Hacking Xenoblade menu translation

[ZeForte]

Well, since I got modded for that on GameFAQs, I'll retry here:

I've already done the hacking just for the heck of it, but I'm not very proficient in the Japanese language, which is why I need your help.

Basically, I need someone to translate the text (organized in spreadsheets) I extracted from the game:
(loading times are awfully slow lately, give it time)
http://forte.spacequadrat.de/upload/xb_spreadsheets.rar

What one'd need to do is put the English text into the "... translated" columns. If there's text in the translated columns, it will be used and if there's not, the original Japanese text is used instead.
The files were generated automatically, so there's some weirdness here and there (e.g. BTL_enelist also lists the enemy files as "resource", but there's nothing to translate and that column should be left alone)

Here's what it looks like:
http://forte.spacequadrat.de/upload/xb.png

As you can see, there're some weird space issues. Theoretically, the translated text's length is not limited since my tools are recalculating the pointers, but the text is cut off anyway in some places. I'm sure I could fix it with some serious work, but I'd like to see if there are any willing translators first.

 

[panmusic]

LinkzeroR released an Italian patch here

http://xenoblade.altervista.org/index.html#

Maybe,you should ask him directly these technical matters

Anyway,congrats!!!!!

 

[Linkzeror2]

Great but not include the dialogue.

All the dialogue (cut-scene) script of the game are inside the "map.pkb"
inside, there are every location/place of the game in 3d model, and every one have a script file
always named bdat.bin

all the bdat file have script, but i think is almost 1mb script in total! so huge, no one can translate them..

this game have around 2mb in total, or i think so..

 

[ZeForte]

Thanks, I was wondering where the actual event scripts are.

Now if only I had an actual translator

 

[Linkzeror2]

Thanks, I was wondering where the actual event scripts are.

Now if only I had an actual translator

 

[iamatmylimit]

i think people would accept a small english menu translation even if not complete as the italian one...anything is better than nothing...at least we could play like you said

 

[iamatmylimit]

you know i always wondered if we can get as far as the script of the game why no one has ever used a translating program...im not talking about google translate..im talking about a program where you input the japanese text which is translated into english and then you take all this new english text and input it back into the .arc or where ever that text was stored then use wiiscrubber to zip it back up basically...again not looking for a perfect translation but a translation period..so we can play something...the perfectionist could go back and if he saw english errors then make it perfect cause we know these programs dont translate perfecty but do a good job...i had such a program i think from 2008...ill look through my dvds cause it was a huge file about 1 gig and ill post the name of this program...

 

[Nintendo_Chick]

you know i always wondered if we can get as far as the script of the game why no one has ever used a translating program...im not talking about google translate..im talking about a program where you input the japanese text which is translated into english and then you take all this new english text and input it back into the .arc or where ever that text was stored then use wiiscrubber to zip it back up basically...again not looking for a perfect translation but a translation period..so we can play something...the perfectionist could go back and if he saw english errors then make it perfect cause we know these programs dont translate perfecty but do a good job...i had such a program i think from 2008...ill look through my dvds cause it was a huge file about 1 gig and ill post the name of this program...

Even good translators don't work great with Asian languages, especially in things like games when they have made up words, and not much text at a time, it works much better with longer text. In this case, assuming the Italian translation was done by someone fluent in both languages, it might work better.

 

[iamatmylimit]

i got good news...my method worked as i just tested it...i found the program but got an updated version...anyway i can input japanese text and it will translate it to english and its very accurate...you can input words or paragraphs....i got a good reason why its not good to have a human translate things for you and that reason is theres always descrepencies....someone will say 無敵 means this and another guy will say naw it means this and youll go on forever...the program tells me it means "invincible"......a machine tells you what it knows...a human tells you what he knows as well as what he doesnt know...we guess....machines only state facts....and thats why translations take so long cause the people working on them disagree and "pick"......ill test the accuracy more .

 

[Cyan]

machine only knows facts that flawed humans programmed into it.
I would better trust a program which give many possibilities instead of only one that you would take for granted.

 

[iamatmylimit]

zeforte i already translated one of those xls text you had....took me 5 seconds literally..i will translate everything and send it but this is an example so you can check the accuracy......

 

[ZeForte]

I'm not sure how I feel about machine translations, mostly because the xls you uploaded has hardly any translations at all and just romanization (ベヒモス for example is likely Behemoth, not behimosu) and I'm not settling for that.
I don't think it's a good idea to trade "gibberish" (Japanese for English speakers) into a different kind of gibberish (text in English letters that makes absolutely no sense)

In any case, there's still some technical issues. Some fields have a limit on the character count, even if the actual string is longer (E.g. in the image, the original Japanese for "Critica"(クリティカル率) is 7 characters long as well)
Not everything is affected (ロードしました(7 chars) is translated as "Save game loaded"(16 chars) which is more than double the character count)

 

[Cyan]

???? for example is likely Behemoth, not behimosu

That's why human judgment will always be better than machine "intelligence". (unless they develop their own intelligence and can learn from their environment, and reprogram themselves. Until that, program will depend on human's programming skill).

You should give the pointers and length limitation to your translation program, so that he can choose the best output and abbreviations for all the translation strings in your place. unless it can do that, I'll think it's not a good idea to use a translation program. Without speaking about non translation-able names, like town's and people's names.


Officials and fans games translators are doing a great jobs, even if sometime it's not that easy.
But I still don't understand why developers don't create the games natively in many languages, writing them in all languages (or at least in english) along the game development.
Then they wouldn't have to decide "sorry, we can't localize it now, because translators are working on 3DS launch

".
Sure, they would have to pay translators without knowing if the game will sell well or not, but they don't know if Japanese version will either. that's like paying Japanese translators for nothing too...

 

[Ato Puro]

I just read Xenoblade was confirmed to be realeased as Monado (the original title) in America. Not sure if it shows up a month before or 2 months after Zelda...

Anyway, I can't help with technical details, but there's a walkthrough on YouTube with EN subtitles over the JP ones. This should make translation easier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FiGLGFjCPM

edit:

But I still don't understand why developers don't create the games natively in many languages, writing them in all languages (or at least in english) along the game development.

I still don't understand why there's a region lock. What's the problem of a person buying a game from another continent? Won't they know if the game has a certain appeal to a region, so they lock VG just to know when not to localize [sp?] a game?

 

[Linkzeror2]

Then they wouldn't have to decide "sorry, we can't localize it now, because translators are working on 3DS launch

".
Sure, they would have to pay translators without knowing if the game will sell well or not, but they don't know if Japanese version will either. that's like paying Japanese translators for nothing too...

lol

QUOTE(Ato Puro @ Jan 29 2011, 03:09 PM) I still don't understand why there's a region lock. What's the problem of a person buying a game from another continent? Won't they know if the game has a certain appeal to a region, so they lock VG just to know when not to localize [sp?] a game?

right! i hate region lock too ._.

ANYWAY: News about 2 days ago:

The Monolith Soft RPG has been in a limbo-like "TBA" state for a while, but Nintendo's continual listing of it is better than an outright cancellation. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Nintendo's serious, and didn't just forget to quietly nix its localization plans when nobody was looking.

the game isnt cancelled yet..

we have to wait.. E3 2011..

 

[panmusic]

LinkZeror2,as I understand you do not intend to release an English patch for Xenoblade as it is very time consuming.
But,if a translator wants to do the english menu translation,are you intend to support him by providing some necessary tools?

(The same question applies to Last Story too.)

 

[ZeForte]

Hell, I can provide you tools, namely a way to convert the spreadsheets back into static.arc, which you can insert back into the ISO with Wiiscrubber, although I really want to fix the space issue before I do.

 

[iamatmylimit]

zeforte your right...its because like the girl said some names are made up...even if you asked a person fluent in japanese unless they play videogames they wouldnt have a clue what a behemoth is...we know because we've played the final fantasy's etc.....but a non gamer wouldnt know so the program did give an accurate meaning...here is another and you will see 100% of this .xls is in readable english..it looks like its the menu's but anyway..i wont post anymore but i would like to work on this on my own....i would like to ask if you could provide such tool to insert the spreadsheet back into the arc.....my translation was meant to be initial like someone could look over my work and then rename things he saw as being "cheesy".....right click and save as

I deleted the link

 

[ZeForte]

Even if the program "did everything correctly", it still turned out to be **** and that's my point.

Here's the tool though:
http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=10...;p=48271#p48271

 

[iamatmylimit]

thanks a lot for providing the tool but im getting an expected end of archive when i try to unrar it.... the XBSE rar...could you check it? ..... or upload it somewhere else......