Hacking Edit text in a .wad?

[bluetailsfox11]

Hi, all, I'm new-ish to making/editing .wads, so bear with me here.

I am attempting to edit Japanese text in a Japan-only channel, and translate it to English. My problem is that I don't know where to find such a thing.
I've cracked open as many .app files as I can, and I do find icons that I can edit, but no text.
For example, as soon as the channel is started, it prints what I believe to be something like "Connecting to servers..." in Japanese. I have yet to find this as a .tpl or anything. So, my assumption is that it is just printed on the screen. But where do I find that string to edit it into English? Is there a program for that?

Thanks in advance.

 

[FAST6191]

Without knowing what it is then there is not a lot of specific advice which can be given.

Anyway text can appear as plain on ascii/unicode/shiftJIS/euc-jp..., something completely custom or even as graphics within a ROM. It could be compressed (many files in wads using a compression format called u8, hence older wad unpacking tools tending to be bundled with a program called u8tool) or otherwise obscured and there are many other things -- ROM hacking is a fairly broad subject for a reason. While I then can't rule out a problem being somewhere to allow edits it is more likely you will have to build your own or use a more general purpose tool and guide it such that it displays the text.

https://code.google.com/archive/p/libwiisharp/downloads has tools for unpacking wad files, I think they are still the suggested ones.

 

[bluetailsfox11]

Without knowing what it is then there is not a lot of specific advice which can be given.

Anyway text can appear as plain on ascii/unicode/shiftJIS/euc-jp..., something completely custom or even as graphics within a ROM. It could be compressed (many files in wads using a compression format called u8, hence older wad unpacking tools tending to be bundled with a program called u8tool) or otherwise obscured and there are many other things -- ROM hacking is a fairly broad subject for a reason. While I then can't rule out a problem being somewhere to allow edits it is more likely you will have to build your own or use a more general purpose tool and guide it such that it displays the text.

https://code.google.com/archive/p/libwiisharp/downloads has tools for unpacking wad files, I think they are still the suggested ones.

Upon rereading I see how broad I am. Sorry!

The channel is the Demae Channel.

I do know about U8 archives. There are only two I have been unable to unpack, with Sharpii and with Showmiiwads. They are 000001.app and 0000009.app. I know that 00002.app has more .arc files that contain many of the icons. What I'm currently looking for is the rest of the text, UNLESS those text files are image files or one of the formats you suggested.

Is it possible that it could be edited with a hex editor? That is the only thing I haven't thought of thus far.

 

[FAST6191]

You can cut your lawn with a set of nail clippers.

In much the same way you can use a hex editor -- it is a tool which by definition by can edit any part of the file to be any other hex value. How easy it is to do such a thing will vary dramatically between games/files/formats, though it tends away from easy until pointlessly convoluted for most things. I often see new hackers look at them as much more than they really are and I fear this may be that again. I do often use one as my first pass at a game, I do often use one to make changes, I do often use one to infer things about a game/format and it can appear quite rapid but if it was my only tool I would not be hacking -- sizes, data types, scanning methods, file names, elimination, corruption and more before we even consider actually disassembling/debugging a game.

Anyway
About 6:20 in



Most things there I can see being text, though as graphics is also an option for some of that so I can't rule it out.

According to https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=Demae_Channel its functionality has been disabled though, hopefully enough of it works or you have a means of bypassing it to do it. That said if you have a means of bypassing it then whatever that acts upon will also probably call the message or be part of that chain so look at that.