Glossary

Agent — the physical side of an object instance: whether it collides, whether it hurts you, whether it is active at all. Changed by the SetAgent command. See Objects.

AgentLab — the in-house tool the developers scripted gameplay behaviour with. Its output is what this wiki calls a script; the tool is not on the disc, but its name is, in Language\AgentLab\ and in a reference to Import\LevelAgents.axp. See How the game got made.

Body — the file format's name for a rule inside a state: a condition, a target state, and a list of commands.

Chunk — a piece of a level that the streaming loader pulls in and drops as you move.

Code cave — unused space in the executable used to hold new instructions. This mod's is the unreferenced debug function at 0x116EA8.

COM_ script — the item that holds a script's actual states. Behaviours come in pairs: a small header item and the COM_ item next to it.

Creation helper — a per-instance block at instance + 16 holding the flags the engine checks: contact damage (bit 8 of helper + 16), invincibility (bit 10), and so on.

Director — the script that conducts a cutscene: run the opening, play the scene, tidy up. Named *_CUTSCENE_DIRECTOR_ACTIVATED.

Flow state — the game's top-level state machine: 12 is normal gameplay, 19 is the credits (which the rig's warp borrows). Read from the game-flow object at 0x30988C.

FMV / movie — a pre-rendered .PSS video, as opposed to an in-engine scene. Telling them apart matters; see Cutscenes.

Instance — a placement of an object in a level: position, rotation, object id.

Instant state — a state whose rules are checked once as it is entered, and which then steps straight on (flag 0x0400). Adding a polled rule to one hangs it.

Key / mark — a named position belonging to a cutscene, used by SetFocusToKey + PosWarp. Only resolvable while that scene is running.

Level recipe (.ops) — a text file of script edits applied at build time. See Level recipes.

Orphan skip — a cutscene whose skip branch was moved into a state nothing can reach, so the executable patch alone is not enough to bring it back.

.rm2 / .sm2 — the two files every level is made of. The .rm2 holds scripts, objects, instances, triggers, characters and collision; the .sm2 holds the scenery - its models, materials, textures, the skydome and the level's lights. It is not a sound bank. See Lighting.

PINE — the protocol PCSX2 exposes for external tools: read and write RAM, save and load states. The rig speaks it on port 28012.

Polled state — a state whose rules are re-checked every frame (flag 0x0800).

Script slot — a numbered place on an object type where a script lives. Slot 0 is the default behaviour; a trigger or another script switches the object to its _ACTIVATED script; higher slots hold cutscene actor scripts.

Sub-script — a script that a state runs to completion while that state is active. The Next condition fires when it ends.

User message — a numbered message sent between objects. 207 is "carry on", 244 is "the scene was skipped".