I extracted this image directly from the game data. There are no different layers. Luckily, some of the text is identical to the one in the manual. Otherwise I'd have had even more problems.
Translating Cotton 2
- Thread starter nanash1
- Start date
Hey, those are ROUGH to read, huh? I did the same thing, grabbing my manual hoping that it was the same text. I'm dog-sitting some particularly rambunctious, clingy little ones until tomorrow, but as soon as things settle down I'll take a look at it running on a CRT to see if that makes it more legible.
Your inclination is right about Needle. I'm about 70% sure that says 高貴な家柄, "noble family" or "noble lineage". The former is a perfectly good translation.
I was able to read the characters slightly better using a screen grab at 0:38 from this video:
Last edited:
Thanks for the help @OriginalName! I'm also pretty sure "高貴な家柄 " is correct. It fits the blurred pixels and the meaning very well.
I should have the transcript with all the text and my preliminary translation ready by the weekend. I also reworked some of my tools and I'm now able to compress my own images and insert them into their respective MF files. I'm still looking for a good way to typeset bitmap text though. Photoshop only supports TTF like fonts and they look horrible when scaled so low. Even my 16x8 "pixely" TTF font gets distored, because Photoshop doesn't typeset within the pixel grid.
I should have the transcript with all the text and my preliminary translation ready by the weekend. I also reworked some of my tools and I'm now able to compress my own images and insert them into their respective MF files. I'm still looking for a good way to typeset bitmap text though. Photoshop only supports TTF like fonts and they look horrible when scaled so low. Even my 16x8 "pixely" TTF font gets distored, because Photoshop doesn't typeset within the pixel grid.
Okay! Once I'm able to check it out on a CRT I'll double-check some of those kanji, too. Even a native speaker would have to squint and think about those. That was like an astigmatism simulator, haha.
Hm... I know quite a few graphic designers who might know some Photoshop tricks. Let me ask around.
Small update on the status of this project:
It looks like OriginalName won't be able to help after all. He wrote me a while ago that he would finish checking the script by the end of August, but I haven't heard from him since then. However, the wife of a friend of mine studied English and is willing to help me out. She doesn't speak Japanese though, so she won't be able to check my text for translation mistakes. Still, since the Japanese is rather simple and I'm not going for literal translation anyway, I think it's fine.
Meanwhile I cleaned up all the pictures that had text overlayed by hand. This was pretty tedious, but I think the result was worth it. Currently I'm looking for a font that I can use for the attached text. Maybe someone here knows a similar font that I can use?
It looks like OriginalName won't be able to help after all. He wrote me a while ago that he would finish checking the script by the end of August, but I haven't heard from him since then. However, the wife of a friend of mine studied English and is willing to help me out. She doesn't speak Japanese though, so she won't be able to check my text for translation mistakes. Still, since the Japanese is rather simple and I'm not going for literal translation anyway, I think it's fine.
Meanwhile I cleaned up all the pictures that had text overlayed by hand. This was pretty tedious, but I think the result was worth it. Currently I'm looking for a font that I can use for the attached text. Maybe someone here knows a similar font that I can use?
Attachments
-
0046_CHR_VS0.png
So.....
This project isn't dead. After taking a break, I'm back at working on it. I thought a bit about what makes the typewriter sound more annoying in the translated scenes than the original ones and I came to the conclusion that the longer runtime is general problem that needs to be solved. To recap briefly, Japanese written text is much shorter than English text because of the Kanji characters. This means I have to print a lot more characters for the translated text unless I want to completely change the meaning or resort to caveman speak. It also makes the scenes run significantly longer than originally intended and that in turn makes us listen to the typewriter sounds longer. I think this is what makes it more annoying in the translation. So I thought the solution to this problem is to print the text faster. This way I can make the runtime of the translated scene match the original one. So in the last few weeks I went through the code of the game to find a way to speed up the text and today I was finally successful. There is, however, still a problem. The typewriter sound seems to be triggered after each drawn character and speeding up the text means the sound is now somewhat broken. If I can fix this, I think I can begin to insert the translated text into the game and finish this up.
This project isn't dead. After taking a break, I'm back at working on it. I thought a bit about what makes the typewriter sound more annoying in the translated scenes than the original ones and I came to the conclusion that the longer runtime is general problem that needs to be solved. To recap briefly, Japanese written text is much shorter than English text because of the Kanji characters. This means I have to print a lot more characters for the translated text unless I want to completely change the meaning or resort to caveman speak. It also makes the scenes run significantly longer than originally intended and that in turn makes us listen to the typewriter sounds longer. I think this is what makes it more annoying in the translation. So I thought the solution to this problem is to print the text faster. This way I can make the runtime of the translated scene match the original one. So in the last few weeks I went through the code of the game to find a way to speed up the text and today I was finally successful. There is, however, still a problem. The typewriter sound seems to be triggered after each drawn character and speeding up the text means the sound is now somewhat broken. If I can fix this, I think I can begin to insert the translated text into the game and finish this up.
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
What about doing what I did for the Mini games in Sakura Wars where instead of drawing each character, you instead draw pairs of characters. So if the original font was 16x16, you instead store 2 8x16 characters in 1 16x16 character. The tricky part is that then you need to encode the text in your new custom font table.
This would be possible and is a good plan B, but for now I'll try to find a way to trigger the sample less often. I already found the AIF file in the game data, but I don't know enough about how PCM playback works on the Saturn to find the function that triggers the sample playback yet.
Sure, removing the typewriter sound is trivial. Especially now that I managed to find the function the triggers it. I was able to inject a small assembly routine that is used to play the sound only every second character. This should fix the sound problem. Now I'll start to insert the translation. Hopefully all scenes function in similar way, then I should be home free.
I made a clip of the intro in its current form. Don't mind the typos, this is still WIP.
The text is speed up by a factor of 1.66 compared to before. The typewriter sample is triggered on every second character. The translated version still runs a few seconds longer than the original, so I added a small pause at the beginning. The next natural speedup factor would be 2.5, but then the scene runs quite a bit shorter than originally and the text feels too fast for me. So I currently intend to keep it like this.
The text is speed up by a factor of 1.66 compared to before. The typewriter sample is triggered on every second character. The translated version still runs a few seconds longer than the original, so I added a small pause at the beginning. The next natural speedup factor would be 2.5, but then the scene runs quite a bit shorter than originally and the text feels too fast for me. So I currently intend to keep it like this.
Do you think it's more annoying than in the Japanese version?
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
Yeah I think it's fine too.
Just watching a video from the jp one. I think it's the same and you succeded adapting it to the translation. The problem is with the game itself, what were they thinking? You can barely listen the music.
Thanks for the input everyone. I'll leave the sound in. I think it would sound a bit empty without it, but I'll probably make an optional extra patch that removes the sound for the people that find it annoying. It's easy to do so why not.
Thanks! I'll pm you the script.
Thanks! I'll pm you the script.
Thanks for translating this!
The typewriter sound is fine, there's nothing wrong with it. In that youtube video it sounds exactly how I remember it in the Japanese version.
If you want to listen to the music, I think the game has a sound test.
The typewriter sound is fine, there's nothing wrong with it. In that youtube video it sounds exactly how I remember it in the Japanese version.
If you want to listen to the music, I think the game has a sound test.
A little late to the discussion but I think the sound fits and plays fine, and is paced well with the text. Really nice work so far and looking forward to trying it out!