DragonSpikeXIII from Project NEMO has collects rare Ace Combat 3 footage: From TV ads and hidden game menus to obscure demo tapes.
One thing caught my eye: A 15-second video with green text scrolling by for a second. (The tweet is protected, you may not be able to see it.)
What’s written there?
This looks like source code – but it can’t be made-up! It says CdLoadPack albeit there are no CD-ROMs in 2040!
I reached out to DragonSpikeXIII, and he pointed me to the true ending sequence of the game. He was so kind to include a high-resolution capture for me to use here.
Of course I don’t want to spoil the ending, so here’s a trimmed version with nothing but the green text:
Upon mentioning this, Rythus explained that this text can also be found in the game files. This makes sense, as AC3 does not store this video sequence as an MPEG-encoded video, but generates it on-the-fly.
From the game files, we get the final list of things being purged
in the video:
draw_MisBarnner2 draw_MisBarnner draw_RotorGV22 draw_RotorGH66 draw_RotorR701 draw_Specular draw_Barnner Effm_LaserCannon EffmMazSet WepValDraw05 WepValDraw04 WepValDraw03 WepValDraw02 WepValDraw01 WepValDraw00 GPadMgrVibPLScrape GPadMgrVibPLCrash GPadMgrVibPLFall GPadMgrVibValShot GPadMgrVibMisShot Effm_NoiseFade Effm_ScreenNoise2 Effm_GameFade draw_Sprt_Noise add_Fade_Tile EffmSet_LaserCannon EffmSet_SmkJet EffmSet_Spark EffmSet_Particle EffmSet_PLDestroy EffmSet_PLScrape EffmSet_PLFall EffmSet_PLCrash EffmSet_Fall EffmSet_Crash_gnd EffmSet_Expl_air EffmSet_ANBHit EffmSet_MisHit_gnd EffmSet_MisHit_air EffmSet_ValHit_gnd EffmSet_ValHit_air EffmCtrl EffmDraw EffmInit EffmClearFlag AddFogClut2 AddBG_elect AddBG_space AddBG_dome AddBG_sky mt_SetMulRotMatrix mt_RotScaleMatrixYXZ draw_WMLine calc_Dist calc_Dist12 SquareRoot0_fast CameraSetControlDDk CameraChangeScrh ObjPLSpecialNDMG ObjPLSetControlEvent ObjPLSetControlIntoAerosphere ObjPLSetControlTakeOff ObjPLSetControlPark ObjPLSetControlRefuel ObjPLSetControlLanding ObjPLCheckIntoAerosphere ObjPLCheckTakeOff ObjPLCheckRefueling ObjPLCheckLanding ObjPLSetControlStop ObjPLSetControlCrash ObjPLSetControlCluise ObjPLSetControlStrate ObjPLSetControlChase ObjPLSetControlSpace ObjPLSetControlNormal ObjPLMoveIntoAerosphere ObjPLMoveTakeOffAP ObjPLMoveTakeOff ObjPLMovePark ObjPLMoveRefuel0D ObjPLMoveRefuel0C ObjPLMoveRefuelAP ObjPLMoveLandingAP ObjPLMoveLanding ObjPLMoveCrash PLCTRLCluise ObjPLSetEventModeAuto ObjPLSetEventMode ObjPLControl ObjPLControlVWReset PLCTRLCalcLAng ObjGetMinMaxSpd ObjPLMoveInit ObjPLScrVib ObjPLGetCondition GHudDisp GAscDraw GMapBlackout GMapFogSwap2 AddClutBlink MakeFog2 MakeFogZ SetFogNearFar2 MapDraw MapPartsChange vtxtransform WepDraw WepControl WepInit WepValSet WepRocketRSet WepBombSet WepMisSet EffkDraw EffkControl EffkInit MemGetRemain memcpyl MemSet MemFree MemNoAlloc MemAlloc MemClear ChkStruct FMHMapn FMHMap NLZDecode GPadMgrVibCrash0 GPadMgrVibMisHit GPadMgrVibValHit GPadMgrVibGndTch GPadMgrVibStall GPadMgrVibCtrl GPadMgrVibInit GPadMgrMain GPadMgrInit CtlrStop CtlrInit KsysCheck QuitSys InitSys CdLoadModule CdLoadPacks CdLoadPack CdGetPacksSize CdGetPackSize CdGetFileSize CdLoadInit CalcLAng14Vec CalcWAng14Vec CalcAng14Z0 CalcAng14 CalcWAng14 CalcAddLAng14 CalcLVec2WVec14 rasin14 ratan14 RotQMatrixZXY14 RotQMatrixYXZ14 RotMatrixZXY14 RotTransposeMatrixYXZ14 RotMatrixYXZ14 DebObjDeadPosHis DebPlPosHis DebMisHisInit MissionCommands CheckMissionCommands MissionCommandTableInit MissionInit MobjControl OrdSequence OrdGuardObj OrdGuardPos OrdAttackObj OrdAttack OrdNoOrder checkVectorAlt checkActVW ModEmgArea ModEmgAltitude ModCruise ModInstigation ModDogfight ModHeadObj initTObjMOnPhase initTObjNPOnPhase initTObjM initTObjNP ObjInitTablePointer calcLocalPos ObjCleanTgt ObjDeleteTgt ObjSetTgt ObjSearchTgt ObjGetTgtCnt ObjTgtControl ObjInitTgt ObjGetAreaCaution ObjNPActionControl ObjNPModeControl ObjNPOrderControl ObjNPGeneralControl ObjSpeedControl ObjAngleControl BaseAltitude BaseHeading BaseHorizon ActEAltitude ActAileronRoll ActNop ActGoStraight ActHeadingPos ActHeadingObjR ActHeadingObj GetMisType GetValType GetTGType resignation conscience process control connection unit active evolution self-preservation mutation epistasis building block heuristics meta-rule rule delta feedback local enhancement ethic situated action philosophy ambiguity contingency Tele-existance Aero-coffin Data-swallow Ana-server In-tera-net Electoro-sphere Antrion ANB Nano-bite Sublimation Nexus ENSI Aeon Generator PIG DOE Geopelia Night Raven USEA Global Way Ouroboros SARF UPEO NUN MEU Neucom Inc. GDF General Resource LTD. UI-4053 Sphyrna UI-4052 Cralias UI-4054 Aurora X-49 Night Raven XR-900 Geopelia R-701 Triakis R-808 Phoca R-531 Mobura R-501 Rhincodon R-352 Sepia （booster） R-352 Sepia R-311 Remora R-103 Delphinus#3 R-211 Orcinus R-102 Delphinus#2 R-201 Asterozoa R-101 Delphinus#1 R-505U EC-17U Globemaster III Su-43 Berkut Su-37 Super Flanker R-201U Asterozoa R-101U Delphinus#1 F-16XFU Gyrfalcon F/A-18U HornetADV MiG-33 FulcrumSS EF2000E Typhoon II KC777 ASST V-22B Osprey RAH-66B Commanche B-1C Lancer C-17B Globemaster III RF-12A2 Blackbird (booster) RF-12A2 Blackbird XFA-36A Game F/A-32C Erne F-22C RaptorII A/F-117X NAV Hawk F-15S/MT Eagle+ F-16XA Sakerfalcon F-16XF Gyrfalcon F/A-18I HornetADV …
These are names of actual functions in the game – as evident by MemNoAlloc, which I promonently mentioned in my analysis of Namco’s PS-Y compression.
Remember how I said in my sky analysis that the skies differ for missions in the Electrosphere and in outer space? As Rythus points out, the list contains AddBG_elect and AddBG_space in addition to AddBG_sky.
GPadMgrVibPLCrash & Co. most likely manage the game pad vibration when your plane crashes. Matrix functions are not about the movie franchise, but about the transformation matrices you use in 3d games.
It seems like Project Aces, when programming this short sequence, ran out of ideas for interesting names to display and simply dumped the function names from the debug information of the Ace Combat 3 executable. The debug information is inaccessible to us, but these function names sure help in disassembling the game.
They added a few game-related strings to the beginning and to the end of the list. I cut out most of them here, as to not spoil the story too much.
Of note is their list of planes and a small encoding error: You can see R-352 Sepia █Ibooster█J in the video. This is actually Kanji parantheses （）
, encoded in Shift-JIS, and read back in the wrong codepage. I corrected it in the list above.
I’m excited to see us learning a lot from a one-second movie sequence!
While it seems like nothing more than a collection of random strings, it does tie a few loose ends in our understanding of the game. And it is probably the closest we will ever get to AC3’s source code.
Including the function names from the game instead of – say, an excerpt from a dictionary – may seem like a blunder. But on the other hand it matches the game’s story so well that it may have been an artistic decision, after all.