ROM Hack Increasing font size

escequi

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So, i can't read those stupid speech texts properly on my o3ds (yea too poor to actually get an XL), so i'm trying to increase the font size a little bit, i got to decrypt and extract the romFS, and the files are compressed by lzip (i'll create an linux VM to decompress those), but i'm not really sure what file i should look into to increase the font size? There is a folder called fonts, with xxx.bfnt.lz, after decompressing it will be .bfnt, right? How do i edit those? And are the font sizes supposed to be stored on this files?
 

evandixon

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i'm supposed to use, but if i use it's actually worse than not using it (everything looks wierd :P)
I think one of two things is going on here:
-You're not used to them, in which case you should wear them anyway so it won't look weird.
-Your prescription is outdated, in which case you should see your eye doctor.
 

Duo8

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If they're bitmap fonts then it wont be easy. The font renderer the game uses might not be able to do that w/o editing.
 

escequi

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I think one of two things is going on here:
-You're not used to them, in which case you should wear them anyway so it won't look weird.
-Your prescription is outdated, in which case you should see your eye doctor.
Yea, i've been using glasses my whole life (i was born with cataract) and after surgery it wasn't just a question of not being used to them (like i've changed glass a dozen times, it is different), i just can't stand using them, it's fucking worse than actually forcing my eyes to read. I've also changed prescription twice, i'm not really into spending any more into it, like the surgery's installments as still coming on due, so,... (and like i said, i'm poor).
Maybe in like 2 years or so i'll try glasses again, but for now i'm good...

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

If they're bitmap fonts then it wont be easy. The font renderer the game uses might not be able to do that w/o editing.
Meh, guess i won't be playing fire emblem then, since its .bfnt it's probable that the b stands for bitmap right? And well, editing anything other than basic shit is out of my reach :P Do you know if bravely default is easier to edit those?
 
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FAST6191

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Yeah very few games on any device use vector fonts like a PC. I have some experience making things (or at least the background work) for hard of sight people wanting to use emulators (usually using a lua sporting emulator and exporting the script to an external text window/reader/text to voice/whatever) but changing the font size on a console game is often a tricky prospect that should only be done if it is truly unreadable for everybody*. Some games are not so bad but if you also have to edit line breaks or expand the text area used on the screen to compensate then the work needed starts adding up very quickly.

*if it is a case of the original game has a nice size but fancy serif sporting font and you could instead read a nice clean sans font then we can talk.

Option 2. What about kicking it old school and having a magnifier?

Option 3. Gamefaqs and such places will often have script dumps. Anything like that for the games you want to play?
 

escequi

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Yeah very few games on any device use vector fonts like a PC. I have some experience making things (or at least the background work) for hard of sight people wanting to use emulators (usually using a lua sporting emulator and exporting the script to an external text window/reader/text to voice/whatever) but changing the font size on a console game is often a tricky prospect that should only be done if it is truly unreadable for everybody*. Some games are not so bad but if you also have to edit line breaks or expand the text area used on the screen to compensate then the work needed starts adding up very quickly.

*if it is a case of the original game has a nice size but fancy serif sporting font and you could instead read a nice clean sans font then we can talk.

Option 2. What about kicking it old school and having a magnifier?

Option 3. Gamefaqs and such places will often have script dumps. Anything like that for the games you want to play?
Firstly i'd like to say that my vision is not that fucked up, i mean, i can read normally on my computer (well, not normally, but it's actually good enough so i can almost read as fast as speaking if the fonts aren't that small) with 100% size (no zoom), and for books, if they're not those with stupid small fonts or those prints with 2 pages in one, i can read those too (but i usually try to get an ebook and read on my tablet with a bit of zoom, which is basically why i bought one).
So yea, i can see it should take alot of work if you can't just increase the font size by simply changing an variable (like vector scales or something) and well, since you said it would probably be used by a very few people i can see no one would do it :P Tbh the games i'm havin trouble with (from which i've tried) are Fire Emblem (i can read the dialogs, but i gotta force my eyes too much, and in basically 10 minutes i can't play it anymore), bravely default (i've basically only watched the intro movie, like wtf, they make the font so small and white, i can't even read it in time with dark background, and when it changes to more brighter background i can't read shit) and Zelda Ocarina of Time (i can also read the dialogs if i force, but it's just not fast like speaking and it also fucks up in no time). Why do they have to do the font so small? Like, in bravely default for exemple, making them bigger would have no impact at all, there is space for it...
About the magnifier, i've actually not tried those, it should kinda suck (besides it would also take one hand), but might be better than forcing my eye and since like you said it's fucked up to edit, i guess i might try those if i can find mine (haven't used in like 10 years, lol)
I couldn't really find the text scripts for bravely default, and for fire emblem there is actually a buttom where the script is shown on bottom screen (with dark background, which makes it easier to read), so i can work something with that (still kinda small, but i guess it's better than the normal text box)
 

FAST6191

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On the magnifier I was thinking more like

These days with lit screens (and proper LEDs to put in the down lights) then it should be better than it was for those old things, however I have not really paid attention to the accessories market.

As for why game devs do what they do... I have no idea. It seems very few people have a proper appreciation for fonts though, much less those that might do well for those with less than perfect sight.
 

escequi

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On the magnifier I was thinking more like

These days with lit screens (and proper LEDs to put in the down lights) then it should be better than it was for those old things, however I have not really paid attention to the accessories market.

As for why game devs do what they do... I have no idea. It seems very few people have a proper appreciation for fonts though, much less those that might do well for those with less than perfect sight.

Oh, you mean those... Not sure if there are any for 3ds, i might look out... And yea, this also happens on most new computer games, every year it passes they make the stupid UI and fonts smaller, like, wtf... Atleast my computer is so bad it only supports up to 1280x1024, this + a 19" monitor and i can play most games (some games like new mmos such as archeage and tera, and games like pillars of eternity though, i can't read shit :P)
 

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The primary reason devs use bitmaps for fonts it complete control over the appearance. Fonts don't usually play well with surfaces and get jagged and ugly looking, or don't scale correctly. If the text is just an image just like any other image in the game they can control what it looks like.

Once the font is drawn to a surface it's no longer a font.

I have made a couple small games, and working with fonts is a pain in the ass.

Making a sprite sheet from a font is not hard there are multiple programs to do that, I just don't know about getting said sheet it to the correct format for the game, that's what, you would need to figure out.
 
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escequi

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The primary reason devs use bitmaps for fonts it complete control over the appearance. Fonts don't usually play well with surfaces and get jagged and ugly looking, or don't scale correctly. If the text is just an image just like any other image in the game they can control what it looks like.

Once the font is drawn to a surface it's no longer a font.

I have made a couple small games, and working with fonts is a pain in the ass.

Making a sprite sheet from a font is not hard there are multiple programs to do that, I just don't know about getting said sheet it to the correct format for the game, that's what, you would need to figure out.
Since it's a sprite sheet, i suppose it something like every x pixels is an letter, right? So making them bigger would be a problem with the fixed amount of pixels is too small?
 

FAST6191

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Depends upon the game. Roman character set using languages vary in width (ijl vs wmH) where Japanese does not really vary, to say nothing of the lack of descenders (jy and f in some fonts) . This means games made in Japan are often a fixed width in font and yeah you can probably set your tile viewer to the right width and see it all there. Better programmed games, or possibly just those using the SDK font handler, will use a so called variable width font which has some manner (usually a bit table) saying what width each character is and the text handler will add things up and position accordingly. Either way it can still pose an issue as a game might not automatically wrap lines (Japanese devs have long done it manually and that goes into games when the come out of Japan) or even if it does auto wrap lines you might then end up with more lines than the display has set aside for it.
Text colours, text shadows, text borders, text write speed/time on screen, the actual character inside the box the font knows, the size of an individual box or two, adding a new character, possibly some vertical sizing and some other things are all quite doable. Changing the horizontal width of a font is a far more daunting prospect if you had a full script you also have to account for.
 

escequi

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Depends upon the game. Roman character set using languages vary in width (ijl vs wmH) where Japanese does not really vary, to say nothing of the lack of descenders (jy and f in some fonts) . This means games made in Japan are often a fixed width in font and yeah you can probably set your tile viewer to the right width and see it all there. Better programmed games, or possibly just those using the SDK font handler, will use a so called variable width font which has some manner (usually a bit table) saying what width each character is and the text handler will add things up and position accordingly. Either way it can still pose an issue as a game might not automatically wrap lines (Japanese devs have long done it manually and that goes into games when the come out of Japan) or even if it does auto wrap lines you might then end up with more lines than the display has set aside for it.
Text colours, text shadows, text borders, text write speed/time on screen, the actual character inside the box the font knows, the size of an individual box or two, adding a new character, possibly some vertical sizing and some other things are all quite doable. Changing the horizontal width of a font is a far more daunting prospect if you had a full script you also have to account for.
Cool, thanks for taking your time explaning (tbh i don't know shit about programming, just really basic shit as i've used some lue for tibia bots, but thats it. Reading some code and making changes on the fly is not that hard, as you can just google the correct syntax and write around it, but more complicated stuff like those are out of my reach :P)
 

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