Hi, I was wondering if anyone had done any poking around in Super Robot Wars F on the Saturn. I did a script dump of the PS1 version and have been working on it between other translation projects this year, and looks like I'll have F's first part done sometime this summer, and I'll move on to F Final. I'd love to see both versions get a full translation patch using my script, so let me know if you're interested in working on it from a tech or translation aspect. I attached a couple of samples of the work I've done so far!
Translating Super Robot Wars F
- Thread starter longsun_zhao
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TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
If you can post what files the script and other bits of text are stored in as well as what the text encoding looks like it would make it easier to find similarities between the two versions.
I simply made a table file, opened the iso in a hex editor, found the dialogue, and dumped the script using tools available on romhacking.net. I don't have any knowledge beyond how to do that; I would rather focus on improving my Japanese language skills. I did confirm that the table file I made works perfectly with both the Saturn and PS1 versions, though. I can post it tonight when I'm home for anyone to use.
Okay, here's the table file I made:
drive.google.com
And the first scenario script:
docs.google.com
Looks like the first scenario's dialogue (Real Robot route) starts at offset 00465E62 in track 1 of the ISO.
For clarity, there are 51 scenario scripts in the PS1 ISO, and I have around 20 of them done at the moment. The PS1 and Saturn versions have identical dialogue as far as I can tell. As far as other work that would need to be done, this game has a karaoke mode with timed subtitles, a dictionary of characters/robots, and a relatively large amount of battle scene dialogue. It also has FMVs which would need translating and subtitling.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask, If be happy to answer.
srwf_table.tbl
drive.google.com
And the first scenario script:
srwf1_script_000
Looks like the first scenario's dialogue (Real Robot route) starts at offset 00465E62 in track 1 of the ISO.
For clarity, there are 51 scenario scripts in the PS1 ISO, and I have around 20 of them done at the moment. The PS1 and Saturn versions have identical dialogue as far as I can tell. As far as other work that would need to be done, this game has a karaoke mode with timed subtitles, a dictionary of characters/robots, and a relatively large amount of battle scene dialogue. It also has FMVs which would need translating and subtitling.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask, If be happy to answer.
Last edited:
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
Ok, so you should try mounting the disc image to a virtual drive and start looking at the files on the disc and figure out which ones actually hold the data you're looking for. Editing an iso or binary track directly in a hex editor generally doesn't work well due to how disc images work and generally results in an unbootable image. You need to rebuild the disc image with your changes properly from its individual files.
So I'd recommend looking into the individual files on the disc instead or working directly against the disc image.
So I'd recommend looking into the individual files on the disc instead or working directly against the disc image.
Ah thanks, but Im really looking to see if I can find a partner to handle the technical side of this, and let me take care of the translating and graphical work. I would rather spend my (limited) free time improving my Japanese skills and actually translating than learning to do the technical work from scratch.
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
That's fine, I'm just saying you'll most likely have an easier time in general working with the actual files on the disc, even when it comes to editing and viewing the script.Ah thanks, but Im really looking to see if I can find a partner to handle the technical side of this, and let me take care of the translating and graphical work. I would rather spend my (limited) free time improving my Japanese skills and actually translating than learning to do the technical work from scratch.
I'll take a look at that this weekend. I'm pretty pleased with the script dump I have now, but I'm always open to working smarter not harder.
TrekkiesUnite118
Established Member
The main issue with how your doing it is that there's no guarantee your offsets in your rip will match the offets in my rip. Depending on how the image was ripped and what format it's in that can change dramatically. That's why it's better to work with the individual files and rebuild the ISO instead. It's easier for others to look at things and help you, as well as making patching easier.
A prime example of this is that your offsets pointed me into sound data in the PS1 image I got from CDRomance. I had to piece a few words together from your script and table to actually find the script to get a decent data sample to search the Saturn disc with. It looks like at least some of the script is in the file BMESS.BIN on Saturn and BMESS0.BIN on PS1. The beginning of the file has an offset table that I'd imagine points to where different text portions are at.
A prime example of this is that your offsets pointed me into sound data in the PS1 image I got from CDRomance. I had to piece a few words together from your script and table to actually find the script to get a decent data sample to search the Saturn disc with. It looks like at least some of the script is in the file BMESS.BIN on Saturn and BMESS0.BIN on PS1. The beginning of the file has an offset table that I'd imagine points to where different text portions are at.
Thanks again for taking a look. I was poking around the disc and found the story dialogue in the file named SCEDATA.BIN. This file is located on both the PS1 and Saturn discs and I found the script in both of them. There is dialogue in BMESS.bin, but it's battle lines only. When I have time I'll probably go back and re-dump the script directly from this file, but for now I'll continue with the dump I have and if/when the time comes for hacking efforts to begin, transfer my translated lines from my files to the dump done by the hacker.
Having looked at it more, it looks like the table file I made for the PS1 version doesn't allow me to read the script in the SCEDATA.bin on the Saturn disc via a hex editor; only parts of it are readable. However, this table file does work just fine on the Saturn version's BMESS.bin (battle messages,) KARAOKE.bin (karaoke mode lyrics,) and M_DEAD.bin (lines of dialogue for when a character gets shot down.) Additional work would be needed to there, it seems like maybe the text is compressed.
I've been continuing to work on the PS1 version. abridgewater here was kind enough to help me out with the file structure of SCEDATA.bin! I'm currently writing a script to break the bin file down into its constituent parts, but it's slow going (I don't have any background or experience in coding, after all.) Progress is being made, but as a little break I took a look at the Saturn version's SCEDATA.bin. It's different of course, given the difference in hardware, but it seems to have the same basic structure. Thought I'd drop this here in case anyone wanted to take a look!
I've been interested in trying to make a menu translation of Super Robot Wars F since I'm more comfortable with coding than translation, but maybe we could collaborate to make a full translation patch!
Okay. I'll post here when I successfully modify SCEDATA.bin to add English text. I think the tools I have now should work just fine on the Saturn version, but I won't know for sure until I try it out.
I successfully inserted the English script for the first scenario and got it to boot up and play. The game doesn't support lowercase letters or much punctuation as-is, so of course I'll have to add that...not to mention implement more attractive text rendering, that also gives me more space per-text box.
As I've said before, fundamentally the scenario/script data for Saturn and PS1 seems to be the same, but Saturn uses some kind of text compression I believe, whereas the PS1 version does not. I'd be happy to share my notes and translation work so far with anyone who wants to work on the Saturn version.
As I've said before, fundamentally the scenario/script data for Saturn and PS1 seems to be the same, but Saturn uses some kind of text compression I believe, whereas the PS1 version does not. I'd be happy to share my notes and translation work so far with anyone who wants to work on the Saturn version.
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