fix(rpgmaker): preserve background art in image translations

- Require clean source-layer discovery and state-aware recomposition
- Protect faint artwork from opaque covers and blurred text remnants
- Validate representative progression states before rendering full batches

data/skills/image_translation.md

@@ -24,6 +24,11 @@ folder. Do not modify runtime game images or any other project files; the Image
 patch validated edits later. Store backups and temporary candidates outside the editable image
 folder so they cannot be mistaken for patchable assets. Work through all editable PNGs without
 asking for confirmation unless a hard safety rule below requires review.
+
+Runtime assets may be read, decoded, or decrypted in memory or into an isolated temporary
+directory when needed to reconstruct an editable image. This does not authorize modifying those
+runtime assets. Prefer the project's own clean source layers over attempting to recover artwork
+from a flattened text-bearing PNG.
 </task_context>
 
 Translate embedded bitmap text by reconstructing the smallest safe UI regions and rendering
@@ -40,6 +45,8 @@ Produce localized images that:
 - Preserve empty spaces used for runtime-drawn values.
 - Fit translated text without clipping or collisions.
 - Preserve the distinct visual language and emphasis of every text role.
+- Preserve meaningful background illustrations, including faint watermarks and art visible only
+  through a translucent reading surface.
 - Retain recoverable originals.
 - Include a concise validation report.
 
@@ -80,13 +87,41 @@ Record:
 - The visual treatment of each text role: font character, weight, fill or gradient, outline,
   shadow, inner or outer glow, bloom, blur, opacity, offset, and antialiasing.
 - Whether each label is freestanding over the artwork or contained by an existing panel.
+- Whether a panel contains faint, translucent, partially obscured, or progression-dependent
+  artwork beneath its text.
 
 Create a contact sheet when multiple variants share a layout. View each target at original
 resolution before choosing coordinates. Treat distinctive effects as required design constraints,
 not optional decoration. A luminous pink title, for example, must remain luminous and pink; flat
 white text or a newly invented dark pill is not an equivalent treatment.
 
-### 4. Inspect runtime drawing logic
+Do not decide that a low-contrast region is blank merely because its artwork is subtle. Compare
+contrast-enhanced views when necessary, and inspect representative pages from the beginning,
+middle, and end of each image sequence. Memo, codex, gallery, and recollection pages commonly
+change from a neutral enemy icon on early pages to unlocked scene artwork on later pages.
+
+### 4. Locate clean artwork and source layers
+
+Before choosing any removal method for text over artwork, search the read-only project for a
+clean version of every covered visual element. Check:
+
+- Runtime images with matching prefixes, encounter numbers, abbreviations, or character names.
+- Enemy battlers, recollections, cut-ins, gallery images, portraits, and layered battle sprites.
+- Alternate pages or variants that reveal how the same composition is assembled.
+- Event and script references that map an editable filename to a runtime encounter or asset.
+- RPG Maker encrypted image files. Read the project encryption key and decode a copy in memory
+  or a temporary directory when required; never alter the encrypted original.
+
+Build an explicit mapping from each editable variant to its clean source art. Preserve semantic
+and progression differences: for example, use the enemy icon on introductory pages and the
+matching recollection illustration only on pages where that illustration is meant to appear.
+Confirm the mapping against the flattened source visually; filenames and numbering alone are not
+proof. Do not substitute a later unlocked image merely because it is easier to obtain.
+
+If a clean source layer exists, reconstruct the composition from that layer. Do not mask, blur,
+clone over, or cover the flattened artwork first.
+
+### 5. Inspect runtime drawing logic
 
 Search the read-only game project for every image filename and the code or event data that
 displays it. Determine:
@@ -101,7 +136,7 @@ Treat runtime value locations as protected keepout regions. Do not bake values i
 If runtime behavior cannot be established, preserve suspicious blank areas and report the
 uncertainty.
 
-### 5. Transcribe and translate
+### 6. Transcribe and translate
 
 List each visible source string with its role and location. Use this precedence:
 
@@ -120,7 +155,7 @@ Preserve:
 
 Do not rely on OCR alone. Verify OCR output visually, especially for stylized Japanese fonts.
 
-### 6. Classify the background
+### 7. Classify the background
 
 Choose the least destructive valid removal method.
 
@@ -132,13 +167,16 @@ Choose the least destructive valid removal method.
 | Simple gradient | Interpolate or clone a clean patch |
 | Repeating texture | Clone a nearby matching region |
 | Bokeh/noisy field | Clone and feather a clean patch |
-| Text over artwork | Use a precise mask only when safe |
+| Text over cleanly sourced artwork | Rebuild from the clean art layer, then render text |
+| Text over flattened artwork only | Use a precise mask only when demonstrably safe |
 | Text crossing a character | Skip and report unless the user supplies a safe method |
 
 Prefer whole-panel reconstruction for structured UI. It avoids blurred remnants and
-source-glyph ghosts.
+source-glyph ghosts. However, an art-bearing reading surface is not a disposable flat panel.
+Whole-panel reconstruction is valid there only if every meaningful illustration and decoration
+is restored from clean sources with the correct placement, opacity, and page-specific state.
 
-### 7. Define an explicit layout
+### 8. Define an explicit layout
 
 For each reconstructed panel, record its bounds, corner radius, fill color, opacity model,
 border, and shadow.
@@ -151,10 +189,13 @@ from the source and reproduce multi-layer effects in separate deterministic pass
 For each protected region, record its bounds and required policy: pixel-identical, no text, or
 no overlap.
 
+For each reconstructed background illustration, also record its clean source path, crop, scale,
+anchor, opacity, compositing order, and the page or state in which it is allowed to appear.
+
 Do not improvise coordinates independently for images that share a template. Define a base
 layout and apply only variant-specific overrides.
 
-### 8. Reconstruct panels
+### 9. Reconstruct panels
 
 Use sampled colors from the original panel when practical. Account for how the game displays
 the asset:
@@ -167,12 +208,26 @@ Replace enough of the panel to remove every source glyph. Avoid semi-transparent
 leave source text visible beneath them. Do not cover frame borders, portraits, or unrelated
 decoration.
 
+When a reading surface contains background art, rebuild in this order:
+
+1. Reconstruct the clean paper, card, gradient, or texture.
+2. Composite the correct clean enemy icon or illustration at its source-equivalent crop, scale,
+   position, and opacity.
+3. Restore safe borders and decorations from clean sources or protected source crops.
+4. Render the translated text last.
+
+Do not use an opaque wash to hide source text if it also hides a meaningful illustration. Do not
+use a blurred copy of the flattened source as an underprint: blurred glyphs remain glyph-shaped
+and the illustration loses detail. Chroma masks and glyph masks are fallback techniques, not a
+substitute for source-layer discovery; reject them if outlines, halos, or tinted glyph fragments
+remain at original resolution.
+
 Preserve the original relationship between text and background. Do not add a backing rectangle,
 pill, card, or heavy shadow when the source text was freestanding. Reconstruct the background
 behind the old glyphs, then render the translation with an equivalent outline, glow, bloom, and
 layering. Only rebuild a panel when that panel was already part of the source design.
 
-### 9. Fit typography
+### 10. Fit typography
 
 Use real font metrics. Fit text in this order:
 
@@ -189,19 +244,27 @@ asset. Preserve character-name colors and other meaningful visual distinctions.
 font is unavailable, choose the closest font by shape and weight, but still match the original
 effect stack and visual prominence.
 
-### 10. Protect dynamic values
+### 11. Protect dynamic values
 
 Reserve the exact runtime-drawn areas discovered from source code or event data. Test likely
 maximum values such as `0`, `99`, `100`, `999`, and any known project-specific maximum. Ensure
 translated labels and suffixes cannot collide with right-aligned or centered runtime values.
 
-### 11. Render candidates
+### 12. Render representative candidates first
 
 Render from the verified original or backup, never from an earlier candidate. Prefer a
 deterministic raster backend such as ImageMagick, Pillow, OpenCV, or Skia. Keep operations
 explicit and repeatable.
 
-### 12. Validate before installation
+Before rendering the full batch, render and inspect at least one representative of every
+background class, geometry, and progression state. For a multi-page memo set, this normally
+includes an early icon page and a later illustration page, plus examples whose art is pale,
+dark, highly saturated, or close to the text color. Do not proceed to the full batch until these
+samples show all intended artwork and no source glyphs at original resolution.
+
+After the representative gate passes, render the entire candidate set from the backup.
+
+### 13. Validate before installation
 
 Perform all applicable checks:
 
@@ -215,6 +278,12 @@ Perform all applicable checks:
 - Inspect important images at original resolution.
 - Simulate dynamic values at their runtime coordinates.
 - Check for clipping, ghosted source glyphs, bad baselines, and collisions.
+- Confirm that every source background illustration still exists in the candidate and remains
+  recognizable at intended runtime scale.
+- Confirm that introductory and unlocked pages use the correct state-specific art rather than a
+  single image repeated across all pages.
+- For reconstructed art, compare source and candidate for subject identity, crop, placement,
+  scale, opacity, compositing order, and visual prominence.
 - Compare source and candidate side by side at original resolution and at the intended runtime
   scale. Confirm that glow color, halo footprint, contrast, translucency, and hierarchy retain
   the same visual role and emphasis.
@@ -222,9 +291,13 @@ Perform all applicable checks:
   darker, brighter, heavier, or more panel-bound than the source.
 - Verify the candidate came from the original, not another modified output.
 
+Create contact sheets organized by both template and progression state. A full-set visual sweep
+is required even when structural and pixel checks pass; hashes cannot detect an illustration
+that was intentionally but incorrectly covered during reconstruction.
+
 Do not install a candidate that fails a hard check.
 
-### 13. Install atomically
+### 14. Install atomically
 
 After validation:
 
@@ -233,7 +306,7 @@ After validation:
 - Re-run structural checks on the installed file.
 - Hash the installed result when reproducibility matters.
 
-### 14. Report concisely
+### 15. Report concisely
 
 Report:
 
@@ -249,8 +322,12 @@ Do not paste full image files, large encoded data, or unrelated source code.
 ## Hard safety rules
 
 - Never alter a portrait or protected artwork merely to make text removal easier.
+- Never cover, flatten, or discard faint background art merely to simplify source-text removal.
+- Never treat low contrast or partial transparency as evidence that a region is blank.
+- Never reveal later progression artwork on earlier pages when the source used a neutral icon.
 - Never bake runtime counters or percentages into a static asset.
 - Never use a translucent cover that leaves readable source glyphs beneath it.
+- Never use blurred source text as a background texture or underprint.
 - Never assume blank space is unused when project source can be inspected.
 - Never substitute a font silently when exact layout depends on it.
 - Never discard a distinctive glow, gradient, outline, shadow, or transparency merely because
@@ -265,7 +342,13 @@ Do not paste full image files, large encoded data, or unrelated source code.
 ## Decision rules
 
 Use whole-panel reconstruction when text is contained in a reproducible UI card, several labels
-share one panel, or localized inpainting would leave artifacts.
+share one panel, or localized patching would leave artifacts. If the panel contains meaningful
+art, whole-panel reconstruction additionally requires a clean source and an explicit art-layer
+recomposition plan.
+
+Use clean-layer recomposition whenever flattened text overlaps an illustration and the project
+contains the enemy, recollection, portrait, cut-in, or layered sprite used to build it. This takes
+precedence over masks, cloning, blurring, and opaque covers.
 
 Use localized patch replacement when the background is simple and panel reconstruction would
 alter too much, or a clean neighboring texture can be cloned safely.
@@ -273,6 +356,8 @@ alter too much, or a clean neighboring texture can be cloned safely.
 Skip and request review when:
 
 - Text overlaps a character, unique illustration detail, or irregular border.
+- Text overlaps flattened artwork and no clean source or demonstrably safe deterministic
+  reconstruction is available.
 - Runtime coordinates cannot be established and collision risk is meaningful.
 - Translation cannot fit without materially changing meaning.
 - Alpha behavior is uncertain and the asset is composited at runtime.
@@ -286,5 +371,7 @@ Consider the task complete only when:
 - Protected regions pass their required pixel checks.
 - Dynamic values have adequate space.
 - Visual inspection finds no clipping or source-text ghosts.
+- Every intended background illustration remains present, recognizable, and matched to the
+  correct progression state.
 - Every translated text role retains the source asset's visual identity and relative emphasis.
 - Originals remain recoverable.