MECHMD's scorch base (basev:bvx9_mtl, bexp9_tex = BEXP.BSL RGBA4444
slice 8, ramp cdusty) drew as a hard-edged dark square for two stacked
reasons:
1. The blanket 'truecolor BSL slice (channel >= 6) never ramps' gate
blocked its cdusty ramp. Corpus scan: only 4 shipped textures use
truecolor slices; bexp9/bdet9 are grayscale in RGB (100% / 98.8%
r==g==b) and their materials author ramps -- only bdam8 (damage
sheet) is truly coloured. bgfload rampableSlice() now probes the
decoded slice: a truecolor slice ramps iff effectively gray (>=95%),
keeping bdam8's colour protected.
2. The RGBA4444 authored alpha channel -- a binary 0/240 cutout mask
(the splat silhouette, 78.5% transparent) -- was never alpha-tested,
so the quad's transparent surround rendered as an opaque rectangle.
New BgfDrawBatch.texAlpha (channel >= 8) routes these batches
through the PUNCH alpha-test draw states, WITHOUT the black-texel
keying (which would hole the near-black charred centre). Side
benefit: tree9 (tree/leaf cards) + bdet9 (trans-rail lattice) get
their authored cutouts too.
Pixel-verified (ram-kill run, BT_SHOT): irregular char splat, dark
brown (71,44,34) lifting to near-terrain tan (115,100,91 vs terrain
131,119,108), no rectangle; pre-death frames unregressed (vehicles
stay lit/diffuse -- hasNormals gate untouched). Awaiting human
verification.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>