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View topic - Phantasy Star Retranslation 0.91 update

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  • Joined: 22 Dec 2004
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  • Location: Rouen, France
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Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:14 pm
Hello hello!
It made quite a while since i showed up for the last time, but I may be interested in translating this project in French (I am currently working on the PS4 French project too).
But I would first like to know a few parametres:
- How big is the script?
- Is there some room left in the ROM for a longer text?
- How is the text compressed in the ROM?
- How many accent may be added in the font? (less than 4 accents in French would be indecent)
- How is done the reinsertion? (reinsertion kit working automatically or sending the script to be reinserted)
I hope that's all for now :)
Thanks for any answer 8)
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Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:30 pm
- How big is the script?
Not sure, I'll check when I get a chance. (SVN seems down else I'd check there...) I think it's about 6KB.
- Is there some room left in the ROM for a longer text?
Yes! Not much after TheRedEye expanded it, but probably plenty. Do French translations generally get bigger or smaller than the English?
- How is the text compressed in the ROM?
Does it matter? It is partly optimised for English grammar so some coding might be needed there. There is some compression applied too, it cannot be edited "directly" in the ROM.
- How many accent may be added in the font? (less than 4 accents in French would be indecent)
Zero :( unless you can find some unused letters or lose some punctuation. The problem is that we'd hope to keep unused letters (eg. Q) for save slot naming...
- How is done the reinsertion? (reinsertion kit working automatically or sending the script to be reinserted)
There is a makefile-based build system to analyse, compress and insert the script. It should generally be a matter of typing 5 letters but it can be more complicated :(
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  • Joined: 22 Dec 2004
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  • Location: Rouen, France
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Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:12 pm
Thanks for the fast answer :)
- 6 KB script? Il seems incredibly small, as I have a French translated script from the original US version, and its size is 25 KB.
- As for French translation size, they are always significantly bigger than the English version (and never smaller), but adding constraints on the translation would limit the excedent of size.
- Text compression : it is always pleasant for a translator to know how the text fits int the ROM ;)
- Accents: ow! Accents are very frequent in French and with many forms. Even with huge efforts to reduce them directly in the text, there will always be é, è, à, ù and ç, and ê will almost certainly show up. Creating a neutral accent (just like a macron) would reduce them to accented e, accented a, accented u and ç. We may indeed consider removing unused letters to add accents, but it is not the ultimate solution. Combining higher case i with lower case l would add one for sure and woud generally not be noticeable. Then, removing the letters W, X and Z for example would maybe make an aceptable answer (depending on the translation), but the naming screen would be incomplete.
- Reinsertion : Ok, so the translated script would have to be sent for reinsertion. The capacity to test the translated text directly through automatic reinsertion would indeed be a great addition, but this matter has to be discussed, I guess :)

I have a last question: will it be possible to ask questions about the meaning of some Phantasy Star specific words?
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  • Joined: 01 Jan 2005
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  • Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Post Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 7:21 pm
Did the Portuguese translation do without diacritics?
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  • Joined: 17 Apr 2007
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Post Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:22 am
I've always wondered what differences there were between the Japanese Phantasy Star and the American/UK Phantasy Star. Was the Japanese one an "Uncut" version?
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Post Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:05 am
Hroþgar SCRB wrote
- 6 KB script? Il seems incredibly small

I found an old backup hidden online... I was very wrong.
script1.txt 31166
script2.txt 23200
menus.txt 5691
The raw English is probably less than half of that, there's UTF8 original Japanese in there as well as control codes.
Hroþgar SCRB wrote
Combining higher case i with lower case L would add one for sure and woud generally not be noticeable.

Ah, yes, you can also use tile flipping to combine b|d and p|q, and O|0 can be acceptable.
Hroþgar SCRB wrote
Ok, so the translated script would have to be sent for reinsertion. The capacity to test the translated text directly through automatic reinsertion would indeed be a great addition, but this matter has to be discussed, I guess :)

As I said, it should be automatic but certain things can screw it up requiring some effort to fix.
Hroþgar SCRB wrote
I have a last question: will it be possible to ask questions about the meaning of some Phantasy Star specific words?

Of course. Paul is the one who can help most there, because of course our English words are aiming to convey the original Japanese meaning.

idrougge wrote
Did the Portuguese translation do without diacritics?

I think so.

aqua_hedgehog wrote
I've always wondered what differences there were between the Japanese Phantasy Star and the American/UK Phantasy Star. Was the Japanese one an "Uncut" version?

To some extent, yes. They cut some references they thought you wouldn't get - eg. a few staff cameos - and "localised" things (think Burger and Cola). While the Japanese script is somewhat weak, the American version is even worse. AND THEY USED AN UGLY, CAPITALS-ONLY FONT. The main reasons for the retranslation are (1) to try to do a better job of it and (2) to get Phantasy Star in English with FM sound.


Overall, I need to spend some serious time reacquainting myself with the project. I have some holiday time to use up before the end of the year so I'll try to apply that. I have a list of bugs to fix too.

There were a few people who were interested in working on a Brazilian Portuguese retranslation as well, but I may have caused them to lose interest. After version 1.00 I hope to release the retranslation source to other translators.

Paul, do you think you could spend some time on an annotated script? I mean, one with the original Japanese and the retranslation side-by-side (we already have that), with comments describing the meaning, nuances and (where applicable) noting where have deviated creatively?

Everyone, contact me by email, it's the best way to make sure I actually do things when I'm at home. I can comment from work but actually do very little. I realise it takes time to produce a good translated script, just translating is a small part of the work.
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  • Joined: 22 Dec 2004
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  • Location: Rouen, France
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Post Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 3:34 pm
Maxim: Thanks for the answers and suggestions. I'll translate the script with full accents, and then we'll see which ones are to be displayed or not. Flipping tiles is a great idea which I didn't think of (of course, I'm not the hacker, heh)
I'll try to contact Paul directly when I have some questions about "strange words" =)
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  • Joined: 29 Jun 1999
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  • Location: California, USA; Hiroshima, Japan
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Post Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:37 pm
Quote
Paul, do you think you could spend some time on an annotated script? I mean, one with the original Japanese and the retranslation side-by-side (we already have that), with comments describing the meaning, nuances and (where applicable) noting where have deviated creatively?


With which retranslation? The raw version, or the final (i.e. TheRedEye's) version?
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Post Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:55 am
Well, ideally both.
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  • Joined: 22 Dec 2004
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Post Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 8:12 pm
Paul, I sent you a private message.

By the way, I was wondering about the town named Shion in the script. Couldn't it be Sion as a biblic reference? I didn't find anything about an hypothetic Shion.
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  • Joined: 29 Jun 1999
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Post Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:48 am
Maxim wrote

There were a few people who were interested in working on a Brazilian Portuguese retranslation as well, but I may have caused them to lose interest. After version 1.00 I hope to release the retranslation source to other translators.


Maxim, I could hurry and translate it to portuguese for the 20th anniversary release. I would love to do it.


PD
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Post Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:10 pm
Maybe i can do a Dutch translation? :p
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Post Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:25 pm
I'm hoping to take some time off work to do some serious work on the 1.00 release, and to try to help with localisations to other languages. I can share 99% of the script now but there will be issues to deal with so it might help to have high availability.
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Post Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:02 am
No problem. Can you send me the script then?
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Post Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:41 am
Check your email.
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Post Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:12 pm
Thanks!
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