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Post subject: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Wed May 19, 2010 6:57 am 
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I was thinking, with Bongo` taking a leave of absence, it seems a lot more gloomy here. Although, I can't say that I fully understand his situation, I can surely sympathize with him for I too have some debt and money woes and know what it feels like. Hopefully, we'll all one day be debt free, be it a minor or large debt that we have. We wish you the best Bongo`!

Anyways, back on topic. Since we'll not be making as much progress as before for awhile, I was thinking if we could work on the international translations idea until we get back on track with the current projects. It's been almost a year since I translated CT into Romanian and I'm getting that itch to start translating again. The problem is that I'm not all that good when it comes to romhacking. I can make and edit table files, but I suck at script dumping/inserting and just about everything else.

When I translated CT, I was lucky enough to find an easy to use, game specific program. I however suffered from not being able to use the ten unicode characters that I needed and therefore, made a somewhat crappy translation. This is why for my next projects, I would like to do it right. And for that, I would need some help with the technical stuff. The reason I chose Villgust is because it's a Magic translated game which as most of you here know, was one of the core groups which formed Dynamic-Designs. As I recall, Magic merged with Destiny to form Magic-Destiny and latter joined with Stealth Translations to form D-D.

Seeing that Wildbill and Taskforce were the ones who handled the romhacking aspects of the translation, I figured we could work together to produce a Romanian translation. I only hope that the font can be expanded to fit those extra ten unicode letters that I would need. This would also be great if Red Soul would also like to work on a Portuguese translation. Then we could get that international translations section underway alongside the current and completed projects section. This is just an idea and any input is of course welcomed. Well, let me know what you guys think and thanks in advanced!


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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Post subject: Re: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Wed May 19, 2010 9:19 am 
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Recca wrote:
I was thinking, with Bongo` taking a leave of absence, it seems a lot more gloomy here. Although, I can't say that I fully understand his situation, I can surely sympathize with him for I too have some debt and money woes and know what it feels like. Hopefully, we'll all one day be debt free, be it a minor or large debt that we have. We wish you the best Bongo`!

Anyways, back on topic. Since we'll not be making as much progress as before for awhile, I was thinking if we could work on the international translations idea until we get back on track with the current projects. It's been almost a year since I translated CT into Romanian and I'm getting that itch to start translating again. The problem is that I'm not all that good when it comes to romhacking. I can make and edit table files, but I suck at script dumping/inserting and just about everything else.

When I translated CT, I was lucky enough to find an easy to use, game specific program. I however suffered from not being able to use the ten unicode characters that I needed and therefore, made a somewhat crappy translation. This is why for my next projects, I would like to do it right. And for that, I would need some help with the technical stuff. The reason I chose Villgust is because it's a Magic translated game which as most of you here know, was one of the core groups which formed Dynamic-Designs. As I recall, Magic merged with Destiny to form Magic-Destiny and latter joined with Stealth Translations to form D-D.

Seeing that Wildbill and Taskforce were the ones who handled the romhacking aspects of the translation, I figured we could work together to produce a Romanian translation. I only hope that the font can be expanded to fit those extra ten unicode letters that I would need. This would also be great if Red Soul would also like to work on a Portuguese translation. Then we could get that international translations section underway alongside the current and completed projects section. This is just an idea and any input is of course welcomed. Well, let me know what you guys think and thanks in advanced!
Yes, gloomy may describe the core group, but only because of what Bongo` faces. I feel so helpless at the moment because all I can do is... Well, let's leave it at that, for now.

As for Villgust, TF recoded (hacked) the game. I helped write the story.

For years, I've wanted to expand, rewrite, re-release SFC Villgust, etc.

TF is the font design guy, also, so it's up to him. I'm all for it: Romanian, Portuguese, and an English expansion of Villgust. Amazing game! Grossly overlooked by the anime bunch, it's clean-cut, not controversial like Slayers, that TF disdains but I got hooked on with the amazing plot in the SFC game we released jointly with Matt. Anyway, forget our political differences, Recca, if you can. Focusing on the games, Ritchie is coming through for us, big time. I just haven't updated anyone due to current worries. Ritchie is an amazing translator, very conscientious about corrections as he proceeds, but BH is huge! This game translation will require some time, yet.

And Bongo` will land in a great place, eventually, hopefully a place he loves, but he will be fine - someday - even if he doesn't know it yet. No one can replace him. We all love the guy! Not just for what he's given us in amazing games, but for his passion and work ethic - a rare combination among even high achievers.


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Post subject: Re: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Sun May 23, 2010 2:15 pm 
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I'm all up to the release of international patches, and it seems like a good focus for us to shift our efforts towards for the time being.
I haven't played Villgust (or seen the anime for that matter) but considering it was done by the guys here, I doubt its not worth every bit
of love and effort that was put into it.

Brazil has a rather strong Romhacking community, and a portal much in the likeness of RHDN, its called PO.B.R.E (somewhat satirical acronym,
if you join the letters it means "poor" in portuguese, but individually it means "Brazilian Romhacking And Emulation Portal).
When the time comes I'll brodadcast the portuguese releases under our banner there to increase visibility.


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Post subject: Re: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 12:28 am 
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OK sorry, I should have gotten back to you before now.

As you know this patch was released eons ago. Its a pretty primitive patch by the standards we use today. I do still have the tools used to make it. Everything was custom stuff programmed in (of all things) quick basic. Laugh all you want but it worked for what I needed at the time. Remember this was before Windows XP, heck this was before Windows ME. Everyone was still pretty used to using a command prompt and there was no reason to program something in windows for one game.

Anyway, as for the room for international letters. This may or may not be possible. It would all depend on 2 things. Either being able to assemblywise, relocate the font in the rom and see if we could use more letters. There were only a handful available. Or doing away with the symbols we used for items and the compressed name tiles.

Could I relocate the font with my skill. Maybe, but that doesn't mean if I did the game was setup to use more letters. Anyway, lets assume for a minute that ideally we have the font room.

Second, this game used a forwarding pointer system. This is easily handled by current insertion tools. However, I would suggest you stick with the tools that are already written in quick basic. Why you might ask? Those already are known to work. And the scripts are already formatted for them. They just need to be reworked into your languages. With that said, the rom was absolutely maxed out on text space as it stood. So, you won't be getting anymore space without some assembly help expanding the rom and relocating the text to the new area. Again, this is something I might be able to do, but I haven't really looked into it either. Bongo` would be by far better suited for these tasks but he has much more important things to deal with.

Anyway, I want to be up front about all this. My first suggestion. Look at the font and see if you think you can make room for your letters. Nothing in this rom is compressed so you can tell if you can fit them in or not. I'll be glad to support you in your endeavor and provide all the help I can (including the tools and scripts) but things will need to start on your end first. I'd be glad to help you build a font, but only you can know if things will work. I don't speak anything but English, so you need to decide how a font can be handled. Once the font is worked out. The rest is just a matter of a modified table, translations and testing.


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Post subject: Re: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Mon May 24, 2010 6:34 am 
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I'm not quite sure what you mean by taking a look at the font. Do you mean just a basic overview of them or actually hacking the font out of the game to look at it with a utility? When I tried opening the game with Tile Layer Pro, the colours looked inverted and messed up, not how they actually appear in game. I did however get to see the font and it looks like a 8x8 font which would allow for the insertion of the unicode letters that I would need. There seems to be plenty of blank boxes besides the letters of the font where the extra unicode letters could fit, but I'm not sure if I'm interpreting this correctly as I am not that good when it comes to romhacking.

As for the actual translation idea, I can handle the text limitations if expansion is not possible. I think that the icons used in the game such as the sword, shield and others should be kept. Without them, it would be difficult for the player to determine what most of the equipment actually is. If adding on to the font is not possible, we could scrap some special symbols used in the font. But I would need to look at them to see which would be needed in game and which can be scraped. Though I'm jumping the gun a bit here. First I should do as you recommended and look at the font to see if they can actually be added in the first place. Would you happen to have any advice?


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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Post subject: Re: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:27 pm 
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Well, if expanding the font is too much work or not possible at this point in time, I could also translate without using any accented letters like I did with Chrono Trigger. Although it wouldn't be 100% grammatically correct, a person would still be able to read it based on context. Besides, having to copy and paste those unicode letters is a pain anyways. Afterall, not all unicode letters can be inserted using a combination of keyboard numbers such as the letter ă. This way, we could also keep those nice item icons in Villgust.

For example: "Let's go to the market." in Romanian would be:
"Hai să mergem la piaţă."
Without those unicode letters, it would be:
"Hai sa mergem la piata."

As you can see, although it's not really grammatical correct, it's still readable based on context. Most Romanian fan sites (and those in other European languages) that I've seen don't even bother using these unicode letters at all since they're lazy.


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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Post subject: Re: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Sun Oct 10, 2010 11:43 am 
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Sorry Recca, I just forgot to follow up on this entirely. You should beat me over the head after a few days when I don't get back to you. I'll compile the stuff and shoot it off to you by Wednesday. If I do not, poke me again in this thread. The fonts might be dooable. It used Japanese accents before. But I certainly don't remember exactly how it did that. I think it was special codes which the inserter could easily do but you will be so limited on space that you may think it not worth it. And those were the space in the font I used for the weapon symbols ect.


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Post subject: Re: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Sun Oct 10, 2010 3:55 pm 
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taskforce wrote:
Sorry Recca, I just forgot to follow up on this entirely. You should beat me over the head after a few days when I don't get back to you. I'll compile the stuff and shoot it off to you by Wednesday. If I do not, poke me again in this thread. The fonts might be dooable. It used Japanese accents before. But I certainly don't remember exactly how it did that. I think it was special codes which the inserter could easily do but you will be so limited on space that you may think it not worth it. And those were the space in the font I used for the weapon symbols ect.


I have yet to play Villgust... :( How is the game and how long is it?


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Post subject: Re: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Sun Oct 10, 2010 10:05 pm 
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Bongo` wrote:
taskforce wrote:
Sorry Recca, I just forgot to follow up on this entirely. You should beat me over the head after a few days when I don't get back to you. I'll compile the stuff and shoot it off to you by Wednesday. If I do not, poke me again in this thread. The fonts might be dooable. It used Japanese accents before. But I certainly don't remember exactly how it did that. I think it was special codes which the inserter could easily do but you will be so limited on space that you may think it not worth it. And those were the space in the font I used for the weapon symbols ect.


I have yet to play Villgust... :( How is the game and how long is it?


Mediocre and average length. (About 20-30 hours).

Not to say it doesn't have its good points. Characters are somewhat interesting though somewhat under developed in certain cases. Story was a fun write and I enjoyed working with Wildbill to write it up quite a lot but most would consider it average RPG fare. The biggest fun was that the game featured a system that forced you to move on when you got too high for monsters. Once you were so many levels above monsters in a certain area, it would completely stop random battles in that area. Mostly, I would consider it on NES RPG's level. Just with somewhat better than NES graphics.


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Post subject: Re: Translation idea.
PostPosted: Sun Oct 10, 2010 10:25 pm 
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taskforce wrote:
Bongo` wrote:
taskforce wrote:
Sorry Recca, I just forgot to follow up on this entirely. You should beat me over the head after a few days when I don't get back to you. I'll compile the stuff and shoot it off to you by Wednesday. If I do not, poke me again in this thread. The fonts might be dooable. It used Japanese accents before. But I certainly don't remember exactly how it did that. I think it was special codes which the inserter could easily do but you will be so limited on space that you may think it not worth it. And those were the space in the font I used for the weapon symbols ect.


I have yet to play Villgust... :( How is the game and how long is it?


Mediocre and average length. (About 20-30 hours).

Not to say it doesn't have its good points. Characters are somewhat interesting though somewhat under developed in certain cases. Story was a fun write and I enjoyed working with Wildbill to write it up quite a lot but most would consider it average RPG fare. The biggest fun was that the game featured a system that forced you to move on when you got too high for monsters. Once you were so many levels above monsters in a certain area, it would completely stop random battles in that area. Mostly, I would consider it on NES RPG's level. Just with somewhat better than NES graphics.
TF and I have spoken for years about expanding the ROM and fleshing out the story. I am still interested. This game required tremendous story cuts, much like NES DoaE-II did, but didn't have the cult following or well known background of Ro3K stature like DoaE-II did.


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