spekkio
Comte
Deuce Traveler
eric__s
Celerity
Mustawd
no I'm not making some sort of official declaration as I still haven't finished Wiz-Emp-1 on PC (although It's nearing completion. the game will actually be translated in at most two or three weeks).
but i am making a thread concerning PSP game translation: the only roadblock I had been having previously is that I didn't know how to extract the files from the PSP game .BIN files; well now I do. I'm using utilities called quickbms.exe . my only experience so far is text editing.
so anyway point of the thread is that i can finally open up the elminage 2, 3 and 5 games that are on PSP (1 and 4 are on PC/PSP) and begin translation. at a bare minimum I can translate everything is pure text: i.e. 75% of the game. item names, spell names, monster names, area names, etc.
I use a tool called CrystalTile2 to manipulate the contents of the PSP game (and for any other game now; i've replaced the previous one I was using called WindHex32).
Right, the point of the thread: the point is there is HOPE. There is hope! *I* personally may not do it, but if you want to YOU can do it now.
Here are download links to the utilities:
1. first thing you're going to need: a hex-editor. With this utility you "write over" (as if you were using the INSERT function on your Keyboard) the japanese text that's in whatever file you opened with English letters. I started using one called WindHex32 and it's perfect for learning; right now I'm using one called CrystalTile2 which has many more functions that go beyond writing over the japanese text.
Link to WindHex32: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/291/
Link to CrystalTile2: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/818/
Link to script that extracts files from inside the PSP game .BIN folder (extracts files from any .BIN file including ones from PC games as well): http://aluigi.altervista.org/quickbms.htm
Translation software: www.google.com
Pictorial process of how I'm translating Elminage 2 Item names right now... (pictures are in progression of steps):
Pic 1: notice up top the utility, CrystalTile2 and next to it the name of the file I'm hex-editing called "ITMCSV.BIN". This file was inside the .BIN called "ETC.BIN" inside the PSP game Elminage 2.
Pic 2 and onwards are self-explenatory:
it's as simple as that. Obviously you can't do the same with NPC dialog. Well, you can, but the results would be... let's just say they'd be 'Codexian :D
As for how to know what to look for inside a file? Use trial and error. In Wizardry Empire 1 the entire reason I bugged MrRichard999 to help me learn how to begin doing at least a translation of the item names is because in the installation folder of the game all of the files are unpacked. There is literally a file called ITEMS.DAT in the games' folder. If you open that file inside a hex editor with a japanese Table (i'll link the japanese table in a second) you see the list of items. Seriously, that's the entire reason I got interested in this stuff: because the files were already named and sorted. There was a .DAT file for SPELLS, one for MONSTERS, etc.
In the case of the PSP games I had the roadblock of not having access to the direct files inside the .BINs so instead I had been doing what I personally call brute-force hex-editing or what should be called "retarded monkey editing"; which is editing the .BIN file itself without extracting all of the multiple folders inside of it first. It's POSSIBLE to achieve a translation like that, but it ain't likely.
The final thing you need in order to view the japanese characters in any file is a SHIFT-JIS table:
SHIFT-JIS table download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/van54gc6zqiuzoi/SHIFT-JIS-REGULAR.TBL?dl=0
Richard gave that one to me and it's perfect. I can't thank him enough. Without that you're not going to be able to see the japanese characters in any file.
So... that's basically it at least as far as text-translation goes. I tagged Richard so he can chime in if he wants to. As for me? I'll finish up text-translating Wizardry Empire 1 for PC (should be done in 2 weeks or so, perhaps less) and I'll be using Google translate for the dialog. I'll probably end up re-writing a lot of the dialog myself too. Does this matter? No. Does it matter to other people than me? Yes. In the case of Wiz Emp 1 i don't give a shit cos it has stupid dialog to begin with. A literal google translation with some human thought put into stringing together coherent sentences is more than enough for a dungeon crawling game like that.
In the case of Elminage 2 when and if i get to the point where I already google-translated the list stuff, i.e. item lists, monster lists, etc, and it comes time to the dialog i'll be bugging Helly to translate it. I might even end up paying real USD money to have the Elminage 2 script translated by a translation server; that's how much I love the Elminage series.
So at the moment I can't really think of anything else to add really. If anyone actually decides to read this and downloads the utilities mentioned and has any questions please, PLEASE, post everything HERE in this thread and we'll help each other out. For example one of the handiest utilities in WindHex32 is dumping the contents of the file you're hex-editing into a .txt file, for obvious reasons. You can do that by pressing F10 or using the program's Toolbar. That's one example of something someone might ask when using a hex-editor for the first time and is looking at a japanese file for the first time.
Remember to always load the SHIFT-JIS table after loading the japanese game file; otherwise the japanese characters won't show up. How do you load the SHIFT-JIS table? Scroll up again and look at pic 1, and notice in the toolbar where it says TBL. In the case of WindHex32 it's under "File" in the toolbar. It'll become second nature after a while; first fire up the hex editor -> open the game file you want to hex-edit -> load the japanese SHIFT-JIS table.
what i'm describing in this post is basically what one calls a best case scenario in terms of editing a japanese games' files. if you're unluckly the game you want to translate will NOT have everything sorted and listed with obvious file names that tell you specifically what's inside the file (spell.dat, itmcsv.bin, etc). Once again, any questions bring them to this thread and we'll see what we can do.
(by the way, MrRichard999, this also means I can translate the entirety of Wizardry Empire 3 for PSP. all that i need to do is figure out a .bms script to extract the umddata.bin that's 70mb's. i already have a few ideas concerning this, btw.)
oh! almost forgot: whenever you dump a japanese file's contents into a .txt file (such as the npc dialog; in the case of elminage 2 all of the npc dialog is inside the SCP.BIN, and in the case of Wiz-Emp 1 it's inside NPC.WZA. You can either extract the contents from the files or hex-edit the files themselves: sometimes you get lucky (you can hex-edit translate/script dump NPC.WZA, for example, without any problems whatsoever but in the case of Elminage 2 it's better to first extract everything from the SCP.BIN so you can have all of the game dialog sorted out).
anyway, once you have the file loaded in your hex-editor, shift-jis tbl loaded, and you're looking at an endless ream of japanese characters that are the game's dialog what you do is you dump everything into a text file. (function is obviously in the hex-editor's toolbar). Once that is dumped you need a text-viewer that has search and replace functions, ability to load a SHIFT-JIS table, and ability to program macros. (to automate process of ordering the dialog lines into paragraphs and such).
the best free one is Notepad++. I won't provide the link cos you can just google it and download it. Notepad++ is VERY powerful text editor and its macro functions and search/replace functions are top-notch.
Comte
Deuce Traveler
eric__s
Celerity
Mustawd
no I'm not making some sort of official declaration as I still haven't finished Wiz-Emp-1 on PC (although It's nearing completion. the game will actually be translated in at most two or three weeks).
but i am making a thread concerning PSP game translation: the only roadblock I had been having previously is that I didn't know how to extract the files from the PSP game .BIN files; well now I do. I'm using utilities called quickbms.exe . my only experience so far is text editing.
so anyway point of the thread is that i can finally open up the elminage 2, 3 and 5 games that are on PSP (1 and 4 are on PC/PSP) and begin translation. at a bare minimum I can translate everything is pure text: i.e. 75% of the game. item names, spell names, monster names, area names, etc.
I use a tool called CrystalTile2 to manipulate the contents of the PSP game (and for any other game now; i've replaced the previous one I was using called WindHex32).
Right, the point of the thread: the point is there is HOPE. There is hope! *I* personally may not do it, but if you want to YOU can do it now.
Here are download links to the utilities:
1. first thing you're going to need: a hex-editor. With this utility you "write over" (as if you were using the INSERT function on your Keyboard) the japanese text that's in whatever file you opened with English letters. I started using one called WindHex32 and it's perfect for learning; right now I'm using one called CrystalTile2 which has many more functions that go beyond writing over the japanese text.
Link to WindHex32: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/291/
Link to CrystalTile2: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/818/
Link to script that extracts files from inside the PSP game .BIN folder (extracts files from any .BIN file including ones from PC games as well): http://aluigi.altervista.org/quickbms.htm
Translation software: www.google.com
Pictorial process of how I'm translating Elminage 2 Item names right now... (pictures are in progression of steps):
Pic 1: notice up top the utility, CrystalTile2 and next to it the name of the file I'm hex-editing called "ITMCSV.BIN". This file was inside the .BIN called "ETC.BIN" inside the PSP game Elminage 2.
Pic 2 and onwards are self-explenatory:
it's as simple as that. Obviously you can't do the same with NPC dialog. Well, you can, but the results would be... let's just say they'd be 'Codexian :D
As for how to know what to look for inside a file? Use trial and error. In Wizardry Empire 1 the entire reason I bugged MrRichard999 to help me learn how to begin doing at least a translation of the item names is because in the installation folder of the game all of the files are unpacked. There is literally a file called ITEMS.DAT in the games' folder. If you open that file inside a hex editor with a japanese Table (i'll link the japanese table in a second) you see the list of items. Seriously, that's the entire reason I got interested in this stuff: because the files were already named and sorted. There was a .DAT file for SPELLS, one for MONSTERS, etc.
In the case of the PSP games I had the roadblock of not having access to the direct files inside the .BINs so instead I had been doing what I personally call brute-force hex-editing or what should be called "retarded monkey editing"; which is editing the .BIN file itself without extracting all of the multiple folders inside of it first. It's POSSIBLE to achieve a translation like that, but it ain't likely.
The final thing you need in order to view the japanese characters in any file is a SHIFT-JIS table:
SHIFT-JIS table download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/van54gc6zqiuzoi/SHIFT-JIS-REGULAR.TBL?dl=0
Richard gave that one to me and it's perfect. I can't thank him enough. Without that you're not going to be able to see the japanese characters in any file.
So... that's basically it at least as far as text-translation goes. I tagged Richard so he can chime in if he wants to. As for me? I'll finish up text-translating Wizardry Empire 1 for PC (should be done in 2 weeks or so, perhaps less) and I'll be using Google translate for the dialog. I'll probably end up re-writing a lot of the dialog myself too. Does this matter? No. Does it matter to other people than me? Yes. In the case of Wiz Emp 1 i don't give a shit cos it has stupid dialog to begin with. A literal google translation with some human thought put into stringing together coherent sentences is more than enough for a dungeon crawling game like that.
In the case of Elminage 2 when and if i get to the point where I already google-translated the list stuff, i.e. item lists, monster lists, etc, and it comes time to the dialog i'll be bugging Helly to translate it. I might even end up paying real USD money to have the Elminage 2 script translated by a translation server; that's how much I love the Elminage series.
So at the moment I can't really think of anything else to add really. If anyone actually decides to read this and downloads the utilities mentioned and has any questions please, PLEASE, post everything HERE in this thread and we'll help each other out. For example one of the handiest utilities in WindHex32 is dumping the contents of the file you're hex-editing into a .txt file, for obvious reasons. You can do that by pressing F10 or using the program's Toolbar. That's one example of something someone might ask when using a hex-editor for the first time and is looking at a japanese file for the first time.
Remember to always load the SHIFT-JIS table after loading the japanese game file; otherwise the japanese characters won't show up. How do you load the SHIFT-JIS table? Scroll up again and look at pic 1, and notice in the toolbar where it says TBL. In the case of WindHex32 it's under "File" in the toolbar. It'll become second nature after a while; first fire up the hex editor -> open the game file you want to hex-edit -> load the japanese SHIFT-JIS table.
what i'm describing in this post is basically what one calls a best case scenario in terms of editing a japanese games' files. if you're unluckly the game you want to translate will NOT have everything sorted and listed with obvious file names that tell you specifically what's inside the file (spell.dat, itmcsv.bin, etc). Once again, any questions bring them to this thread and we'll see what we can do.
(by the way, MrRichard999, this also means I can translate the entirety of Wizardry Empire 3 for PSP. all that i need to do is figure out a .bms script to extract the umddata.bin that's 70mb's. i already have a few ideas concerning this, btw.)
oh! almost forgot: whenever you dump a japanese file's contents into a .txt file (such as the npc dialog; in the case of elminage 2 all of the npc dialog is inside the SCP.BIN, and in the case of Wiz-Emp 1 it's inside NPC.WZA. You can either extract the contents from the files or hex-edit the files themselves: sometimes you get lucky (you can hex-edit translate/script dump NPC.WZA, for example, without any problems whatsoever but in the case of Elminage 2 it's better to first extract everything from the SCP.BIN so you can have all of the game dialog sorted out).
anyway, once you have the file loaded in your hex-editor, shift-jis tbl loaded, and you're looking at an endless ream of japanese characters that are the game's dialog what you do is you dump everything into a text file. (function is obviously in the hex-editor's toolbar). Once that is dumped you need a text-viewer that has search and replace functions, ability to load a SHIFT-JIS table, and ability to program macros. (to automate process of ordering the dialog lines into paragraphs and such).
the best free one is Notepad++. I won't provide the link cos you can just google it and download it. Notepad++ is VERY powerful text editor and its macro functions and search/replace functions are top-notch.
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