Ocean Restore Plan — April 16, 2026

Status: active short-term plan Owner: PS1 prerender pilot

On this page

• Safe baseline
• What just failed
• Goal
• Execution rules
• Step sequence
  • Step 1: Lock baseline again
  • Step 2: Prove ocean-only initialization in isolation
  • Step 3: Put the existing standalone foreground player on top of the proven
  • ocean-only base
  • Step 4: If Step 3 fails, fix restore semantics before trying more init work
  • Step 5: Only after ocean is stable, restore island
  • Step 6: Only after static island is stable, restore random island placement
• Immediate next move

Safe baseline

• title -> fgpilot fishing1 is the current known-good path.
• fishing1 prerender playback is visually correct on the black base.
• Timing is close to PC after host-deadline replay and deadline catch-up work.
• The generic foreground runtime path has already been proven on fishing2.

Reference launch:

• ./scripts/rebuild-and-let-run.sh fgpilot fishing1

What just failed

These are explicitly not the next step:

• swapping ocean into the standalone prerender loop by changing only the base background load
• routing fgpilot fishing1 through full adsInitIsland() + adsPlay()

Observed failures:

• repeated Johnny overpaint / ghosting when ocean was forced under the standalone pack player
• partial scene startup and missing Johnny when full ADS scene routing was used

Conclusion:

• ocean cannot be restored safely by brute-forcing a different background into the current standalone playback loop
• full ADS scene routing changes too much behavior at once for this milestone

Goal

Restore the real ocean layer under prerender playback while keeping the foreground pack playback path stable and generic.

Execution rules

1. One change at a time.
2. Run after every step.
3. User validates every step before any commit.
4. No Fishing-1-only runtime hacks.
5. Do not reintroduce full ADS scene playback as an implicit side effect.

Step sequence

Step 1: Lock baseline again

Goal:

• keep title -> fgpilot fishing1 on the known-good black-base path

Exit criteria:

• visuals match the current baseline
• no ocean yet
• no Johnny ghosting

Step 2: Prove ocean-only initialization in isolation

Goal:

• initialize the ocean/island background machinery without starting scene ADS logic or foreground playback

Requirements:

• no walk thread
• no island animation thread unless explicitly needed for the ocean base to appear
• no foreground prerender overlay yet

Exit criteria:

• ocean appears correctly
• no corruption or title leftovers
• stable for a simple hold run

Step 3: Put the existing standalone foreground player on top of the proven

ocean-only base

Goal:

• reuse the exact current standalone fishing1 foreground playback loop
• change only the source of the clean background baseline

Exit criteria:

• ocean visible
• Johnny and props still render correctly
• no cumulative overpaint / ghosting

Step 4: If Step 3 fails, fix restore semantics before trying more init work

Primary suspects:

• grRestoreBackgroundRectForFrame()
• grRestoreAndCompositeDirect16BackgroundRectForFrame()
• prevDirty / currDirty advancement
• assumptions in the standalone loop that only happen to work on black

Rule:

• do not add more background setup complexity until restore correctness is proven against a non-black clean baseline

Step 5: Only after ocean is stable, restore island

Goal:

• static island first
• no random placement yet

Step 6: Only after static island is stable, restore random island placement

Goal:

• generic island positioning
• foreground playback still composes correctly

Immediate next move

Build an ocean-only proof path that initializes the real ocean background without entering full ADS scene playback, validate that by itself, then layer the current standalone fishing1 foreground playback over that same base.