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docs(plans): Campaign VM carries the VM2 lesson - a branch that exists is not a branch that runs

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Binding rule: when retail gates a mechanism behind a capability, preference,
or trysinglepass-style switch, the port is not done until the gate's live
value is cdb-read on the PDB-paired client and cited with the binary GUID.
Records that the owner's live 'too bright' was the pack-on gamma-space
tonemap (VM3), not the detail overlay (+3% fallback / -10% real path).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Erik 2026-08-22 18:26:02 +02:00
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docs/plans/2026-08-22-visualmaster-campaign.md
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@ -46,6 +46,32 @@ AC-specific constants — a number without a decomp/DAT anchor gets a register
row in the same commit — and the pack-off path is the oracle: any slice that
moves a pack-off pixel outside its declared mask is a bug, not a tuning.
## Lesson carried into every slice — a branch that exists is not a branch that runs
VM2 found that Campaign AR's #226 port, the 2026-08-21 findings doc it was
briefed from, and the AR review's "probably" were all describing the
**fallback** branch of retail's detail pass — the `stage == 0` framebuffer
blend that retail only takes when the adapter cannot advertise
`D3DTEXOPCAPS_PREMODULATE`. Real hardware (the owner's AMD, and anything
modern) takes the single-pass texture-stage branch, which computes a
different formula with the opposite sign of effect (darkens, not brightens).
The decomp was read correctly three times; what nobody did until VM2 was
spend two minutes reading the capability on a live client.
Binding rule for this campaign and after: **when retail gates a mechanism
behind a capability, preference, or `trysinglepass`-style switch, the port
is not done until the gate's live value is recorded** — a cdb read on the
PDB-paired client, cited in the port's note with the binary GUID. "Grep
named → decompile → port" answers what the code *says*; only the live read
answers what it *does* on the hardware the game actually ran on. A guess
about driver caps ("rarely advertised") is not evidence and must not appear
in a review verdict.
Corollary for brightness questions: the owner's live "too bright" (exposure
1.0 → 0.80) was the pack-on gamma-space tonemap (F4, VM3), not this. The
detail overlay's fallback brightening is +3 % on building shells only; the
single-pass path darkens by ~10 %. Neither explains a scene-wide level.
## Slice ledger
| Slice | Closes | Gate |