the part-table offset: 0x80 on 69
classes, 0x90 on 34, ranging 0 to 229,184 across the rest. So each class carries
roughly a 0x40-byte header before its parts, and that header is unexplored.
Per byte over +0x00..+0x40, how many of the 187 classes are non-zero:
+0x00 177 the part-table offset
+0x07 185 8 distinct values, 1..3
+0x26 181 100 distinct -- varies per class
+0x27 187 8 distinct
+0x2d 187 8 distinct
+0x30 170 120 distinct
+0x3c 184 120 distinct
+0x3e 187 110 distinct
Six or seven fields are constant across every class and about a dozen vary. None
is identifiable. The obvious discriminator -- find the field that points OUTSIDE
the span -- does not resolve, because every varying field holds values in the tens
of thousands, the same order as the span offsets themselves. They may be
intra-span pointers or they may be sizes, and nothing here separates them.
WHERE IT STALLS
Distinguishing them needs one of: the class loader in the overlay's .text, which
is now readable with the fixed disassembler, or a class whose animation is known
from outside the disc. Neither has been done, and the first is the obvious next
step rather than a dead end.
So moby_anim is NOT unblocked. What the attempt does establish is a location, a
field count to classify, and a specific reason the easy discriminator fails --
which is more than the item had, and considerably more than "still open".
The other three are unchanged and I do not think they are reachable from here.
Collision needs the assert, which is unreferenced in retail, or an external
description of R&C2's collision cell. Volumes needs ground truth nobody in this
repo can supply. Both are written up with those conditions attached.
Going Commando
A native PC reimplementation of Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PlayStation 2, 2003), written in Rust.
The game is reimplemented, not emulated. There is no MIPS interpreter here and no CPU emulator: the systems are ported to Rust so they run as ordinary native code.
Status: initial scaffold. The disc is identified and verified, the
workspace builds, and nothing else is implemented yet. See
docs/roadmap.md for where things stand and what comes next.
The target
| Game | Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando |
| Platform | PlayStation 2 |
| Disc | SCUS_972.68 v1.01, USA Black Label |
| Video | NTSC, 60 Hz |
| Boot ELF SHA-1 | bacda860cbd6723142e86db56f197e47e728970f |
Verified against a real disc — see docs/disc-identification.md.
This is the build the reference projects pin; Greatest Hits v2.00 is a
different binary and is not the target.
No game content
This repository contains no game assets, no disc images, no BIOS dumps and no proprietary toolchains. You supply your own legally obtained copy of the disc as an input, the way the upstream reference projects do.
A pre-commit hook enforces this, blocking disc images, asset directories, container signatures and files over 50 MiB. If you clone elsewhere, enable it:
git config core.hooksPath .githooks
Layout
crates/
gc-formats/ asset format parsers (pure, no I/O beyond the caller's buffer)
gc-extract/ disc pipeline: identify, unpack, verify
gc-game/ game logic: hero, weapons, moby classes, progression, saves
gc-video/ IPU / MPEG-2 decode
gc-engine/ Bevy app: Graphics Synthesizer, VU0/VU1, renderer, frame loop
docs/
disc-identification.md which disc we build against, verified
roadmap.md phases, gates, current status
plan/ one file per subsystem, written as work proceeds
formats/ format specs, written as formats are reversed
tools/
identify-disc.py identify any Going Commando disc image
vendor/
rerac/ pinned upstream reference checkout (not tracked)
Building
Requires a Rust toolchain via rustup.
cargo check --workspace
cargo test --workspace
The host audio backend is disabled in Cargo.toml (see the comment there) so
that the workspace builds without system ALSA development headers. Audio decode
is the last phase of the port and lives in gc-video; re-enable it and install
alsa-lib-devel when that work starts.
Identifying a disc
python3 tools/identify-disc.py <your-disc.iso>
Reports the serial, version and video mode from SYSTEM.CNF, hashes the boot
executable, and warns when the disc is not the supported build. Reads only a
few megabytes, so it is near-instant.
How it will be verified
Visual and behavioural comparison against PCSX2, replaying recorded input and
comparing frames, level by level. The PS2 float model is reproduced rather than
approximated — see AGENTS.md.
PCSX2 is installed and working on this machine; the comparison loop that reads
the game's own memory over its debug protocol is up, and level 0's and level
1's tfrag lighting are verified byte-exact against it. See
docs/plan/pcsx2-verification.md for the
setup and how to run it.
Credits and licensing
This project learns from and is built on the work of others. Licences are
recorded in PROVENANCE.md and notices must travel with any
code derived from them.
- ReRAC — a native Rust/Bevy port of Ratchet & Clank (2002), the first game. ISC. The architecture this project follows.
- OpenRAC / rac2-gc-decomp — matching decompilation research for this game. MIT. Source of verified struct layouts and engine documentation.
- Wrench — community documentation of Insomniac's container formats. GPL, used as a specification reference only; no code is copied.
Ratchet & Clank is a trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment. This is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Sony Interactive Entertainment or Insomniac Games.