acdream/docs/research/2026-07-15-retail-portal-space-pseudocode.md

Retail portal-space presentation pseudocode

Date: 2026-07-15

Scope: the client-side 3-D scene and timing shown while a player is between world positions. This is presentation only. The server remains authoritative for teleport start, destination position, world readiness, and completion.

Retail oracle

Named Sept-2013 retail symbols:

• gmSmartBoxUI::BeginTeleportAnimation 0x004D6300
• gmSmartBoxUI::EndTeleportAnimation 0x004D65A0
• gmSmartBoxUI::PostInit 0x004D6B60
• gmSmartBoxUI::UseTime 0x004D6E30
• CreatureMode::CreatureMode 0x00454390
• CreatureMode::SetCameraDirection_Degrees 0x00453760
• Frame::rotate 0x004525B0
• CreatureMode::AddObject 0x004556D0
• UIGlobals::Init 0x004EE470
• UIGlobals::GetAnimLevel 0x004EE540
• CPhysicsObj::set_sequence_animation 0x0050F6F0
• SmartBox::TeleportPlayer 0x00453910
• SmartBox::PlayerPositionUpdated 0x00453870
• CPhysicsObj::teleport_hook 0x00514ED0
• CommandInterpreter::PlayerTeleported 0x006B32B0
• SmartBox::SetOverrideFovDistance 0x00451BC0
• SmartBox::GetOverrideFovDistance 0x00451BE0
• Render::set_vdst 0x0054B240

Constants were checked against static x86 disassembly. The Binary Ninja pseudocode loses several x87 operands in UseTime; disassembly is authoritative for those comparisons.

Asset construction (gmSmartBoxUI::PostInit)

portalSetupDid = ResolveClientEnum(enumValue=0x10000001, category=7)
teleportObj = CPhysicsObj.makeObject(portalSetupDid, noWeenie, makeParts)

portalViewport = child 0x10000436 as UIElement_Viewport
portalViewport.CreatureMode.AddObject(teleportObj)
portalViewport.CreatureMode.AddLight(DISTANT_LIGHT, intensity=2.0)
portalViewport.CreatureMode.SetLightDirection(0, (0.3, -1.9, 0.65))
portalViewport.CreatureMode.SetCameraPosition((0.24, -2.7, 0.88))
portalViewport.CreatureMode.UseSmartboxFOV()

CreatureMode starts with ambient light (0.3, 0.3, 0.3) and a 45-degree default FOV, but UseSmartboxFOV makes this viewport inherit the active world view's current FOV on every draw. Its identity camera frame looks along AC +Y, with +Z up. The portal viewport is a replacement for the world viewport. It is not a full-screen UI overlay: normal retained UI continues to update and draw above it.

Begin/end and scene visibility

BeginTeleportAnimation(requestedState):
    if currentState == Off:
        gameViewDistance = SmartBox.GetOverrideFovDistance()
    currentViewDistance = gameViewDistance
    clear rotation-segment state
    currentState = requestedState
    transitionStart = now
    play centered UI sound Sound_UI_EnterPortal

EndTeleportAnimation():
    if currentState != Off:
        currentState = TunnelContinue
        transitionStart = now
        SmartBox.SetOverrideFovDistance(disabled)

Portal/login/death transit begins directly in Tunnel. Logout begins in WorldFadeOut. When a tunnel-family state first becomes visible:

disable vivid target indicator
portalAnimDid = ResolveClientEnum(enumValue=0x10000002, category=7)
teleportObj.set_sequence_animation(
    animation=portalAnimDid,
    clearExisting=true,
    lowFrame=1,
    highFrame=end,
    fps=40)
reset portal camera position to (0.24, -2.7, 0.88)
show portal viewport
hide world SmartBox viewport

At the end of TunnelFadeOut, retail commits the current transition view distance, hides the portal viewport, shows the world viewport, clears the teleport object's sequence animations, plays Sound_UI_ExitPortal, and enters WorldFadeIn. That following state restores the ordinary game view distance.

Camera motion

The camera rolls around its own AC +Y forward axis. It does not yaw around world +Z. SetCameraDirection_Degrees resets the frame to identity, converts the vector to radians, then passes (0, angle, 0) to Frame::rotate, whose input is an axis-angle rotation vector. The forward direction therefore stays down the portal passage while local +Z up rolls around it. Each segment is independent:

if now >= rotationStart + rotationDuration:
    currentAngle = previousEndAngle
    rotationStart = now
    rotationDuration = RandomUniform(0.6, 1.8) seconds
    startAngle = currentAngle
    endAngle = RandomUniform(0, 360) degrees
    display "In Portal Space - Please Wait..."
else:
    t = (now - rotationStart) / rotationDuration
    level = UIGlobals.GetAnimLevel(t) / 1024
    currentAngle = startAngle + (endAngle - startAngle) * level

CreatureMode.SetCameraDirection_Degrees((0, currentAngle, 0))

UIGlobals.GetAnimLevel is a 100-entry cumulative sine table, not a polynomial smoothstep:

for i in 0..99:
    sample[i] = truncate(sin(i * pi / 99) * 1024)
total = sum(sample)
running = 0
for i in 0..99:
    running += sample[i]
    level[i] = (running << 10) / total       // integer division, 0..1024

GetAnimLevel(t):
    t = clamp(t, 0, 1)
    index = floor(t * 99)
    return level[index]

State timing (gmSmartBoxUI::UseTime)

Golden data constants:

FadeTime       = 1.0 seconds  (0x007BD278)
MinContinue    = 2.0 seconds  (0x007BD268)
MaxContinue    = 5.0 seconds  (0x007BD270)
PortalFPS      = 40 frames/s  (0x007BD280)
EndFrame       = 120
ExitWindowLow  = FadeTime + 0.1 = 1.1 seconds
ExitWindowHigh = FadeTime + 0.3 = 1.3 seconds

WorldFadeOut:
    after 1 second -> TunnelFadeIn

TunnelFadeIn:
    after 1 second -> Tunnel

Tunnel:
    hold until SmartBox teleport-in-progress clears
    EndTeleportAnimation -> TunnelContinue

TunnelContinue:
    elapsed = now - transitionStart
    if elapsed >= 2 seconds:
        remaining = unsigned(120 - teleportObj.currentFrame) / 40
        if elapsed >= 5 seconds
           or 1.1 < remaining < 1.3 seconds:
            -> TunnelFadeOut

TunnelFadeOut:
    after 1 second:
        hide/clear portal scene
        show world
        play exit sound
        -> WorldFadeIn

WorldFadeIn:
    after 1 second:
        send LoginComplete
        clear teleport-in-progress
        -> Off

The narrow remaining-time window makes the one-second tunnel projection transition finish at the end of the 120-frame animation. The five-second ceiling is retail's escape for a missed window.

The four states whose retail enum names contain FADE use GetAnimLevel(elapsed / FadeTime). Instruction-level x86 inspection of gmSmartBoxUI::UseTime (0x004D7133..0x004D725F) shows that this value feeds only SmartBox::SetOverrideFovDistance. The function performs no alpha or black-quad draw; FADE names the view-plane transition, not a transparency compositor. The retained UI remains independent because only the two 3-D viewports are switched.

View-plane warp

Retail couples every FADE state to a projection transition. On begin it captures the current SmartBox view-plane distance; for a perspective projection this is cot(verticalFov / 2). The transition endpoint is the named constant TRANSITION_VIEW_PLANE_DISTANCE = 0.001 at 0x007BD260.

viewPlaneLevel = GetAnimLevel(elapsed / FadeTime) / 1024

WorldFadeOut or TunnelFadeOut:
    currentDistance = gameDistance
                    + (0.001 - gameDistance) * viewPlaneLevel

TunnelFadeIn or WorldFadeIn:
    currentDistance = 0.001
                    + (gameDistance - 0.001) * viewPlaneLevel

SmartBox.SetOverrideFovDistance(true, currentDistance)

Render::set_vdst turns the distance back into projection values:

verticalFov = 2 * atan(1 / currentDistance)
znear = max(0.1, currentDistance * 0.25)

At 0.001, the view is nearly 180 degrees wide. Retail does not cover that endpoint with black: it switches directly from the tunnel viewport to the destination world at this projection, then WorldFadeIn expands the world from the center as the captured game projection is restored. This is retail's characteristic destination-world warp, independent of chase-camera movement.

Instruction-level checks that disambiguate the Binary Ninja x87 output:

• SmartBox::GetOverrideFovDistance 0x00451BE0: when no override is active, returns cot(activeVerticalFov / 2) (0x00798088 = 0.5, 0x007928C0 = 1.0).
• gmSmartBoxUI::UseTime 0x004D7199 and 0x004D722E: converts the signed table result with 0x007BD6A0 = 1/1024 and performs the two lerps above.
• Render::set_vdst 0x0054B240: x87 fpatan computes atan(1 / distance), doubles it, and sets znear = max(0.1, distance * 0.25).

Player placement boundary

SmartBox.TeleportPlayer(position):
    player.SetPositionSimple(position, slide=true)
    PlayerPositionUpdated(isTeleport=true)

PlayerPositionUpdated(isTeleport=true):
    clear position-update/teleport bookkeeping
    player.teleport_hook()
    commandInterpreter.PlayerTeleported()
    SmartBox.set_viewer(player.position, reset_sought=true)
    update CellManager position

player.teleport_hook():
    MovementManager.CancelMoveTo(error=0x3c)
    PositionManager.UnStick()
    PositionManager.StopInterpolating()
    PositionManager.UnConstrain()
    TargetManager.ClearTarget()
    TargetManager.NotifyVoyeurOfEvent(Teleported)
    report_collision_end(force=true)

PlayerTeleported():
    SetAutoRun(false, send=true)
    SendMovementEvent()

The viewer reset copies the player's complete position into both viewer and viewer_sought_position. Subsequent ordinary camera updates extend the chase boom outward through the same damped and swept path used after camera collision. Reusing the source-world viewer is not retail behavior.

The retail teleport hook does not clear the character's animation sequence. The arrival presentation is instead hidden by the portal scene and its final world view-plane transition while the normal motion/update stream settles. Therefore acdream must not add an arrival-only animation reset.

acdream integration translation

• A dedicated App-layer portal presentation owns the synthetic portal object, animation sequence, camera, scene light, resource references, and draw pass.
• The existing pure teleport state machine remains the lifecycle owner, but it consumes the portal object's current frame for retail exit timing and uses the exact table-driven easing curve.
• During tunnel states the portal scene replaces world pixels before retained UI draws. There is no black compositor. Input dispatch and RetailUiRuntime.Tick continue unchanged.
• The projection owner captures the active camera's M22 view-plane distance at teleport begin and applies Render::set_vdst semantics to both the tunnel and world viewport during the four FADE states.
• F751 remains a notification gate and does not itself advance TELEPORT_TS. Presentation correlates its sequence with exactly one accepted destination Position. A Position that arrives before F751 is buffered only when it advances that timestamp; after F751, the first accepted matching Position is consumed even if the channel already advanced. Thus reordered delivery and retransmitted notifications cannot materialize the wrong destination or strand the transit, while canonical physics retains its own retail gates.
• Destination placement resets the retail chase camera's published and sought positions to the player before the normal update path resumes.
• Destination residency remains acdream's asynchronous adaptation. It supplies the same EndTeleportAnimation edge retail receives when its blocking cell load completes; it does not alter presentation ordering.
• The portal object is synthetic and never enters LiveEntityRuntime, world picking, collision, radar, or server GUID ownership.

Cross-reference notes

• references/WorldBuilder supplies the extracted setup/GfxObj mesh and modern draw pipeline used by the synthetic scene; it has no teleport lifecycle.
• Holtburger's network study (docs/research/2026-05-10-holtburger-network-stack-study.md) corroborates the LoginComplete wire acknowledgement, but intentionally has no retail UI/CreatureMode implementation. The named retail client is therefore the presentation oracle.