Hacking Final Fantasy Type-0 RomHacking

[SkyBladeCloud]

I've delegated Hakurou to start on translating main scenario cutscene dialogue stuff by request.

Edit: I would also like to compile a list of Team staff for future reference.

Manager: NSRSM ,Me, the lamest of them all
Programmer:SkyBladeCloud
Translators: Hakurou,Artistan,GuardianSoul
Proofreaders: coredecepts,earlynovfan

Am I missing anyone?

I was told earlier today that a GAF moderator might join us soon, we'll see...

BTW Let's code a little bit xD https://join.me/781-087-933

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[ShinobiMuramasa]

Thanks for the link Sky, I'll be checking it out!

 

[NSRSM]

Okay current full list of staff.


Manager: NSRSM ,Me, the lamest of them all
Programmer:SkyBladeCloud
Translators: Hakurou,Artistan,GuardianSoul,Dunan,Aeana,Lucas
Proofreaders: coredecepts,earlynovfan

Dunan has been doing the recent translations I posted earlier. Aeana is the one who will be joining sooner or later, and Lucas is my old team leader who should be sending me stuff soon.

Edit: Some guy on NeoGAF confronted me about talking to him about the project for a Kotaku Story, I require your thoughts on the matter.

 

[SkyBladeCloud]

Yup, IMO we should do it, I mean, as long as translators don't give up, I'll make sure the project can be perfectly completed. It's been a long time since I wanted to do this translation, but the lack of interest (and the fact that I don't speak Japanese), made me put it on hold xD.

Also, I would like to know the current state of the graphics to translate, not to rush or anything (the opposite! xD), it's just that, I wanted to finish the merging tools before moving on into image reinsertion, but that may stall you guys if they are ready to be reinserted...

...

 

[NSRSM]

Yup, IMO we should do it, I mean, as long as translators don't give up, I'll make sure the project can be perfectly completed.

Also, I would like to know the current state of the graphics to translate, not to rush or anything (the opposite! xD), it's just that, I wanted to finish the merging tools before moving on into image reinsertion, but that may stall you guys if they are ready to be reinserted...

...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah73AuuCJjQvdEJKMDU2eG5LSG55OGU0Y2FKejZZT0E#gid=0

Everything is done except the ones that might be animated and conflict somewhere so we are pretty much ready for insertion of what the current toolset you made was able to give us for editing material.

Short Answer: Everything is done.

 

[SkyBladeCloud]

Alright, I'll have another week, if the merging tools aren't ready by next week, I'll code the required image reinsertion tools. In the meantime...

-Can anyone confirm both fonts (the bigger one, used during the story events, and the small one, for menus and other misc. texts) are the same? (have the same characters in the same order).
-If they are, can you guys start converting them to TXT?

That txt will be the encoding descriptor used to decode the in-game text. It must have all characters in the correct order. If there is a character missing, all the next characters will have the wrong code and the extracted script won't be readable/editable.
In the text extraction tool, this TXT will be read from a separate file so it can be easily modified by translator in case something is wrong with it.

@The rest of the team:

Please tell us what do you think about the story in Kotaku.

~Sky

 

[Hakurou]

Not too sure what to think about having a story on Kotaku... May either attract good attention or bad attention...

 

[CrashmanX]

Not too sure what to think about having a story on Kotaku... May either attract good attention or bad attention...

I imagine good attention. I'm rather doubtful SE would give you and C&D if they've been refusing to comment on an English release thus far.
However be warned, if the Kotaku Article links back here, you're gonna have a SWARM of people posting asking questions.

 

[NSRSM]

Depends on the questions. I suppose we can always request to remain anonymous.

 

[Artistan]

I'll check the fonts here and verify order in a bit...after dinner.

Edit: Story on Kotaku? ...depends I guess.

 

[RikuCrafter]

Have you guys got your own website?

I think a kotaku article would be good because it would reach more people, but absolute crap in terms of unnecessary publicity.

 

[NSRSM]

No website. My opinion would be to decline. But that's me.

 

[Hakurou]

No website. My opinion would be to decline. But that's me.

Seconded.

 

[joegoku]

I imagine good attention. I'm rather doubtful SE would give you and C&D if they've been refusing to comment on an English release thus far.
However be warned, if the Kotaku Article links back here, you're gonna have a SWARM of people posting asking questions.

Yeah, I have to agree with this. If too many people find out about this thread it will be crowded soon. Would be good at the end of the project (if nothing much has to be done). That would be a promotion and a good suprise for many people^^. That's my opinion, not even being a member of that project . There are people who pressure others, not on purpose thou, but it's ur freetime. Some people don't understand that. I saw something like that many times. ^^

Edit: cordecepts, we cracked the board, we have both the same numbers xD #234

 

[coredecepts]

I'd prefer not to advertise right now. I'd be open to it later, when we have a better idea of when we'll finish.

I think a story right now would just bring us a ton of unwanted attention.

 

[NSRSM]

I think the best decision would be to decline. I'd rather pull the old "bam it is completed, enjoy peons". More or less.

 

[NSRSM]

I think the best decision would be to decline. I'd rather pull the old "bam it is completed, enjoy peons". More or less.

I've reached my decision. I'm going to decline and hold off until this project is completed. I feel we will feel more focused without the publicity. And I've never was one for publicity anyway. I think this is the best course of action.

This is probably me being selfish but I really think this could go both ways and I'd rather not deal with it. Because I know from experience we'll likely get the old "when's the release date" routine. And I wouldn't be giving one out.

 

[Artistan]

Here's my discovery with the fonts.

• The two font image is not a 100% match. Some section matches on both font file, however there are some character missing from each other or positioned on different location/order on the image vice-versa.
• Kanji character order seems to be by usage. If it's used in the game, it's appended to the end of the image. But again, there are some character missing from each other or positioned on different location/order on the image vice-versa.
• Character encoding on the game could possibly be independent from location on the image file; if not, then big and small font could have a different encoding. This is just my speculation. Sky, what do you think?

That is all.

 

[SkyBladeCloud]

Here's my discovery with the fonts.

• The two font image is not a 100% match. Some section matches on both font file, however there are some character missing from each other or positioned on different location/order on the image vice-versa.
• Kanji character order seems to be by usage. If it's used in the game, it's appended to the end of the image. But again, there are some character missing from each other or positioned on different location/order on the image vice-versa.
• Character encoding on the game could possibly be independent from location on the image file; if not, then big and small font could have a different encoding. This is just my speculation. Sky, what do you think?

That is all.

Now that's.. interesting at least the big font describes the story text encoding. And since misc texts use the same decoding routine, I had assumed both fonts should be the same. There is another possibility... Remember the asm I posted some posts ago? It does pretty much the following:

-Read byte "character"
-Is this byte a flag?
***No -> "start position" = 0
***Yes -> read "character" + "start position"
-Position in font = "start position" + "character"

There is a table of start positions in the executable, they point to the start of hira, latin, numbers, some kanjis, etc...; this way, having one byte per character, the game can address the entire font (just reading an extra flag and position every now and then). This scheme supports direct uppercase conversion, and in theory it could support multiple fonts (using different start positions, and the same text).

That's how I think it woks BECAUSE The 3º Birthday used that system (I was a programmer for it's Spanish translation), and it uses the same engine as Type-0 (even the FSD-PKG structure is the same lol). But then again, T3B had one single font (positions were used only to convert a given text to uppercase).

~Sky

 

[earlynovfan]

Alright, another week has passed. Time to spend an hour proofreading.

It's crazy how far we have come with this!

 

[earlynovfan]

Update on my Proofreading Document