TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
Just posting an update here. @swankerme has agreed to come on as a translator. They've already put in work translating the new items and their descriptions. So hopefully this should get moving again.
Translating Grandia Digital Museum
- Thread starter TrekkiesUnite118
- Start date
Nothing wrong sharing the dream right?
this is all exciting! i’m a software engineer and would be interested in spending time on this. please message me here or on discord if there is pieces i can help with.
Having access to English localizations of Grandia: Digital Museum and Final Fantasy VII: Perfect Guide would make my whole decade. I am beyond ecstatic to learn the former is now in development! I'll check in on this thread every couple of years to track progress. Hyped!
I finally played Grandia last year thx to you man so thank you for also working on the Museum !! Looking forward to seeing it someday in EN
Good news, Final Fantasy VII: Perfect Guide translation is also being worked on right now
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
I'm going to reply to this here as with the latest bits of drama over AI translations I figured it would be best to be open about it. I received a PM last night asking what the technical hold up was and if I'd help them do an AI translation on this game using Claude and Gemini. As I have stated multiple times there is nothing blocking this translation on a technical level. The issue is the need of an actual translator. The one or two that have offered to help have gone radio silent after translating one or two files after they realized that this wasn't going to be just a handful of lines to translate. Reaching out to others in the translation scene hasn't been of much help either. The good ones are either busy with too many projects on their plates or completely burnt out after being relentlessly harassed.
With that said, I flat out refuse to use AI to translate this. AI is a tool that can be useful if you have knowledge and experience in what you're asking it to do. If you don't though and just blindly trust it it can and will have disastrous results. We have access to Claude AI at work, so I have used it. In my experience it's only good if you want to create basic templates or a starting example to build off of. Anything beyond that is a complete crapshoot as it will regularly hallucinate and go off the rails making crap up. If you have experience and knowledge in the task you're asking it to do you can at least catch this and correct it. If you don't however you can end up with a complete mess on your hands. Asking it to translate Japanese when you don't know Japanese is pretty much asking for a disaster, especially in an RPG with a lot of lore and unique words like Grandia has.
Simply put if you just want a quick and dirty AI translation, then I suggest you learn to hold your phone in front of your TV while you play.
With that said, I flat out refuse to use AI to translate this. AI is a tool that can be useful if you have knowledge and experience in what you're asking it to do. If you don't though and just blindly trust it it can and will have disastrous results. We have access to Claude AI at work, so I have used it. In my experience it's only good if you want to create basic templates or a starting example to build off of. Anything beyond that is a complete crapshoot as it will regularly hallucinate and go off the rails making crap up. If you have experience and knowledge in the task you're asking it to do you can at least catch this and correct it. If you don't however you can end up with a complete mess on your hands. Asking it to translate Japanese when you don't know Japanese is pretty much asking for a disaster, especially in an RPG with a lot of lore and unique words like Grandia has.
Simply put if you just want a quick and dirty AI translation, then I suggest you learn to hold your phone in front of your TV while you play.
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
Unless there's actual demand for this I don't see any point in continuing with this now that there's another patch. I've been begging for a translator for years now and the harsh reality is no one in the translation scene is actually interested in translating this. So AI slop is probably the best you're going to get at this point. Enjoy it.
For whatever it’s worth, I’d rather wait three more years for a version you believe in than play a broken patch this weekend because I can’t wait. I totally understand how you’re feeling though and dont blame you one bit. The impatience and entitlement feel like they’re ramping up at an insane pace
Last edited:
First time poster, longtime reader - and I completely agree. I'd rather wait years for something made with effort, care, and a genuine love for the game rather than a broken, nonsensical, HEARTLESS slopfest someone "burned sooooooooo many tokens on" just for the sake of internet points. And TrekkiesUnite118, your work is nothing short of art, whether it's the exceptional Grandia patch or the humble FDD Operator patch - something I actually use and appreciate greatly! No machine could ever supplant any of it.
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
Figured I'd share this here. This shows just how poor and low quality of an effort the AI Slop patch is. This took me maybe a few hours to do by pulling data from the original game to get the UI translated. The items I already had translated from someone who signed on earlier to do the translation, but then went radio silent when I went to send them the actual script and enemy data. The skills and magic data is identical to the original game so it can be lifted as well.
Attachments
Hi, I'd love to see this translation patch finished, looking forward to it! This can co-exist with the ai one.
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
To a degree they can't really coexist in their current state. The AI patch is currently leveraging my tools without my permission. My tools have no license so they default to all rights reserved to me. I have told @AngelouCurator that he doesn't not have permission to use my tools, code, etc. If he wants to do an AI patch, he needs to do it from scratch without leveraging my work.
I see, I didn't know those details. Then the issues are with the ai one. It is definitely an awkward ai translation. Regardless, your translation can keep going and they'd have to reset the ai one. I have my original museum disc here waiting 🙂
Hello 🙂
Unfortunately, I can only offer a translation from English to German - though that wouldn't be a bad thing, since I own the German PS1 version and plan to use that as a reference rather than the remaster.
I’d love to help, but I don’t know anyone who would be willing to spare the time for it. I can really only rely on ChatGPT, but I’m already familiar with its limitations - I tried figuring a few things out using CheatEngine myself and failed, even after five hours of effort...
Unfortunately, I can only offer a translation from English to German - though that wouldn't be a bad thing, since I own the German PS1 version and plan to use that as a reference rather than the remaster.
I’d love to help, but I don’t know anyone who would be willing to spare the time for it. I can really only rely on ChatGPT, but I’m already familiar with its limitations - I tried figuring a few things out using CheatEngine myself and failed, even after five hours of effort...
Last edited:
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
So I figured I'd post an update. wiredcrackpot has agreed to come on board as a translator. For those unaware they have been involved in numerous translation patches over the years including but not limited to Silhouette Mirage, Death Crimson 2, Jung Rhythm, Mobile Suit Gundam, Tama, Hissatsu, as well as currently working on Sword and Sorcery.
So far decent progress has been made. If I had to take a guess about 75% of the game's script is translated now in a first draft state. I want to be clear here this is my best guess, DO NOT TAKE THIS TO MEAN THE PATCH IS 75% DONE! There's still quite a bit of work to be done.
From what's been translated so far I have about half of it injected into the game's MDT files now and it appears to be stable. wiredcrackpot has also been at work translating a lot of the museum content such as the monster books, the arcade games, the concept art menus, etc. I've been working on getting those inserted as they get translated. The two remaining technical hurdles for this content are the Audio Dramas and the Save Data descriptions.
The Audio Dramas will require some work to figure out. I did look into the AI Slop implementation but I really don't like how it's done. It's a very hacky solution that involves doing jank timing with the CD-ROM block and messes with a lot of code in IP.BIN. I really don't want to do that if it's not necessary. For the save data descriptions that data appears to be compressed, so it's a matter of reverse engineering the compression format. I simply haven't had the time to do it.
On another note, Joqu who did the logos and art modifications for Sakura Wars 1 and 2 has come on board to do new logos for the mini game title screens as well as any other art that needs done. Here is an example of the WIP title screen graphic:
For those thinking this might look a bit plain, this is actually based on the official English logo for Grandia Digital Museum. This logo is used on the spine of the original Japanese box:
So overall I'm optimistic about the project now. That said I should note this does come at a cost. As you may be aware I was working on Soul Hackers. We had recently hit some major milestones on that project such as being able to fully complete the game without crashing. There were one or two minor issues that needed fixed, but then we could proceed with implementing the VWF. My intention was to focus all attention on Digital Museum and getting a translator after Soul Hackers was done since Soul Hackers was making more progress. Unfortunately the AI Slop patch threw a wrench at that, as like it or not I'm now in a race with it to get the game done. While I'm happy I now have a translator, it also means all my attention is now on Digital Museum and Soul Hackers is going to the back burner.
So before I see anyone trying to spin that the AI Slop patch was a good thing because it got this project moving again, I'll simply point out that all it has done is rob Peter to pay Paul.
So far decent progress has been made. If I had to take a guess about 75% of the game's script is translated now in a first draft state. I want to be clear here this is my best guess, DO NOT TAKE THIS TO MEAN THE PATCH IS 75% DONE! There's still quite a bit of work to be done.
From what's been translated so far I have about half of it injected into the game's MDT files now and it appears to be stable. wiredcrackpot has also been at work translating a lot of the museum content such as the monster books, the arcade games, the concept art menus, etc. I've been working on getting those inserted as they get translated. The two remaining technical hurdles for this content are the Audio Dramas and the Save Data descriptions.
The Audio Dramas will require some work to figure out. I did look into the AI Slop implementation but I really don't like how it's done. It's a very hacky solution that involves doing jank timing with the CD-ROM block and messes with a lot of code in IP.BIN. I really don't want to do that if it's not necessary. For the save data descriptions that data appears to be compressed, so it's a matter of reverse engineering the compression format. I simply haven't had the time to do it.
On another note, Joqu who did the logos and art modifications for Sakura Wars 1 and 2 has come on board to do new logos for the mini game title screens as well as any other art that needs done. Here is an example of the WIP title screen graphic:
For those thinking this might look a bit plain, this is actually based on the official English logo for Grandia Digital Museum. This logo is used on the spine of the original Japanese box:
So overall I'm optimistic about the project now. That said I should note this does come at a cost. As you may be aware I was working on Soul Hackers. We had recently hit some major milestones on that project such as being able to fully complete the game without crashing. There were one or two minor issues that needed fixed, but then we could proceed with implementing the VWF. My intention was to focus all attention on Digital Museum and getting a translator after Soul Hackers was done since Soul Hackers was making more progress. Unfortunately the AI Slop patch threw a wrench at that, as like it or not I'm now in a race with it to get the game done. While I'm happy I now have a translator, it also means all my attention is now on Digital Museum and Soul Hackers is going to the back burner.
So before I see anyone trying to spin that the AI Slop patch was a good thing because it got this project moving again, I'll simply point out that all it has done is rob Peter to pay Paul.
Last edited:
