ROM Hack [Help] Translating a game

[Asker]

Hi all,
Ive just started translating an nds rom yesterday and still figuring out how this thing works. This is my first time working on translating, and I have tons of questions to ask. So, please bear with me. Ive read several guide on www.romhacking.net and still confused on most of the things.
Basically, I extract the rom using DsLazy. Then I look for the script folder.
My first problem:
Ive read somewhere that script files are in .bin format, but in the game im going to translate the script files are in .DAT format, are these script files? Is NDS script file have various format?


Next I tried to open the script file with WindHex. Ive used Shift-JIS table and unicode settings. But the problem is not all of the script files have the dialouge within it,
some files only give me this:

So I was wondering, does the script folders contain all the in game script? or are the script scattered in other folders as well?

Then this is where im currently stuck in, how to dump the script @.@??
Ive tried to save it to txt and open in NJSTar, but no luck. The text didnt display as japanese characters but some alien text that I dont understand @.@??
Ive also noticed that WindHex has the Dump text option. Is this used to dump the text? If so, can anybody tell me how to? and what is 'start offset' and 'end offset'?

PS: There is one file that I manage to save as a file and succesfuly opened in NJStar, but only this file, not other files @.@
I noticed that the one that cant be saved have the b-xxx.a thing before and after the dialogue, are these the one that make the file cant be saved?



What is the FFFFFF thing that kept showing up? I thought 00 stands for . ? Coz the FF and 00 thing didnt show up on the SHIFT-JIS table @.@

So, help anyone? @.@

 

[shadowmanwkp]

I'm not really experienced with translation hacking, but I have played around with windhex a bit to help you out.

First off, a rom does not need to use a specific file type to contain the script. In fact *.bin and *.dat files are pretty generic file types. they can contain about anything. The best thing you can do is look at which folder they're in and how they're named. I've once found lua files in a rom, which a very simple scripting format, I really laughed out loud when I saw it, because lua is a very simple scripting language it is really rare that you see that used in games.

Second, you have to use a relative search first to find a word and then convert that to a table. Files that contain a script usually do not follow the common encoding, so you need to find a word that is said a lot in the game. For example, the name Ganon in zelda games. If you find the same word several times with the same hex value, you can create a table from that. If done the right way, you can usually get a lot of legible text out of the file. If it won't work, pick a new word, rinse and repeat. Trust me, it makes things way less complicated.

Third, to dump a script, windhex needs to know where you want to start with dumping and where you would like to end. These points are called offsets. Offsets are basically bookmarks that you can use to find a certain line in a file. If you look at the left side of the screen, you can see some values, these are the offsets in a file. So if you get some legible text, just type in the first and last offsets and you can save the file. You can also remember some offsets for later use to easily jump to a certain part in the file.

Lastly, the 00 and FF values are USUALLY just some filler space. They don't serve a purpose and hackers usually use this space to insert data. However, because you don't know if the game searches for these blank spaces it's usually not advisable to alter it, unless you know for certain it won't break the rom.

 

[Phoenix Goddess]

I believe this is Will O' Wisp DS.

Anyway, the majority, if not all of the script files in this game are .dat, not .bin. They're decompressed already, so I don't believe the issue is the compression.

You may need to practice your romhacking skills, but some of the files in the script folder won't contain any script and some of the files contain two different codings, which is what the programmer may have to take a look at.

If I recall, the first six files of both script folders are non-script files.

If you're doing a translation of Will O' Wisp, then I'll scratch it from Gokusaishiki's translation list.

Good luck!

 

[shadowmanwkp]

You may need to practice your romhacking skills
Good luck!

Ah nearly forgot, if you would like to practice on some hacking, you might want to hack some English nes games. They're generally a lot easier to hack than Japanese ds games, but you do get familiar with the interface of the program. It also helps a lot that there is a lot of documentation on nes roms, so if you get stuck, you can read up on it and go on without help. This way you can also learn a few tricks that you can use while hacking ds roms.

 

[Asker]

thx for the quick reply

@shadowmanwkp : thx alot , now i can dump the script XD
ooh ic, so this 00 and FF will be used if the text space is not enough?

@phoenixgoddess27: how can u guess? O.O eh u guys are doing this game translation too?
well, im new in this stuffs, so i still dont know im capable in translating it completely x.x there are still lots of things that i need to learn

 

[Phoenix Goddess]

You may need to practice your romhacking skills
Good luck!

Ah nearly forgot, if you would like to practice on some hacking, you might want to hack some English nes games. They're generally a lot easier to hack than Japanese ds games, but you do get familiar with the interface of the program. It also helps a lot that there is a lot of documentation on nes roms, so if you get stuck, you can read up on it and go on without help. This way you can also learn a few tricks that you can use while hacking ds roms.


Indeed, I forgot to mention this, thanks for doing so!

QUOTE(Asker @ May 2 2011, 05:01 AM)

thx for the quick reply

@shadowmanwkp : thx alot , now i can dump the script XD
ooh ic, so this 00 and FF will be used if the text space is not enough?

@phoenixgoddess27: how can u guess? O.O eh u guys are doing this game translation too?
well, im new in this stuffs, so i still dont know im capable in translating it completely x.x there are still lots of things that i need to learn

I must've taken a look inside the game a billion times.
If you keep up with the practice things will get easier. Just know it takes quite a while to learn.

 

[Asker]

another question, is there a program that can dump script faster? I found that dumping the script manually takes lots of time.
I heard that cartographer does the job, but i cant get it running for some reason.
I kept getting:



@shadowmanwkp : thx for the suggestion XD i might use it as references when i got stuck

@phoenixgoddess27 : cool, so guys are those group translating tokimeki ?XD

 

[jjjewel]

A few info/tutorial for general Idea Factory games' here. (I don't have much info for Will'o Wisp's scripts but you can read info for other games for some idea. I do have the graphic formats explanation for this game though.)

https://sites.google.com/site/otomegameguid...nfo/will-o-wisp
https://sites.google.com/site/otomegameguide/hacking-info

 

[rastsan]

EMeditor general purpose writer. You do have to pay for the version I will be talkign about. Open the file(s) in emeditor. File - reload - and select your codepage. Why are you doing this? so you can cut out the crap you don't need from the file and keep the stuff you need/ by either just leaving it or cutting and pasting it to another file. In case of the two different types of encodings I usually cut and paste then reload in the other codepage. Now If it is one of those games with a custom codetable then this method is pretty much useless and you will have to ocr (optical character recognition - software that scans images for text and outputs in some form)- the graphic font to make a table to help with decoding the script (but I don't think thats your case). anyways good luck.

strange no mention of CT2...

 

[andrescat]

try whit a shift jis table or a using notepad ++
in notepad ++ click
codification-the 6xt option i no record the name-jap-"shift-jis"
amnd you can read it good luck ^^