Question regarding translations

[jemand69]

Hey there,

recently, there seem to be more and more partial and full translations for a lot of games, but I am completely in the dark as to what is commonly used for the translation process. I am asking because I feel like if there are no good and consistent translation tools used, a single game patch can screw up the whole translation patch and all of a sudden, all of the previous work has been for nothing. If there are great programs to prevent this, it'd be great if you guys could point me in the right direction to find them.

Regards

 

[Seipher]

Re: Question regarding translations

RPG Maker XP/VX/VXAce has its own creator/editor we do partials with
Wolf RPG Games has its own creator/editor as well.

as for any other games, i have no idea.

 

[jemand69]

Re: Question regarding translations

RPG Maker XP/VX/VXAce has its own creator/editor we do partials with
Wolf RPG Games has its own creator/editor as well.

as for any other games, i have no idea.

How is the basic procedure when a new game version is released then? A big copy and paste, hoping there was no new text or what exactly do most people do in that case?

 

[Seipher]

Re: Question regarding translations

Not sure exactly, theres RPG Maker Translator from one of the guys on here that supposidly helps update and not have to start from scratch, but i havent tested it fully yet cause ive not found one ive done thats been updated.

Some updates are just minor bug fixes, so you could just keep things like Actor/Skills/enemies/items/armors/weapons etc and only have to redo just the script file or common events.

really depends on what gets updated.

 

[Yugifan3]

Re: Question regarding translations

Yeah as Seipher said, sometimes its just updates to Maps, Scripts or Common Event. It takes a little time to switch over the translations, but it is possible.
And sometimes creators say what they fixed so easy to know what to update.

As for how i translate?
Magic!


Okay, no , i just use Rpg Maker needed for the game, i then hook the game with AGTH in order to find the text in Scripts/Common Events,then it's simply translate all of database while i check so it doesn't get any errors. Course, even i miss stuff, so i gotta update my partials. Depends on the error,
like Treasure Hunter, that's something i spent alot of time trying to fix. Best solution? Prevent players from replicating it by removing status. Sure, easy fix, but it works for now until they fix it.

 

[Bark]

Re: Question regarding translations

Well, there are some tools for some game engines to unpack und repack data, including game text. Which then could be translated by using CAT (computer assisted translation) tools or any other means.

Regarding the RPG Maker Engine(s), for example:

You must be registered to see the links

http://www.ulmf.org/bbs/showthread.php?t=26492

For certain other engines, especially VN engines:

You must be registered to see the links

However, as far as I know, they are not widely used. Most translations are done for RPG Maker games - and people just edit the game files within the engine... hmm.

Though it should be mentioned that the RPG Maker translation tools mentioned above are often incompatible with more complex games.

Don't how how Dargoth manages his translations, but considering every version update for MGQ Paradox seems to be ahassle, he probably just uses copy and paste as well.

 

[Yugifan3]

Re: Question regarding translations

Hm, ill have to check out that Language File System Script.
Thanks for the Share Bark. Have a Scooby Snack!

 

[jemand69]

Re: Question regarding translations

I originally asked because i wanted to know if there is any widely used tool to keep track of translated whole sentences so that if a new version were to be released (lets say 20% more content and all of the text was moved around inside the files), you could just re-apply your translation without any hassle whatsoever. Idk if there is any demand though since I myself dont even do translations, the best I did was proofreading.

 

[Bark]

Re: Question regarding translations

I originally asked because i wanted to know if there is any widely used tool to keep track of translated whole sentences so that if a new version were to be released (lets say 20% more content and all of the text was moved around inside the files), you could just re-apply your translation without any hassle whatsoever. Idk if there is any demand though since I myself dont even do translations, the best I did was proofreading.

As said above, extracting the text and using a CAT tool (which normally includes a so-called "translation memory", which does exactly what you're asking for) is probably the best way.

It would be a huge and unreasonable effort to create a single tool to handle such a task.

 

[habisain]

Re: Question regarding translations

It would be a huge and unreasonable effort to create a single tool to handle such a task.

Bollocks. It's totally reasonable to create a tool for that task, and I did it. RPGMaker Trans (link in sig) is specifically designed for the scenario "applying a translation to a game which can be in a constant state of change". At this stage it's compatible with about 98% of RPGMaker games (to my knowledge, only Heredocs in Ruby scripts aren't supported, and these are pretty rare).

Some projects using RPGMaker Trans: All translation efforts for Violated Heroine and RyonaRPG, Hyper2k's Akubuki Arena translation, Nerion2's Princess Knight Alicia translation, My (currently incomplete) Lilium Union translation and my VPM demo translation. I know there's more (based on people wanting me to fix bugs in games) but don't know if these have been released publicly yet.

Also note that of these games - VH and RyonaRPG have never had a stable release, yet there's no problem with translating them. Also, both of my patches started out as demo translations. While VPM hasn't yet been released, there was no problem in applying the Lilium Union demo to the full release.

 

[jemand69]

Re: Question regarding translations

Bollocks. It's totally reasonable to create a tool for that task, and I did it. RPGMaker Trans (link in sig) is specifically designed for the scenario "applying a translation to a game which can be in a constant state of change". At this stage it's compatible with about 98% of RPGMaker games (to my knowledge, only Heredocs in Ruby scripts aren't supported, and these are pretty rare).

Some projects using RPGMaker Trans: All translation efforts for Violated Heroine and RyonaRPG, Hyper2k's Akubuki Arena translation, Nerion2's Princess Knight Alicia translation, My (currently incomplete) Lilium Union translation and my VPM demo translation. I know there's more (based on people wanting me to fix bugs in games) but don't know if these have been released publicly yet.

Also note that of these games - VH and RyonaRPG have never had a stable release, yet there's no problem with translating them. Also, both of my patches started out as demo translations. While VPM hasn't yet been released, there was no problem in applying the Lilium Union demo to the full release.

Im happy i didnt start randomly coding a CAT solution even though there is an integrated one already out there. Good thing i asked around. Also, great work with that thing

 

[habisain]

Re: Question regarding translations

Im happy i didnt start randomly coding a CAT solution even though there is an integrated one already out there. Good thing i asked around. Also, great work with that thing

Glad to be of help, I guess.

Although, I know that a lot of people in this thread know about RPGMaker Trans (Yugifan3 used to have a link to a tutorial he wrote for it in his sig), so I don't know why they didn't point it out earlier, especially given the more obscure/inappropriate tools given! (Inappropriate given that for this application, there are a lot of cases where those tools will not work/give very poor results)

(EDIT: Incidentally, it seems that RPGMaker Trans is the top link when Googling "translating rpgmaker games". Yay! Of course, other links are for really obscure stuff, like Dreamaker - an incredibly old and probably abandoned translation program)

 

[Bark]

Re: Question regarding translations

Yeah, RPGMaker Trans seems to have a number of points going for it. I wonder why I never heard of it before.

 

[habisain]

Re: Question regarding translations

Me being a controversial figure here?

Seriously, that's all I can think of. Lots of people don't like me for my anti-piracy stance

Well, that and while RPGMaker Trans has been around for a while, it's XP/VX/VX Ace support is relatively recent. I think that a lot of people bought RPGMaker as part of the Humble bundle, and this started the translation scene here. Therefore, these people didn't have much of an incentive to use RPGMaker Trans (or rather, they didn't have incentive to look for it - despite all the complaints with their current workflow which RPGMaker Trans can genuinely help with, such as not being able to find stuff lost in common events or whatever, these original translators stuck with the proper RPGMaker tools rather than look for alternatives), and so it hasn't really taken off.

The fact that people tend to distribute binary only patches (i.e. the translated games data folder, as opposed to RPGMaker Trans patches) even when using RPGMaker Trans doesn't help get the word out either, not saying anything about losing one of the advantages of RPGMaker Trans by doing this. I'm expecting that when VPM does come out there should be a big uptick in awareness, because it looks like it'll be a popular game and my translation patches will help spread the knowledge of RPGMaker Trans (as well as being a day-1 minute-1 partial translation).

 

[Yugifan3]

Re: Question regarding translations

Uh, since ive not used RPG Maker Trans for a while now so i'm not sure how it fully works.
But, is it possible for RPG Maker Trans to create a patch that directly patches the rgss3a rather then unpacking it?
What i mean is, atm to patch all your doing is this:
Unpack Rgss2a
Replace Data Folder
What i would like is directly replace the rgss2a rather then unpacking it.
So, you run Rpg Trans program, it patches rgss2a without unpacking it.
Would that be possible habisain?
Again , not used rpg maker trans since i made a guide for it.
And reason i removed from my sig was that the guide is outdated so , i figured there was no point having the link there, but i can advertise for you in my sig if thats what you want. x3

 

[habisain]

Re: Question regarding translations

I'm not complaining about you removing the link to your out of date guide, I'm just curious why RPGMaker Trans didn't come up earlier. Seems that the main reason was that you knew what it was, but not what it was for. Doesn't really matter.

As to the unpacking question: its not implemented yet because of architectural reasons. The framework for RPGMaker Trans is ancient, creaking and not able to support not unpacking the game (well, it could, but it would be catastrophically slow). So the current solutions is the integrated unpacker, which means at the least users don't need additional software to unpack the game to apply the patch.

However, going forward it is a goal to get archive editing to work (so the archive doesn't need to be unpacked). To be clear, a translator will likely need to unpack the game anyway (due to needing to replace graphics etc), but users shouldn't have to.

Other features for new versions include (but not limited to): script insertion, minimised patch exports, customisation of patcher process for heavily customised games (as in games which have modified RPGMaker to the point that the normal editor will no longer work) and support for Heredocs.

 

[Seipher]

Re: Question regarding translations

I did mention RPG Maker Translator in Post #4 though ...

But my only real problem with it, is its a huge wall of text which slows me way down cause i havent tried using it alot. to use to just F4/F5ing and stuff in the editor, but thats just my personal issue.

Then again, ive only tried translating 1 game, that seems to be updating, but i gave up cause it had to many weird things in it, that chiitrans2/agth went stupid with.

 

[habisain]

Re: Question regarding translations

Well, me being a pedant, RPGMaker Translator is not the same as RPGMaker Trans. The difference is important in my mind, because I'm not 100% sure someone would find RPGMaker Trans from the name RPGMaker Translator... you know, given they're two different names and all.

The wall-of-text thing is sort-of an issue. Files can be split up manually to counter it, which helps (I guess), but another 'being worked on' feature (which I believe I mentioned in a PM to you...) is some kind of auto-splitting so that large events etc get their own files etc. Or something to stop the huge walls of text, anyway. But this is lower priority, as it isn't a functionality thing.

 

[Nellis]

Re: Question regarding translations

I try to write out the game as a screenplay first. I use AGTH to hook text, then copy the text dumps into a text file along with a description of the action, the context of lines, location in the game world, etc. Then I leave space under every line for translation and revision.

It's not as efficient than mass dumping text, but it's preferable to flying blind. Translating convoluted script files without proper context is a mess.

 

[habisain]

Re: Question regarding translations

Just as a small point that may address both of the Seipher and Nellis's comments better than my previous post: RPGMaker Trans isn't intended to solve the problem of actually translating things. It's to solve the problem of keeping a translation for games which may change up-to-date. So anyone who says they don't want to use RPGMaker Trans because they don't like the idea of doing a direct translation on mass dumped files is missing the point (heck, I don't work like this; I normally have the game in question running in parallel to what I'm translating).

RPGMaker Trans isn't trying to force any particular workflow on anyone; it's just a patch format, which I would argue is superior to just editing RPGMaker files in the editor (due to the fact it enables very easy migration of a translation to a new version, as well as enabling things like searches across events). Anyone using RPGMaker Trans, or indeed any translation software, should devise the translations in whatever way they feel most comfortable, and then put them into the appropriate target patch (be that RPGMaker Trans, through an editor, whatever).