SamandClaude Fable 5.1
c58bca4044
- black rain is a zero-padded mip: `RainDrop01.blp` stores its 2×16 and 1×8 DXT3 levels as one block each where the block grid needs four and two, our decoder zero-padded the rest — an all-zero BC2 block is black at alpha 0 — and the rain's Mod2x lane reads no alpha, so every far streak that minified onto levels 3 and 4 (three-quarters and half black by the census) multiplied the scene toward black from ~43 yd, where level 3 enters the trilinear blend, to the fog at 70; the reference sizes a stored level at `bpp·max(4,w)·max(4,h)/8` bytes from its file offset and the header's `mipSizes` never sizes an upload, so a short level is completed by the next levels' own grey blocks — `[L3 | L4 | L5 | L6]` — and `Header::dxt_level_span` reads that span on both decode entry points, CPU and native byte-identical, with `pad_to` kept only for a file that ends inside a level, which no shipped asset does (543 of 32,309 DXT files carry a short level, every one non-square, none past EOF); not a mip cap and not a grey fill — the file's next bytes are what the reference draws; wow-re's cross-check settled which arm is which: the block copier `0x5a5780` is live on the shipped Direct3D default (`0x5a0a80` → `0x5a4f60`'s cell `[6][6]`), the upload's `imageSize` at `0x59f4e6`–`0x59f515` over the zero-copy pointer (`0x5a8555`) on OpenGL, the same bytes either way — and the `GL_TEXTURE_MAX_LOD` clamp is dead on every device (its gate `[0xc0f274]` has one writer, a zeroed `ebx`), so every tail level is sampled; why it surfaced now: 1642/1645's isotropic trilinear takes the streak's width for its LOD where the retired anisotropy 8 took its length, which carried the far streaks onto level 3 inside the fog window for the first time; `benilla-extract blp --mips` writes every authored level and prints the per-level texel census, and a real-asset test pins the copy byte for byte (B358/B225, 2020, 2024)
- the cooldown sweep draws again: the extract's `ModelPane` arm drew the atlas cell it found in the bridge, but the cell is packed by `sync_tiles` AFTER the extract and the conversion is memoized on the engine's list — so a cooldown armed on a quiet interface extracted once with no cell, the cell arrived a frame later, nothing re-ran the conversion, and the tile lived on the atlas for the whole cooldown with no quad on screen (the 2013 harness test had re-pinged the minimap to force a second conversion, encoding the defect as the contract); the arm now publishes the request — rect, paint key, alpha, clip beside the unit ladder — and `compose_tiles` appends one premultiplied quad per cell packed THIS frame in the `UiQuadAppend` lane, a function of the bridge alone; the second defect behind it: 2019's rotation rows were uploaded to the world's shared light buffer only, while a tile's material twin binds the tile's own black-light buffer whose mat-anim region is zero-initialised, so every quadrant read the identity — and `cooldown.blp` is 0.6-alpha black outside a four-texel strip, so the sweep would have drawn as a static disc and never cleared; `MatAnimMirrors` now carries the region into every buffer a lane binds under one generation gate; measured six seconds into a 30 s stance cooldown, the button rects read means of 79 and 22 against 150 and 48 before, the top-right wedge cleared from 12 toward 3 o'clock; `WOW_TILE_TRACE=1` is the tile probe (2023)
- a body inside a GameObject's hull is left where the server put it: the reference's resolver is a time-of-impact sweep and nothing else — no push-out stage anywhere in `0x634040`'s closure, and `0x632830`'s clip drops a candidate face whose clipped vertices all sit more than 1/36 yd (`[0x7ff9c8]`) behind the prism's leading plane — where avian's slide opened and closed with a Gauss–Seidel push-out whose minimum translation for a tall capsule in a small box is horizontal, shoving a seated body 0.555 yd off its stool on the first frame after the server seated it (B359); the `depenetrate` stage is deleted rather than disabled, and because the deletion alone left the body unable to walk out (a straddled seat top read as a wall at t = 0) the sweep carries the reference's band as `BACKFACE_BAND`, measured against the face's vertices, so a body walks off a stool and still stands on a sloped floor its feet sit a few centimetres under; the creature clamp cast its down-ray from 2.5 yd above the seat, a probe the reference never casts — its settle sweeps DOWN from the current position (`0x636dcd`–`0x636e45`) and the only way up is the step-up after a blocking horizontal hit — which found a cage's lid as Galen Goodward's floor (B372; seat 22.416, ray from 24.916, lid 24.667): a walker continuing its path now runs the shared `grounded_step` from where it stood with a creature's own 2.0 yd rise budget (`[0x801628]`) and takes only the Y, an idle unit casts down from its seat with the 1/36 band above it, and continuity is one server path long since `0x7c6420` re-bases on every packet; the `clmp` trace tag (`WOW_CLAMP_TRACE`) reads one clamp cast and the `move` tag marks input-less travel as CREEP (2018); and a seated body is not re-faced by the mouse: the reference's mouse-MOVE handler `0x514400` rotates the camera unconditionally and hands its facing to the body only through `0x5145e0`, whose last conjunct is `GetStandState() == 0` (`0x51460c`, the client-predicted cache), with `0x5151b0` re-testing the descriptor byte — so a right-drag while sitting orbits the camera round a body that keeps its facing and sends nothing; benilla restored the facing on the stun/death predicate only and spun a seated body in its chair with every sample, streaming a `SET_FACING` each; `MoverInput::mouse_may_turn_body` carries the stand-state term, and the keyboard turn keeps `may_turn` alone because that path stands the body (2025)
- the vendor window's face and name: the stock `MerchantFrame.lua` takes its title from `UnitName("NPC")` and its face from `SetPortraitTexture(MerchantFramePortrait, "NPC")` — the `"npc"` token, `CGGameUI`'s `[0xb4e2d0]` that every NPC window reads on its own `*_SHOW` — and that seam had four defects stacked on it: `feed_interact_npc` ran a frame ahead of the net apply, so the frame `SMSG_LIST_INVENTORY` raised `MERCHANT_SHOW` still held the previous NPC (the Goldshire inn titled "Innkeeper Farley" over Brog Hamfist's stock); `feed_units`' dirty gate had no interact term, so a swap to a second vendor moved no descriptor and skipped the feed; the memo row was never written, so `UnitExists("npc")` stayed true after a close; and `SetPortraitTexture` stored its token raw where the booth slots are keyed lowercase — the reference resolves every unit token through `0x515970`, whose ten compares are all `_strnicmp`, so the binding folds on the way in; the writer now seats itself `.after(apply_net_updates).before(drive_display_facing)`, pinned in the built schedule graph rather than the source, the gate takes `interact.is_changed()`, the memo is written, and the fold lands at the one seam where a Lua token becomes a slot name — every NPC window reads the same token through the same chain; `WOW_PROBE_VENDOR_SWAP=1` stands between Brog Hamfist and Barkeep Dobbins, 5.45 yd apart, reads the name inside `MERCHANT_SHOW`, opens one over the other and closes it — five FAILs before, five PASSes after (2022)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Important
Issues and pull requests are closed here. benilla is a solo project developed in a private tree; this repo is its export, published as squashed snapshots, so a PR here has nothing to land on. The best way to contribute is to join the Discord and report the bugs you find. Questions and ideas are welcome in the same place.
benilla speaks the original 1.12.1 protocol, so it connects to any server the real client could, and reads its game data at runtime from your own 1.12.1 install. Every file format and the network protocol are implemented from scratch, with no original client code, no third-party WoW crates, and no bundled game assets.
What works
- Formats: readers for the full asset stack (MPQ patch chain, BLP, DBC, ADT/WDT/WDL, M2, WMO), wired into Bevy as an asset source.
- World: streamed terrain out to the horizon, portal-culled WMOs with interior lighting, doodads and ground clutter, swimmable liquids, sky and weather, and the client's own day/night lighting, fog and gamma passes.
- Models: GPU-skinned M2s with the full animation controller, a near feature-complete particle system, ribbons, and animated gameobjects from doors to lifts.
- Characters: customization end to end, the armor texture composite, weapons with sheathing and enchant glows, shapeshift forms, stealth and mounts.
- Movement: a WoW-feel controller, networked movement in both directions, the server-granted modes from slow fall to roots, a follow camera with collision, boats, zeppelins and taxi flights.
- Networking: SRP6 auth through world-session crypto, the object mirror into the ECS, and live wire coverage from movement and chat through spells, party, quests, mail, trade, vendors, bank, loot, the auction house and PvP honor.
- UI: a from-scratch FrameXML + Lua engine driving the built-in interface, from the login and
character screens through the full HUD, the classic windows (guild, macros and key bindings
included), chat, nameplates, floating combat text and tooltips; third-party addons load from
a
benilla-config/AddOns/folder beside the executable (partial: AtlasLoot and Bagnon run, see below). - Combat: melee on the faithful swing law, ranged and Auto Shot, casting with GCD and cooldowns, combo points, crowd control that really holds you, and the spell visual pipeline.
- Audio: music, ambience and SFX under the client's own selection and crossfade rules, with interior and underwater transitions and zone reverb.
Where it's going
benilla is done when a 1.12.1 player can do everything here that they could in the original client, it looks and feels the same, and it runs from a download on Windows, Linux and macOS. No dates; the order is what is likely, not a promise.
- Battlegrounds and meeting stones, then the long tail of small features that separates a working client from a finished one.
- Addons, options and performance, ongoing.
- The no-brainer fixes from VanillaFixes, SuperWoW and the like.
- Playable downloads for Windows, Linux and macOS. Linux first.
Not planned: other expansions or client versions, Warden (anticheat).
Running it
You need a 1.12.1 (build 5875) client install for game data, a vanilla server to connect to, and stable Rust. Any 1.12.1 core works; vmangos is what development runs against, and cMaNGOS and the rest speak the same protocol.
WOW_DATA=/path/to/WoW/Data cargo run --release -p benilla
The server defaults to localhost:3724, the stock realmd auth port. Point WOW_HOST
at any IP or hostname, appending the auth port if yours is remapped
(WOW_HOST=play.example.com:5000). Credentials go in at the login screen, or set WOW_USER /
WOW_PASS to skip it.
Early inspiration and file format guidance came from the wowemulation-dev community, and warcraft-rs in particular.
benilla is an independent fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment.
It ships no Blizzard content — no art, models, sounds, maps, MPQ contents or FrameXML; you
provide your own legally obtained 1.12.1 client. The interface code under
crates/benilla-app/assets/ui/ is ours, written to the client's own layout and API names so that
the windows look right and 1.12.1 addons find the names they expect.
World of Warcraft is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Our own code is licensed under MIT or Apache 2.0, at your option.