PCEngineFans.com - The PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 Community Forum
Tech and Homebrew => Turbo/PCE Game/Tool Development => Topic started by: NightWolve on January 12, 2015, 11:35:08 PM
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Thread Mirror #1: http://www.ysutopia.net/forums/index.php?topic=431.0
Twitter Tweets: https://twitter.com/NightWolve1975/status/555595460602527745
Intro [1/13/2015]: I had been in talks with my old friend David Shadoff about taking over one of his excess stalled projects and this was one of them. Mulled it over and decided I'll try to push this over the finish line, but no guarantees... As such, I was given all project materials, including ~60% of SamIAm's translated results from 2007. I've also been discussing it with Sam on how to proceed and think I can meet his needs, though time will tell. If successful, this'll mark 11 years since my last full PC Engine CD RPG project (Ys IV) got off the ground in 2004 (the dub in 2012 was just a little blip)! I had decided I wanted to stick mainly with more modern x86 Falcom PC Games after Ys IV, but with Emerald Dragon, I am retro again, baby! :P
(http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/emdra2.png) (http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/emdra5.png)
(http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/emdra6.png) (http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/emdra7.png)
Reviews:
http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/2010/12/emerald-dragon.html
http://www.honestgamers.com/3140/turbografx-cd/emerald-dragon/review.html
http://www.pcengine.co.uk/HTML_Games/Emerald_Dragon.htm
http://hupack.blogspot.com/2011/08/emerald-dragon-journey-part-1.html
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ED Project History Log
** 2/28/2015 - Translation Station adapting to Emerald Dragon's specifics
An inside look at my custom translation software built on AccessVBA with an Emerald Dragon message box emulator coded properly. The march of progress continues on stomping the competition with every step! :P
(https://postimg.cc/image/yp6rlow6b/)
** 2/14/2015 - The Great Leap Forward: First LZSS Recompressed Text Block Inserted!
The project crosses one of the greatest technical hurdles and thus it now becomes clear that it can and will be finished!!! Recompression of the first testing text block with David's superior LZSS functions back from 2004 (coded for Ys IV) were made to work here and successfully at that! BEHOLD! Project Status: Resurrected with confidence!!! :P
(https://postimg.cc/image/tlw2mmhlz/) (https://postimg.cc/image/4a5l94j7r/)
(https://postimg.cc/image/6k802aenn/) (https://postimg.cc/image/tt86r42cj/)
** 1/31/2015 - Test Insertion
Identified a compressed block/stream, sought town message, set control bytes to 0xFF to allow literal text insertion for a quick font/writing test, and voila!
(http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/EDFontTest2.png) (http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/EDFontTest1.png)
Using current font tiles (harvested from the PC-FX BIOS!):
(http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/EDFont1_8x12-PCFXBIOS.bmp)
** 1/13/2015 - Font Inspection Situation
Poked around the ED ROM track with a new tile viewer (YY-CHR.NET) to see what kind of font hacking is needed, found it uses a fixed-width 8x12 1BPP font, and most importantly it is uncompressed, just like Ys IV, meaning I can handle it. Otherwise, I would need David or Bonknut's help for an advanced VW (preferably) font hack job. Had to refamiliarize myself with an old tool [feidian] (http://feidian.sourceforge.net/) by D-BOY I used for Ys IV (I am rusty), but once I did and with the precise offset, I extracted the font in a viewable format. I can now insert the same font I used for Ys IV or a more medieval looking one.
feidian.php -r 8,12,16,8,0x499D5 "Emerald Dragon (J)-02.iso" EDOrgMainFont
(http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/EDOrgMainFont_8x12.png)
feidian.php -r 8,8,21,1,0x498B1 "Emerald Dragon (J)-02.iso" EDOrgDigitFont
(http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/EDOrgDigitFont_8x8.png)
** Oct 13, 2014 - Talks began with David Shadoff about taking over the project
David uploaded all project materials to me, an ISO/WAV/CUE image file set of ED (ripped with *my* TurboRip I might add O:)), including 60% of SamIAm's translated results, and gave me a briefing on where the project was at to the best of his memory, etc.
** Apr 05, 2006 - Original Project Origins. YES, that far back!
The project began in 2006, 9 years ago, with SamIAm himself looking for a programmer to extract/prepare the ED script. David Shadoff saw the thread and decided to work on the game!
http://forums.magicengine.com/en/viewtopic.php?t=1543
David made the project official after extracting the script. 60% of it was translated judging by SamIAm's last update in the thread on Jan 22, 2007, but that's where things stalled from then on.
http://forums.magicengine.com/en/viewtopic.php?t=1557
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Awesome news!
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f*ckING SWEET!!!! :dance:
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My promise in this is that if the hacking can advance to a point nearing completion - that is, if they get the script to insert and display - I'll finish the script myself.
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I am...EXCITED.
I've wanted this in English forever, managed to play it in Japanese upon release oh so long ago, that was a trip.
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THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!! + mad props to SAMIAM for being such a prolific translator in recent times.
I'm glad to see an accomplished ROM hacker such as yourself working on this project, I'm sure whatever state you leave it in will represent some non-zero progress even in the worst case. I'm hoping for the best, though, I've been wanting to play this one for a long time!
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This could just be the coolest translation yet! My body is ready.
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This is awesome. I say once finished, press em all pro-like then offer em for like 35 bucks a pop or something reasonable. Not like anyone owns these copyrights anymore anyway. :) Just a thought cuz if you don't do it, someone else might and that makes for some bitter fruitzzz~
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EMERALD DRAGON!!!!!!!!!!'nnnn nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am happy.
My promise in this is that if the hacking can advance to a point nearing completion - that is, if they get the script to insert and display - I'll finish the script myself.
Some of us will remember this! :) We will tenderly, but firmly, hold you to your word.
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If want me to do the font routine (and single byte ascii read routine, and possible DTE or dictionary compression, etc), then it's gotta be for the extended SCD card (more ram). Else, it's too much of a pain to handle otherwise (time and frustration). That would be my requirement, to be on board.
You want a VWF routine? That always complicates the script side of things (formatting), but if all I would handle is the font and string read routine, then no problem here.
IIRC, from talking with Dave years back, is that the script is compressed into LZss blocks. Nothing fancy. He must has figured out the pointer system, if he dumped the script. If the extended SCD card is used, recompressed on the LZss side could be just simple runs of literal bytes (super easy to write a util for), and have the English friendly compression on the new string side (simply dictionary compression: 2 byte, 3byte, and 4byte entries. Static dictionary for the whole game, nothing variable. Or if I'm really lazy :P, then just a token system to a large script in extended ram), that would sit on top of it (transparent to the game).
Anyway, those are my thoughts on this. All the source code is yours to do with as you want, once it's finished (you'll have ownership/license/whatever). There's a catch though; time. It'll be slow going and/or delays, because SamIam and I already have two projects we're looking into. If this project has serious commitment and team, and SamIam wants to put priority on this, then I'm fine with that. But I don't have enough free time to productively stretch over several projects, so multiple stuff would be put on hold if I did take this on.
I don't know how much free time MooZ has, but he's experienced in making new font print routines and new string read routines. Besides Esperknight and MooZ, I don't know of anyone else that has experience with this on the PCE/CD (asm hacking).
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Not like anyone owns these copyrights anymore anyway. :)
I'm sure that's not true.
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I'm sure that's not true.
It's not. They even still make games for the Vita, but that doesn't mean they'd care.
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I'm sure that's not true.
It's not. They even still make games for the Vita, but that doesn't mean they'd care.
Who does? Alfa System?
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Who does? Alfa System?
I was thinking Media Works, but it doesn't matter. Even if a company goes under, the IP is almost always sold to someone or the rights will revert to the person that actually created it.
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Oh. Well, I doubt anyone gives a sh!t really, I think if the effort is put into creating this trans project, it'd be awesome to see them pressed proper. You know you'd like to see a pretti English-language Emerald Dragon sitting pretty on your shelf!
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We better ask BL before pressing anything....
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Get back on topic of making the translation happen, talking of pressing only derails and enrages...
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Get back on topic of making the translation happen, talking of pressing only derails and enrages...
lol... [-( No sir King Dicer.... If this translation happens, I am fairly sure those involved wouldn't mind it. :)
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Get back on topic of making the translation happen, talking of pressing only derails and enrages...
lol... [-( No sir King Dicer.... If this translation happens, I am fairly sure those involved wouldn't mind it. :)
Sorry didn't mean it come off so..BOSSy ](*,)
It's just that there are so many "in the works" projects for our beloved machine, I'd like to see some of them get done...then we can worry about pretty packaging and copyrights and all that fun stuff.
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Its cool man. I get where ya coming from. :)
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It's all in good fun, my intent was not to derail anything. It may be pointless to talk about such things this early in the process but it's fun to think about none the less. This is a discussion forum after all :)
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If want me to do the font routine (and single byte ascii read routine, and possible DTE or dictionary compression, etc), then it's gotta be for the extended SCD card (more ram). Else, it's too much of a pain to handle otherwise (time and frustration). That would be my requirement, to be on board.
You want a VWF routine? That always complicates the script side of things (formatting), but if all I would handle is the font and string read routine, then no problem here.
It looks like right out of the box, it's just like Ys IV, and I can already do this:
(http://www.ysutopia.net/images/ys4pce04.gif) (http://www.ysutopia.net/downloads/ys4/images/CD_DDB925D4-022.png)
Either Courier or a hacked 8x12 Ys Book I&II font. I wanted to make a GUI patch down the road for Ys IV to let you choose between either font, but never worked on it yet. But yeah, that's what I was telling David, why risk flaky VWF hacks like EsperKnight's hack that doesn't work on real NEC hardware. I can live with the same result as Ys IV. If it had zero support for an English font, was using the system S-JIS 16x16 one like many games do (Startling Odyssey II), then I would've asked ya for a serious font hack job that might as well be VW if it can be accomplished. Seems like "if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it" to me, although a VWF hack is so ideal, it would be cool (what you did with the Dracula X opening was amazing).
Alright, so the major obstacle to overcome is reversal of the decompression code, to be able to recompress a text block and insert it back in. I think I'll wait for David on that. When I was mulling taking the project over, I kinda thought he already finished that and I just needed to work things out with SamIAm, prepare my Translation Station software again for him, get a handle on where things left off, and resume it, etc. But yeah, looks like I still need an advanced programmer's expertise.
Also, for the tight menu system, we might need to make graphic tiles of the whole word to fit, but I think I might be able to actually do that by using left over tiles from the font area. But that might be something that I'd need your help on if my idea doesn't work. Another idea is maybe to disable some of the ADPCM voice acting when there is simultaneous text being displayed by the character, acting as subtitling. That would reduce the dubbing part of the project for down the road.
All the source code is yours to do with as you want, once it's finished (you'll have ownership/license/whatever).
That's cool of you, but just to let ya know, I wouldn't "deucebag" you if somehow an XSEED Games type of situation/commercialization happened (There's zero chance here, but not if it was say a PC game). Work hours that you did for free as a fan under different circumstances become retroactively billable AND credit-worthy and I don't get to just throw you under the bus because of ideological/political/philosophical bigotry/animus, and pretend that you were never there, etc.
True, you're essentially verbally giving up your IP Rights for the product of your work hours by the formal statement that you just made, but still... You don't step on people like that in the face of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Also, I dunno if I ever mentioned this before, but I always really appreciated the way you stood up to the extortionists over at "romhacking hacks.net" back in '07 with the Felghana leak drama, etc. Many people I thought were friends turned out to be cowards or backstabbers-in-waiting.
Anyway, back on topic. I'm gonna work on building the new font bitmap and test insertion. I also gotta rebuild Translation Station for SamIAm and for me because the way David left it is confusing. A reextraction is gonna be needed cause he didn't record the offset of where the script block begins in the database it appears... I'm pretty rusty, but gonna give it the ole college try!
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Damn NightWolve nice. I havn't read everything yet but I just wanted to say it's really good seeing you work on something again. I can't wait.
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Yes! Thank you all for moving this project forward!
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**** happiness continues ****
(http://archives.tg-16.com/images/gk_9312_Emerald2.html)
(http://archives.tg-16.com/images/ED_voice_cast.html)
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Placeholder - History Log
** 1/13/2015 - Font Inspection Situation
Poked around the ED ROM track with a new tile viewer (YY-CHR.NET) to see what kind of font hacking is needed, found it uses a fixed-width 8x12 1BPP font, and most importantly it is uncompressed, just like Ys IV, meaning I can handle it. Otherwise, I would need David or Bonknut's help for an advanced VW (preferably) font hack job. Had to refamiliarize myself with an old tool [feidian] by D-BOY I used for Ys IV (I am rusty), but once I did and with the precise offset, I extracted the font in a viewable format. I can now insert the same font I used for Ys IV or a more medieval looking one.
feidian.php -r 8,12,16,8,0x499D5 "Emerald Dragon (J)-02.iso" EDOrgMainFont
(http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/EDOrgMainFont_8x12.png)
feidian.php -r 8,8,21,1,0x498B1 "Emerald Dragon (J)-02.iso" EDOrgDigitFont
(http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/EDOrgDigitFont_8x8.png)
** Oct 13, 2014 - Talks began with David Shadoff about taking over the project
David uploaded all project materials to me, an ISO/WAV/CUE image file set of ED (ripped with *my* TurboRip I might add O:)), including 60% of SamIAm's translated results, and gave me a briefing on where the project was at to the best of his memory, etc.
Just to verify, this font is actually used in the game? Are you sure it's used for the main dialog box, and not something like the battle screen? If it's used for the main dialog box too, then that's pretty amazing find.
As for Dracula X opening/intro, that wasn't a VWF routine. That was a replacement 6x12 font FWF routine. It's the cleanest way to hack a 12x12 print routine (which 98% of all PCECD RPGs use). It looks tight like VWF, but it's not. It's a great compromise between the two, IMO.
On the note of pointer, like I said if the pointer system hasn't been figured out (a separate pointer table than the LZSS block), and you don't want to go through the work of RE'ing it, you can do a token system incorporated into it (making some new control codes). On that note, I never found LZSS in small block/window sizes to compress that great for English text. You guys didn't have a problem with Ys IV in this regards, or did you have to cut the string lengths down?
The other downside to VWF, is that it takes longer to build out a character than a FWF routine. This can mess with timing in a game, which can lead to problems. I had this issue with Dead of the Brain, where I had to make special LUTs to speed things up. I'm supposed to look over Esperknight's VWF routine, but I suspect this might be happening (or a bank/page mapping conflict). Considering he had problems on the real hardware, tells me it's primarily a timing issue thing.
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My promise in this is that if the hacking can advance to a point nearing completion - that is, if they get the script to insert and display - I'll finish the script myself.
Some of us will remember this! :) We will tenderly, but firmly, hold you to your word.
By all means, do so! I've got four completed game scripts awaiting the hackers to finish their ends. I would love to be in a position where the only thing standing in the way of a finished translation project is the script. If someone gets English text to insert and display with a good enough looking print routine, the flag is up as far as I'm concerned.
BTW, 1000th post. :D
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What a great 1000th post! Positive energy, dude. Positive energy.
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Still loving this.
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Still loving this.
For reals. I am reeeaaalllly looking forward to this project getting completed. Makes my nipplz all stiff.
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This game looks really cool. I hope everything continues to go smoothly.
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Like a late Christmas present; this is absolutely fantastic news.
I wish you good luck Nightwolve!
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Late to the party response: WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!
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Do you guys need donations like hardware and cash and stuff?
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Great stuff, this is one of the games that I would love to play :-)
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Nice to see someone working on this one. It's probably the best widely available version of Emerald Dragon, since it's still somewhat true to the original game.
For most players this will be the closest they would ever want to come to playing the original PC-style Emerald Dragon.
As someone who owns both, I still consider the FM-TOWNS version to be superior. It has the original voice cast, side quests and soundtrack, and the cut scenes are based on the hand painted style of the manual instead of stock anime.
Get in touch with me if you need any help with font design or manual design. I own most of the Emerald Dragon guidebooks for the PC editions and they have lots of good art.
As for Dracula X opening/intro, that wasn't a VWF routine. That was a replacement 6x12 font FWF routine. It's the cleanest way to hack a 12x12 print routine (which 98% of all PCECD RPGs use). It looks tight like VWF, but it's not. It's a great compromise between the two, IMO.
That was my suggestion as well. 6x12 works great for text-heavy games with limited screen real estate. Kil's Langrisser IV translation made use of a 6x12 font I designed. The narrower tiles leave less space around glyphs such as i, l, and j, and also around punctuation marks. It helps to mask one of the more negative effects of monospaced fonts.
(http://i.imgur.com/YKZOscK.png)
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I do not know why I quoted your message, but I just wanted to give you some grief for having such a long username. I mean... how is anyone supposed to abbreviate that? :lol:
Maybe you could make it shorter by only writing the first stroke of the D, which I guess would be I?
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I do not know why I quoted your message, but I just wanted to give you some grief for having such a long username. I mean... how is anyone supposed to abbreviate that? :lol:
Maybe you could make it shorter by only writing the first stroke of the D, which I guess would be I?
I think, in your case, we would lengthen your name. Sort of like a backwards nickname. We could go for pronunciation and call you Diiiiiiiiii or Deeeeeeee. Or go for appearances and call you CI (which is just a backwards D). Or I). Or ol.
I am apparently too tired to be doing this. I'm actually having fun...
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I do not know why I quoted your message, but I just wanted to give you some grief for having such a long username. I mean... how is anyone supposed to abbreviate that? :lol:
Maybe you could make it shorter by only writing the first stroke of the D, which I guess would be I?
I think, in your case, we would lengthen your name. Sort of like a backwards nickname. We could go for pronunciation and call you Diiiiiiiiii or Deeeeeeee. Or go for appearances and call you CI (which is just a backwards D). Or I). Or ol.
I am apparently too tired to be doing this. I'm actually having fun...
We shall call him "Dī no Shokutaku!"
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I'm excited to hear about this project since I've wanted to play it in English for awhile now. I own the MSX2/2+ version (http://retro-type.com/skyewelse/emerald_dragon_msx2.png), but it does run pretty slow on a real MSX machine which makes this version much more of an attractive version to play an English version of. If any of the supplemental materials can be utilized from the MSX2/2+ game, please let me know and I can photograph or scan them.
I wanted to post here sooner, but I've been pretty wrapped up doing some graphics for the Nayuta no Kiseki fan-translation project and a port/remix of Fix It Felix, Jr for the MSX2/2+ that a friend and I are "hammer-ing" out... Get it?... hammer? Because.... Felix uses a....
Ah whatever. : )
Nice to meet you all.
-Thomas
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Hammer time! :D
Welcome SkyWelse, for some reason I thought you were a member here for awhile, but you only have 2 posts, & apparently you registered here a week ago! Well, once again, welcome. :)
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Ditto. Welcome aboard SkyeWelse!
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Just to verify, this font is actually used in the game? Are you sure it's used for the main dialog box, and not something like the battle screen? If it's used for the main dialog box too, then that's pretty amazing find.
As for Dracula X opening/intro, that wasn't a VWF routine. That was a replacement 6x12 font FWF routine. It's the cleanest way to hack a 12x12 print routine (which 98% of all PCECD RPGs use). It looks tight like VWF, but it's not. It's a great compromise between the two, IMO.
On the note of pointer, like I said if the pointer system hasn't been figured out (a separate pointer table than the LZSS block), and you don't want to go through the work of RE'ing it, you can do a token system incorporated into it (making some new control codes). On that note, I never found LZSS in small block/window sizes to compress that great for English text. You guys didn't have a problem with Ys IV in this regards, or did you have to cut the string lengths down?
Hey Tom, I wanted to first verify with a message box besides the status menu (which I could test with weeks ago) and here it goes:
(http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/EDFontTest2.png) (http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ed/images/EDFontTest1.png)
Progress continues! PC-FX BIOS to the rescue! That is an 8x12 font Derrick extracted from the PC-FX BIOS!
So yeah, I tracked down a compressed block and got to the message for the sign. I didn't recompress the whole block, I set 2 control bytes inbetween to 0xFF so I could type literal bytes direct. We've got the same LZ codec as Ys IV, so format is control byte and 8 bytes of payload, etc.
As to your Ys IV question, nope, didn't have a problem where I had to go back to the translator to try to shrink text because a recompressed English block exceeded the space allocated! It worked out with no problems!
Well, I might actually have everything needed unless it comes to graphics somewhere, but it looks like I won't have to call upon your expertise just yet - David already did the tough analysis, the research, identification of all text blocks, the codec changes, etc. and the print routine with new font tile insertion is gonna work out fine if one is satisfied with 8x12 fixed-width as with Ys IV.
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Aw yes!
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Wow! This sounds like a done deal then. I expect to be playing some translated Emerald Dragon by summer's end ;)
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Damn. Yes. Indeed.
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That was my suggestion as well. 6x12 works great for text-heavy games with limited screen real estate. Kil's Langrisser IV translation made use of a 6x12 font I designed. The narrower tiles leave less space around glyphs such as i, l, and j, and also around punctuation marks. It helps to mask one of the more negative effects of monospaced fonts.
(http://i.imgur.com/YKZOscK.png)
This is Derrick BTW (once went by D-BOY) and yes, he shrunk it down to just D... ;) A noteworthy fan translator of years past - his font software also helped with Ys IV BITD. Here's one of his PCE projects actually for a HuCard:
http://files.derrick.sobodash.com/translations/crestofgaia
(http://files.derrick.sobodash.com/translations/crestofgaia/crest-001.png) (http://files.derrick.sobodash.com/translations/crestofgaia/crest-003.png)
The latest patch would be there and there are other interesting projects to check out if one is so inclined. FYI gentlemen!
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I'll have a look to this interesting topic.
There'll be for sure many interested to understand it !
personal opinion, I don't wait for dubbing, sub will be nice, but perhaps not the easiest way.
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Man, it's been quite some time since I've been here...
Just wanted to chime in because I wanted to apologize to Dave. I had been working on finishing Sam's translation, but some major life upheavals forced me to move back to the US from Japan, at which point I basically forgot all about Emerald Dragon. So I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, in particular for not e-mailing to let you know what was going on. I just recently got back into the PCE scene again, and seeing this thread made me think, "Oh, geez! I forgot all about this!" I think it will probably go better with the original translator at the helm, anyway. Good luck to you guys!
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Hi everyone. I was asked to do some Falcom scans for a friend and while I was at it I decided to go ahead and scan some of the stuff from Emerald Dragon that I had from the MSX2 version. Sadly I do not own the PC-Engine version yet. Maybe one day though once the translation is released.
Edit:I just got a copy off of eBay for relatively cheap this morning. Around $16 including shipping for a complete set. Also this one seems to come with an extra disc titled "Something in Kanji - CD-ROM and BOOK (1)". No idea what that is, but I did see another auction earlier that was selling that disc alone for around $30 which I cannot seem to find anymore. In any case it might be something neat like an Omake disc that I would be happy to post more details about after it arrives if it's something unknown.
(http://retro-type.com/skyewelse/emerald-dragon-pce-with-extra-disc.png)
Anyhow, I thought these might come in handy in case a small-mini website is created to host the patch or if you wanted to see any supplemental materials translated such as the Prologue, World Map, or other artwork from the cover/manual.
http://retro-type.com/scans/emerald-dragon/
-Thomas
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That second disc is from the mook (http://www.ebay.com/itm/EMERALD-DRAGON-w-CD-Art-Material-Game-Guide-Book-Japan-PC-Engine-MW-RARE-/311011295014?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4869b7bf26), but I can't say what's actually on it. Check it out and let us know. :mrgreen:
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I have the taikenban disc with covers, the official guide book for the PCE version and misc that I can provide media from down the road.
The taikenban is more than gameplay of the first area and is one of the better game promos for PCE:
http://www.c-games.info/games,002,6413.html
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http://www.ebay.com/itm/221424012485
Just completed my purchase of an original copy of Emerald Dragon. :) So, using the Make Offer feature, I tried $13.50 and he accepted (down from his BIN at $15). I guess if it's in good condition as stated, s'all good. I didn't do much research for how much it's been selling in the past, but that's fine.
I've made great progress on the project BTW. Trying to cut a short video to provide a rare inside look into the development process for such projects, but haven't been happy with results so far (Wish I had Joe Redifer's video skills!), and then other distractions came up (hint hint *cough* To*cough*bias)...
But yeah, if you noticed the other thread, I'm able to insert the first text block in the 1st town of Ulwan. I went back and used David's original version of LZSS recompression code from 2004 (as per his initial project work, he discovered the LZSS codec is 99% the same as Ys IV!) written for Ys IV that I rejected initially because I thought the blocks should be compressed exactly as the originals even though David said his version compressed better than Hudson Soft's code. Because the slider window/dictionary was global and I tried to convert his code to a DLL in a Visual C++ IDE, I caused a bug and thought his code was bad, so I asked him to rewrite it to behave exactly as Hudson Soft's did...
Anyway, long story short, I caught the issue, I just needed to zero out the window buffer per call to the DLL (yeah, a small stupid issue of initialization and I missed it!) since it happened again, but because everything fit after recompression with his 2nd Hudson Soft accurate version, I never went back to use his better tweaked version just out of paranoia... This time for ED however, I wanted to use his better version to maximize whatever improved compression results can be achieved and it's working so far! Whatever improvement will be needed since space looks tight based on Sam's translated results!
Well, stay tuned for an eventual video and more screenshots (this week maybe, if not next). :)
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I too just purchased a copy of Emerald Dragon about a week ago; it was pretty cheap so I figured I'd like to have it for patching purposes once you get done. I'm excited to hear that it seems to be progressing well!
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http://www.ebay.com/itm/221424012485
But yeah, if you noticed the other thread, I'm able to insert the first text block in the 1st town of Ulwan. I went back and used David's original version of LZSS recompression code from 2004 (as his initial project work, he discovered the LZSS codec 99% the same!) written for Ys IV that I rejected initially because I thought the blocks should be compressed exactly as the originals even though David said his version compressed better than Hudson Soft's code.
This time for ED however, I wanted to use his better version to maximize whatever improved compression results can be achieved and it's working so far! Whatever improvement will be needed since space looks tight based on Sam's translated results!
Very cool !
I don't recall the difference in compression rate, but every little bit helps.
For some reason, I had been thinking that we rolled back to the original Falcom compress because of some actual issue... but now that I think about it, I must have tested it to restore the actual text after decompressing the entire compressed script.
Anyway, great news, and I'm glad to see that we've got a (slightly) better compressor without much effort.
-Dave
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That brings me to this, do you think there's any more tweaking you could possibly do to the "check_match()" and "is_match()" functions to squeeze any further compression gains out of the codec while still working with the game's same LZSS decoder ?
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That brings me to this, do you think there's any more tweaking you could possibly do to the "check_match()" and "is_match()" functions to squeeze any further compression gains out of the codec while still working with the game's same LZSS decoder ?
Out of sheer curiosity, because these things interest me ... can someone enlighten me as to the encoding that ED is using for the LZSS?
Is it traditional 1-bit literal/repeat, 4-bit count, 12-bit offset, or something more exotic?
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I received my Emerald Dragon in the mail today and it did come with that extra disc which is the same as what Black Tiger referenced earlier, the Emerald Dragon Taikenban disc.
(http://retro-type.com/skyewelse/emerald-dragon-taikenban.jpg)
It has some fun omake content on there such as a demo of the game, (In the Center), the ability to view the Emerald Dragon FMVs (Top-Left), Play various ED themed mini-games similar to the archery game in Link to the Past and Slots (Top-Right), Listen to the game's music while looking at various artwork (Bottom-Left) and lastly some reference information where you can view info on the characters and history/prologue to the story? Not quite sure. (Bottom-Right).
I've made rips of both discs using Nightwolve's kickass TurboRip software.
-Thomas
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Ah, I saw some listings with the demo disc included, but thought it wasn't worth getting - cool for what it does offer! I can live without it I think, though. ;)
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That brings me to this, do you think there's any more tweaking you could possibly do to the "check_match()" and "is_match()" functions to squeeze any further compression gains out of the codec while still working with the game's same LZSS decoder ?
I'll take a look, but I won't have time to look in any depth before the weekend.
I doubt that I'll be able to improve it... but I'll look, just in case.
-Dave
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NightWolve:
Someone at romhacking.net just listed this as a translation project that might need a reboot ... unaware that you'd taken it over and have been working on it.
That reminded me to take a look at this thread and ask how things are going on.
So, how are things progressing? Have you hit technical issues?
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Nope, no problems to report after the first insertion of a text block. I haven't resumed ever since, left it on the back burner. Sam was busy with you on Legend of Xanadu I and II anyway so I didn't see a rush to continue. I had worked on TurboRip and Zwei! instead for a bit when I could make the time, but I'm busy now with offline life. If I mess with it this year, I'll make a beta patch with the 60% translation I have from Sam.
Nightcrawler continues his bullying with me, so who knows what he's writing over there now. It's not actually the result of contacting any project manager to report "news." I don't have anything to do with them, never did, and also since extortion threats originated out of the forums when I did the Felghana patch in 2007 so I told them to f#ck off and delete my hosted patches.
They actually changed their main rule about removing the hosting of patches per creator's request cause of me, and forced all my patches back up, heh. Then NightCrawler made a profile hate post of me to write attacks, he worked in XXXSEED some time ago as well. Jeff DeuceBag said he caught a death threat there for not sharing SSRPG tools, so he quit their forums eventually. Recently, some enemy of theirs created a fake Romhacking.net account on Twitter to fool the public for a while, and then turned it into NightCrawler Alt Racist political commentary, funny as heck, heh. Can't help but feel glee right now.
Anyway, I think if you're able to think about another project, Anearth Fantasy Stories or Gulliver Boy could use your expert attention. Your talent can't be around forever, so if you did extract / insert work, any needed font job, and left it around, others can get to it in the future.
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Nope, no problems to report after the first insertion of a text block. I haven't resumed ever since, left it on the back burner. Sam was busy with you on Legend of Xanadu I and II anyway so I didn't see a rush to continue. I had worked on TurboRip and Zwei! instead for a bit when I could make the time, but I'm busy now with offline life. If I mess with it this year, I'll make a beta patch with the 60% translation I have from Sam.
Nightcrawler continues his bullying with me, so who knows what he's writing over there now. It's not actually the result of contacting any project manager to report "news." I don't have anything to do with them, never did, and also since extortion threats originated out of the forums when I did the Felghana patch in 2007 so I told them to f#ck off and delete my hosted patches.
They actually changed their main rule about removing the hosting of patches per creator's request cause of me, and forced all my patches back up, heh. Then NightCrawler made a profile hate post of me to write attacks, he worked in XXXSEED some time ago as well. Jeff DeuceBag said he caught a death threat there for not sharing SSRPG tools, so he quit their forums eventually. Recently, some enemy of theirs created a fake Romhacking.net account on Twitter to fool the public for a while, and then turned it into NightCrawler Alt Racist political commentary, funny as heck, heh. Can't help but feel glee right now.
Anyway, I think if you're able to think about another project, Anearth Fantasy Stories or Gulliver Boy could use your expert attention. Your talent can't be around forever, so if you did extract / insert work, any needed font job, and left it around, others can get to it in the future.
Never knew about all this drama, what is the deal?
As for this version of Emerald Dragon. It looks nice, but the issue with the snes version is it was far too easy. It was stupidly easy. I tried to handicap myself, to a great extent, to make it harder and still beat it with ease. So, is this version, for some reason, in any way harder? Otherwise, there is no point IMO in playing another very easy game.
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Nope, no problems to report after the first insertion of a text block. I haven't resumed ever since, left it on the back burner. Sam was busy with you on Legend of Xanadu I and II anyway so I didn't see a rush to continue. I had worked on TurboRip and Zwei! instead for a bit when I could make the time, but I'm busy now with offline life. If I mess with it this year, I'll make a beta patch with the 60% translation I have from Sam.
Nightcrawler continues his bullying with me, so who knows what he's writing over there now. It's not actually the result of contacting any project manager to report "news." I don't have anything to do with them, never did, and also since extortion threats originated out of the forums when I did the Felghana patch in 2007 so I told them to f#ck off and delete my hosted patches.
They actually changed their main rule about removing the hosting of patches per creator's request cause of me, and forced all my patches back up, heh. Then NightCrawler made a profile hate post of me to write attacks, he worked in XXXSEED some time ago as well. Jeff DeuceBag said he caught a death threat there for not sharing SSRPG tools, so he quit their forums eventually. Recently, some enemy of theirs created a fake Romhacking.net account on Twitter to fool the public for a while, and then turned it into NightCrawler Alt Racist political commentary, funny as heck, heh. Can't help but feel glee right now.
Anyway, I think if you're able to think about another project, Anearth Fantasy Stories or Gulliver Boy could use your expert attention. Your talent can't be around forever, so if you did extract / insert work, any needed font job, and left it around, others can get to it in the future.
Wasn't Anearth well into being translated or am I imagining things?
I just wish people could stop being dicks and be kosher with one another, for such a small group of folks (generally speaking vs other consoles fans) we have a wide array of cunts. :(
Of course Nightwolve, this is not directed at you.
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As for this version of Emerald Dragon. It looks nice, but the issue with the snes version is it was far too easy. It was stupidly easy. I tried to handicap myself, to a great extent, to make it harder and still beat it with ease. So, is this version, for some reason, in any way harder? Otherwise, there is no point IMO in playing another very easy game.
I've not played the SNES version, but I don't recall the PCE one being spectacularly easy. My skills are pretty crap, though, so the fact that I beat it at all means it can't be that hard of a game.
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I just checked and mine doesn't have the demo disc. Dang it!!!!!!!
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Nope, no problems to report after the first insertion of a text block. I haven't resumed ever since, left it on the back burner. Sam was busy with you on Legend of Xanadu I and II anyway so I didn't see a rush to continue. I had worked on TurboRip and Zwei! instead for a bit when I could make the time, but I'm busy now with offline life. If I mess with it this year, I'll make a beta patch with the 60% translation I have from Sam.
I'm going to speak out-of-turn ... but I believe that what SamIAm really needs to see from you is a large chunk of that 60% translation working in-game without running out of either compressed or decompressed space.
SamIAm is an absolute "treasure" to this community, and has been working on translations since at-least 2006 ... but the poor guy has kept on working with incomplete scripts, or translations that would break badly on re-insertion into the game.
Those are "programmer" issues ... not "translator" issues.
From my (admittedly limited experience) there's a HUGE gulf between extracting some of the text, and understanding how to actually rebuild the game data with new English translations ... and that's even without considering line-length issues due to the font drawing.
If you can show him that everything is understood, and that multiple scripts reinsert cleanly into the game without breaking the game's loading, or overflowing the RAM, then I'm sure that he'll make the time to finish off the translations.
Some of the things that you said back in 2016 make me a little uncertain as to whether you're quite at that point of confidence with the scripts, yet.
(I have absolutely no doubt at-all that you have both the skill and perseverance to get there ... the only question is whether it is all done, yet.)
Nightcrawler continues his bullying with me, so who knows what he's writing over there now.
I (thankfully) missed those "drama" years ... and in this particular case, it's just a thread where many old-and-seemingly-abandoned projects are being mentioned as possibilities for the current-generation of translators to pick up and finish.
There's been little negativity towards you.
There was one thread over there recently where someone mentioned the whole situation ... but I tried to point out that there was a different interpretation of events ... and NightCrawler wasn't even involved in that thread.
Anyway, I think if you're able to think about another project, Anearth Fantasy Stories or Gulliver Boy could use your expert attention.
While Anearth may be a project someday, I'm not sure that Gulliver Boy makes much sense for a PCE translation ... because I suspect that it would need subtitles that could only (sensibly) be done on the Saturn version ...
... unless Tom's future work on the Tengai Makyou games makes everyone here appreciate the idea of Mednafen-only emulator-only subtitles.
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Wasn't Anearth well into being translated or am I imagining things?
Not "imagining", just "projecting" your hopes and dreams.
SamIAm put a lot of work into translating the script-extractions that he was given ... "yes".
As for what that actually meant in relation to a workable translated-game ... "pass".
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Wasn't Anearth well into being translated or am I imagining things?
Not "imagining", just "projecting" your hopes and dreams.
SamIAm put a lot of work into translating the script-extractions that he was given ... "yes".
As for what that actually meant in relation to a workable translated-game ... "pass".
Well, :(
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Well, :(
Don't worry ... I expect that it'll happen someday, and that all of the existing work that SamIAm did with EsperKnight will be useful. :wink:
But after picking-up 2 translations from EsperKnight, and looking at a 3rd (Team Innocent), I'm seeing a pattern of limitations in his ability to finish things that get beyond a certain complexity-level.
Anearth Fantasy Stories seems to be one of those projects.
That's no problem, and not an insult ... it's just a statement of my perceptions.
Doug (EsperKnight) is a really nice guy, and a good hacker ... he just didn't want to disappoint folks, and didn't know when to back away from tasks that were a little beyond his abilities.
The fact that he took them on in the first-place, and brought them to the advanced levels that he did is a huge testament to what he could do ... and it has been an invaluable help in getting me to come along years-later and finish-off some of the projects that he started.
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If you can show him that everything is understood, and that multiple scripts reinsert cleanly into the game without breaking the game's loading, or overflowing the RAM, then I'm sure that he'll make the time to finish off the translations.
Bingo. :D
While Anearth may be a project someday, I'm not sure that Gulliver Boy makes much sense for a PCE translation ... because I suspect that it would need subtitles that could only (sensibly) be done on the Saturn version ...
... unless Tom's future work on the Tengai Makyou games makes everyone here appreciate the idea of Mednafen-only emulator-only subtitles.
Interestingly, there are PCE and Saturn ports of Anearth just as there are of Gulliver Boy.
You could say that both of them would be better enjoyed as swan-songs for the PCE than as otherwise totally ordinary Saturn games.
However, one important difference is that if you don't care about the consoles themselves, the PCE version of Anearth is pretty much undeniably the better one, while for Gulliver Boy, it's the Saturn port.
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I'm going to speak out-of-turn ... but I believe that what SamIAm really needs to see from you is a large chunk of that 60% translation working in-game without running out of either compressed or decompressed space.
SamIAm is an absolute "treasure" to this community, and has been working on translations since at-least 2006 ... but the poor guy has kept on working with incomplete scripts, or translations that would break badly on re-insertion into the game.
Those are "programmer" issues ... not "translator" issues.
Yeah, I think it's all fine and that's what I wanted to eventually do with what I already have. I just decided to wait till Sam finished off Xanadu work before even considering to resume this project and with my own other things to do, I left it in the back burner for "some day." I haven't heard back on his availability as well, so another reason I didn't return to it.
So...did you guys finish the Xanadus since we're on the subject ? I haven't been visiting here for a few months, I'm out of the loop...
I (thankfully) missed those "drama" years ... and in this particular case, it's just a thread where many old-and-seemingly-abandoned projects are being mentioned as possibilities for the current-generation of translators to pick up and finish.
There's been little negativity towards you.
He created a profile post of me to talk his shit. He mentioned I picked up the ED project from David, so it indicates he visits (AKA spies) my site now and then (lucky me). He also barked about XSEED Games cheating me, that it's "confusing," not understanding it, and naturally denying wrongdoing out of spite, the usual troll sour grapes, etc. I'm sure that's all returned now that he restored RHDN.
Basically, I used to hang on his TransCorp forum, we were somewhat friendly, until one day when he got impatient with The Whirlpool not immediately posting news of his project update. He joked that they're "sleeping" over there. Next thing you know, Wraith, who ran it after Spinner8 left, announced he'd be shutting down the site, was tired of impatient pestering like that as a whole, etc. There were about 20 pages giving him a little shit on his forum about pissing Wraith off and causing the shutdown, that's about when I joined in to also josh with him about it in a playful way, I didn't think I was mean, but he completely got insulted, thin-skinned as he is, retorted angrily, so I let him have it, then he deleted my post, and locked the thread calling me a "teenage drama queen" (for 2 posts!!!). I deleted my account in protest to him going Nazi power mod and called it out on my old RIGG forums.
Anyway, I was really surprised he couldn't take a little roasting about the situation... I wasn't that bad, and we were friendly up to that point like I said, but he just lost his temper and I said f#ck that, time to take my membership elsewhere. It wasn't till years later with the extortion threat that came from some Japanese teacher there that led to me demanding the removal of my patches which they complied, only to have a debate months later and reverse the decision where they put all my patches back, and NightCrawler created that profile post of me for his attacks and to turn the tables from the bad behavior of his members, etc.
Yeah, wasn't worth taking the tangent on this shit, but it's why I wouldn't have cared if he couldn't restore RHDN or not. He's an arrogant prick with too much pride that can't just apologize for something insignificant and leave it at that. I used to defend him from D-BOY telling me he's an ahole all the time just randomly in IM, only to have to eventually eat my words. So yeah, he obviously made more enemies given the impostor Romhacking.net Twitter account that fooled even you I see. Those RHDN types also did an impostor account of me years ago, that Byuu guy was part of it. They're stupid like that.
I just wish people could stop being dicks and be kosher with one another, for such a small group of folks (generally speaking vs other consoles fans) we have a wide array of cunts. :(
Of course Nightwolve, this is not directed at you.
Well, I've gotten caught up myself in feuds I'd rather have avoided, and played tit for tat. Reality is, some people you were better off never meeting and are just incompatible with... I never should've had anything to do with Jeff Nussbaum, Tom-chan Lipschultz, and a lot of other people in gamer circles, but I looked for free translation work and combined with the 99% freeloading, abuse, neglect, etc. by translation patch consumers, it's not worth it in principle... I have a negative view of gamer culture in general these days, and many in it, I find it disgusting frankly.
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So...did you guys finish the Xanadus since we're on the subject ? I haven't been visiting here for a few months, I'm out of the loop...
Both games are basically "done" from a hacking and translation POV.
The only significant thing that remains for both of them is the audio-dub.
That's taken a significant amount of time to prepare for ... but we've been entirely-blocked for over 6 weeks now waiting for our web-volunteer to finish-off the web pages for the dub so that we can open-up the casting-call.
We're within a few days of calling for help on that issue.
But that is why both SamIAm and I have been "seen" to be distracted lately ... i.e. with Huzak, in my case, which was next on my list of "to-do" projects.
SamIAm could probably have finished-off the ED translation in that time ... but since that project has been on-hold too ... he's found other interesting things to translate.
You've just got to get the ED stuff in the "queue" ... and SamIAm will look at it when he has the time.
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ED is a cool looking game. I've never tried the SNES version, but I actually have a copy of the PCe one. Maybe one day....
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Do you consider releasing as it and giving just some translation sheets for the dubbing part ?
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Do you consider releasing as it and giving just some translation sheets for the dubbing part ?
Are you asking about Legend of Xanadu, or Emerald Dragon? :-k
This is really the ED thread, and I was only responding here because NightWolve asked a direct question ... we have our own LoX threads elsewhere if you want to ask about the LoX project.
I really don't want to pollute NightWolve's thread ... it's not a "blog". :wink:
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You're right, so in order to don't be totally off the topic, I'll reply you, the both. :pray:
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Emerald dragon snes is a big shit, graphic, sound and all game, pcengine version is one of the best rpg in 16bits all consoles, top five.
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Since this thread has bumped, is it ok to ask if the translation of this still in progress? It sounds like some things have stalled but could be continued in the future?
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Just sayin' ... this 30th Anniversary Year would be a great time to release the translation. :-" :wink:
Yes it would.
NightWolve, have you decided to start taking another look at digging into this ?
Hey Dave, good to cya around.
Let's see, I will try to commit to ~Winter 2017 to resume it. I have lots to do in the coming months and don't want any fan project distractions. I basically waited to hear from Sam after the Xanadu projects would end before considering resumption. Now that the Xanadu stuff will wind down in the coming months, it does open a window to resume it again.
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Just sayin' ... this 30th Anniversary Year would be a great time to release the translation. :-" :wink:
Yes it would.
NightWolve, have you decided to start taking another look at digging into this ?
Hey Dave, good to cya around.
Let's see, I will try to commit to ~Winter 2017 to resume it. I have lots to do in the coming months and don't want any fan project distractions. I basically waited to hear from Sam after the Xanadu projects would end before considering resumption. Now that the Xanadu stuff will wind down in the coming months, it does open a window to resume it again.
I was always holding out hope for this one, such a colorful, fun game (the little I played due to teh language).
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I forgot about this thread and translation. Was going through some stuff and stumbled back across it.
Hows it going? :D
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It's just on hold. SamIAm is busy with Legend of Xanadu anyway, I'm busy, so I feel no rush to resume. Didn't get to touch it in 2017 either unfortunately but we'll see this year. Maybe at least a BETA with the 60% translation that I have, but yeah, it's not a priority right now.
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ED is a cool looking game. I've never tried the SNES version, but I actually have a copy of the PCe one. Maybe one day....
The SNES one is for poor people.
Don't play it.
PCE or MSX2, or don't even bother.
<3
Both those soundtracks rule.
Though, the CD stuff is kinda meh at times compared to the PSG stuff. The MSX2 FM stuff is f*ckin cool.
This game is f*cking cool.
Cool.
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ED is a cool looking game. I've never tried the SNES version, but I actually have a copy of the PCe one. Maybe one day....
The SNES one is for poor people.
Don't play it.
PCE or MSX2, or don't even bother.
<3
Both those soundtracks rule.
Though, the CD stuff is kinda meh at times compared to the PSG stuff. The MSX2 FM stuff is f*ckin cool.
This game is f*cking cool.
Cool.
I had no idea there was a MSX port!!!
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The MSX one has pretty nice intro artwork, and a sweet box.
Way better than the SNES one lol
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I just watched the intro on youtube. Obviously, I like the PC Engine intro more but the MSX one is pretty cool.
MSX has some pretty cool stuff on it. I don't think I'll ever get into it, X68000 stuff, or Towns Marty stuff but I'm always at least marginally interested in seeing what's out there.
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Anyone here see this yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X8aE8jMqwg
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Not me. I don't follow anything that piece of shit does.