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Posted by Cless on 2/7/2012
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This past month or so has been particularly significant for Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut, and I have almost
nothing but good news.
Almost all of the work has been focused on the project's backend, which has been the highest priority for me
since the hiatus ended. I thought it would be prudent to get as much of the backend stuff out of the way so that
this project will become more organized and streamlined than it was before. The way things are presently going,
it's not impossible that we could soon reach a point where the only thing to worry about is the translation and
editing.
Even since around the time the hiatus began, it was very apparent that some approaches to things were dated by
design and rather inefficient. The main script in particular is basically an unapproachable mess of duplicated
conversations and debug messages when decoded straight into standard text. And that script is divided
among 1080 or so plain text files, which is as wieldy as it sounds. The tool mentioned in December's
update is our answer to this insanity, and the more major things it does (or soon will do) are as follows:
- Converts and combines the plain-text script dump into several dozen spreadsheets. Fewer files to work on has
a psychological effect of looking more approachable. Second, the spreadsheet layout is simply a great deal more
organized. Spreadsheets can then be exported back into plain text for use with the script inserter.
- Duplicated text string filtering. One of the key motivators for this change in format. This defeats a major
chunk of the script's unwieldyness. The filter can be customized to leave very common strings (helpful ones such
as a speaking character's name, and other, very short, but common clauses) intact.
- Automatic translation. Used mostly for things which will never change, like a speaker's name or a
generic NPC's label. Will save a load of keystrokes while keeping
everything consistent.
- Window size calculation and automatic text formatting. Dialogue windows are dynamically sized in this game
based on the longest line. This data is calculated and added to the spreadsheet, and will be used by a text
formatting function to help keep dialogue windows similarly sized to the original.
At this time, text formatting is not yet implemented, but it's the last major thing to add and won't take long
to do. The automatic translation function requires a manually-created input file which isn't quite complete yet.
Most, if not all strings that will benefit from this function have been identified and added to the list, and
it's just a matter of throughhim finding some time in his currently hectic situation to get it finalized
(according to him, it could still be around several weeks before things settle on that front). Once the file's
complete, we'll able to generate a script that's fully prepared for serious translation and editing work.
Besides that, the spreadsheet format is also being used by the skit script, which is already in translatable
form. It just so happens that the skit script is in the same format as the main script, but doesn't need
anywhere near the same level of TLC. throughhim tentatively translated several of the skits, and the skit script
inserter I just recently wrote has been tested with them and works
great.
Things got kind of scary a few weeks ago. When testing a full script reinsertion (testing auto-translate and
such), I noticed some funny stuff happening: Some NPCs wouldn't talk (just face you for a second then turn
back), and then I finally ran into a place that would consistently freeze the game. So I did an investigation,
and yeah, uh...found out this was something that would've been a big blow toward the full patch if it couldn't
be treated. An assembly hack was absolutely necessary to get around this, and I was feeling fortunate to have
been able to to pull it off with what I have. If it couldn't have been fixed, we'd have been forced to grab
a digital butcher knife to do some 8/16-bit era-style hackery to shorten the script. Why the developers
implemented script pointers the way they did just baffles me.
Speaking of assembly hacks, there was another little one I did to fix certain dialogue windows. The dialogue
windows have a few spacing modes available: variable-width, full fixed-width, and hybrid fixed-width (half and
full-widths). If a window is set to use full fixed-width mode, English text ends
up looking wonderful like this. I worked a little bit of ASM magic to
force such windows into using hybrid mode, where English text looks
more like this instead.
See: Before and After.
Finally, one more assembly hack: a simple text compression; a classic known around the translation community as
dual-tile encoding (DTE), where two textual characters can be represented with a single byte. It's honestly not
a terribly necessary hack for the game, but I wanted to challenge myself, and if it worked out, it would at
least enable us to insert all menu text more tidily and not have do any relocation. I'm not really a fan of
relocation if it can be helped. Thus far, I've gotten it fully implemented in two of three known text parsing
routines, but the third one is having problems with one of the objects it handles (descriptions in menus), and
I'm currently looking into another, more difficult method of implementation for it which should get around this
problem.
I've also done a number of other things that are harder to write ongoing text about. But yeah, the backend has
has been coming along very well, and I expect it to continue that way. Once this all gets settled, work should
resume specificially on the menu patch, with work on the full patch able to start immediately afterward.
With the way we're now approaching things, the menu patch could certainly become a better product than
originally planned, since we'll be able to easily include translated puzzle hints,
system messages, and other gameplay-related strings buried within
the script.
Other backend things still to do or look into at the top of my head:
- Get menu text into spreadsheets.
- Find the remaining text yet to be located, and write tools to deal with it.
- Fix Food Strap descriptions in Food Book menu. The game is coded to trim the first line of the food strap
descriptions in this menu, but the information contained on that line in Japanese is a redundant waste of space
in English regardless of menu. I expect a fix to be a quick and easy patch in assembly.
- Cosmetic fixes? Hopefully, but I'm not that confident based on past experiences. However, I do like to think
that I've gotten a little better at this since the last time I looked into this a few years back, so maybe
there's a chance I'll figure something out this time. In particular, I'd like to fix the menu selection labels
on the main menu; the smaller letters droop down further than I think they should.
- Fix the renaming menu? It's an issue that's tough for me to put into words, but basically, the renaming menu
was designed to work with double-byte text characters, and it doesn't exactly play nicely with the single-byte
text characters we're using for the English text. I have some ideas, but I won't know if I can actually do
anything until I have a good look at the assembly code.
Tales of Destiny 2
Still haven't touched this yet. But that's because I want to re-organize this project's backend in the same
manner as I'm doing with Destiny DC.
I would like to get back to this game soon, though. With what I've learned tinkering with Destiny DC, I'm
itching to see if I can implement a variable-width font into this game. It'd be delicious.
Tales of Phantasia
Still stuck at 99% complete. I have been in contact with Habilain and Avarice, whom both are still alive and
well but also still having difficulty finding time to fix the bug and complete the final script proofread; the
two issues primarily holding the release back. I don't have any ETAs.
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Posted by Cless on 12/4/2011
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Let's cut to the chase: The Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut and Tales of Destiny 2 (PS2) projects have officially
been resumed. That's right--the hiatus ends NOW.
What about Tales of Phantasia? Wasn't it supposed to be released before ToD2 and ToD:DC came back into focus?
Indeed...that was the plan. Unfortunately, ToP is basically being held back by the lack of a final script proofread
and a significant bug that crept up which needs squashing. Both of these issues are pretty much out of my hands and I
don't have a clue when the appointed staff members will find the time to address them.
Since I'm essentially out of stuff to do on ToP, and have no idea when the remaining stuff will be turned in, it
simply made more sense to resume the hiatus projects in the interim. As much as everyone is sick of it, completing
ToP is still my number one priority. Whenever that remaining stuff does get turned in, I will go back and have it
finished off for good. Don't panic--there won't be much of anything holding the release back at that point besides
beta testing. A month maximum should be plenty of time to get that out of the way.
At the moment, I'm not necessarily picking up exactly where we left off in 2009 on the ToD:DC menu patch front.
Instead, I am currently focused on coding up a script conversion tool; something to convert the script into a much,
much, much more organized, user-friendly format for throughhim and anyone else who will be attacking the script.
It'll make our lives so much easier. I started getting ideas for it last year, and now I'm making those real, or
even better.
Most of the functionality of this new tool is implemented, but there's still more to do. There are some input files
for it that must be created manually, and I'm trying to work on them in my spare time. It's a pretty slow process as
combing through the entire script carefully at least a few times is necessary. This sort of tool only needs to be
used once, so the output needs to be as perfect as possible. I'm also trying to play through the game for the first
time to get some context on a few things, which, of course, is another time-consuming matter.
And what about ToD2? Well, I have a lot of material to sort out and review. The menu translation was actually
finished soon after the hiatus began, courtesy of tammaiya. I believe she checked the existing translations on top
of filling in the holes. This will need to be checked and edited before the real menu patch can come and replace that
meh-tastic alpha patch some of you guys have been...tolerating?
ToD2's script...has had a big chunk translated, courtesy of Alyx, whom submitted it during summer. Pending review.
Lanyn, known for her translation guide and the translated Youtube video walkthroughs, also joined the translation
team quite a while back, but doesn't appear to be active at this time. The script translator situation needs to be
settled.
Anyway, once I finish the aforementioned script tool for ToD:DC, I will be making a version of it for ToD2 as well.
There's a lot of work to do. Just don't expect it all to happen overnight. One thing at a time.
That's about it for now. Sorry, the tool I'm currently working on doesn't magically create eyecandy for everyone to
drool over, and I'm sure you would all love some after all this time, but just rest assured it'll go a very long way
in helping these projects along. Remember that these games don't need much in the way of internal code modifications
for functional translation patches (unless we run into something completely unexpected), so I don't personally expect
a true repeat of the ToP situation.
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Posted by Cless on 4/29/2011
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The response for a new ToP proofreader has been going pretty well. Better than expected, to be honest. Six interested
people have come forward. With that, I am ending the seeking process.
Next comes preparing a little test for everyone. That should be ready and sent out within the next few days.
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Posted by Cless on 4/15/2011
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*tap* *tap* Hello? Is this thing still working? Okay, good.
While I expect that most people get the news from the forum nowadays, I figured it might be worth posting a new
help wanted ad up here. We're looking for another editor to do the final proofread of all the text in Tales of Phantasia.
nusakan0, the editor that has been with us since mid-2008, has contributed a lot and has helped us out a ton,
which I'm very grateful for. Unfortunately, life appears to have gotten too hectic for him in the past year to
continue working on the project at a steady rate.
At this time, I, along with Sirius9, are busy preparing the final script. I'm a little over halfway done, and fully
expect to be finished within a few weeks (liberal estimate). Sirius is currently a little behind, but she's recovering
from an illness at the moment and should catch up quickly once she's back at 100%.
With nusakan out, we're seeking an English Major or equivalent to do a simple proofread pass at all the text
in the game. The amount of all text in the game is around 850-900KB, which I estimate to be in the neighborhood
of 125,000 words. While we expect spelling and grammar errors to be minimal, typos like missing and repeated words
are very likely (since I commonly make them). Punctuation should be good for the most part, but, you know, how do I
comma. Sometimes, anyway. Creative writing ability isn't terribly important anymore at this stage, but if you have it,
I'd certainly be willing to entertain any input.
I have no idea how successful this news post will be, but I'll try to leave this open to any interested people to
respond for the next week or two. By the end of that, I should have a test script or two prepared.
EDIT: No longer seeking potential proofreaders.
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Posted by Cless on 6/26/2010
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It's been almost a year since this front page was updated, but for those who don't read the forum, we're very
much alive and well. The convenience of forum posting compared to working with this aging site design (which is
essentially still 100% edited by hand and doesn't actually use a database) has taken its toll.
As most major milestones are long past, it's also become difficult to decide what, if any, Tales of Phantasia news
is actually worth posting here. In a nutshell, there have been some new hacks applied, and a couple more editing
drafts for the main script have been written (and it's starting to look so good now that I'm really seeing some light
at the end of this long tunnel). For more details on these updates, read the ToP news forum.
I have also started a new thread on the ToP news forum
with the goal of opening up to the public more by showing off a detailed to-do list of things leading up to the release
of the final patch, as well as posting quick micro updates about happenings to get a feel for our progress.
As Tales of Phantasia is still not yet finished, Tales of Destiny Director's Cut and Tales of Destiny 2 projects are
likewise still on hiatus. Though with Absolute Zero being almost finished with Tales of Innocence, throughhim413
will almost certainly be back and hacking away at Destiny DC text shortly after release. I've also gotten some ideas
to help streamline these projects more when I return to them in full capacity.
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