Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => FreeSpace Conversion => Topic started by: potterman28wxcv on May 02, 2010, 06:36:56 am
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Hi all, I've got french cds version of Descent : Freespace, The Great War, with voices and texts in french. I have installed Freespace 2 with SCP and I don't know how to get Freespace Port into french ; maybe there will be some mediavps to replace with these of the french version, but I don't know which to replace with.
Does anyone know how to make it ? :)
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FSPort is available in English. Period.
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I know it's available in English, but if I replace some specific voices mediavps with the french version (the one which has been commercialized in France), maybe could Freespace Port be available in French too, but I don't know which mediavps is for the voices
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Well, first of all, these are the MediaVPs (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=65038.0). They're MediaVPs, because they contain new media, packed into .vp files, made by the FSU people. If you're referring to other .vp files, please just call them vps or something. For the sake of reducing confusion.
Next, .vp files are containers. Think .zip, just without compression. I'm not entirely sure of how much different FS1 is compared to FS2, but IN THEORY, if you can find tools that can open FS1 files, you can extract the voice files, place them to appropriate subfolders under \freespace2\fsport\data\ , and if the file names match, they will be played instead of the ones in the FSPort vps.
Text is a completely different matter. Or at least I have understood that mission files in FS1 are greatly different compared to those in FS2. You'd have to translate the FSPort missions yourself if you want French text.
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All right, I found the vp where there are the sounds of briefings, debriefings, etc... It's stu_fs1.vp
I just extracted all and put the wav files in directories, which are data/voice/special/, data/voice/debriefing/, data/voice/briefing/ and data/voice/command_debriefing/ (the directories are in a personal directory outside of the freespace2 directory)
In the French version, only the voices of training and "special voices" are available, so I just replaced them with these of the french version.
My new stu_fs1.vp is ready to be made, but the VPPBUILDER32 of the Descent Manager Tools don't allow to make directories in vps... Do you know where could I found a software to make this vp ? I'm very near of the solution :D
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Maja (http://wmc.freespacemods.net/repository/) should work.
Just that... did you test them? Do they work? .vp is more of a convenience format. If you place the voice files to \freespace2\fsport\data\voice\special\ etc as they were inside the FS1 .vp, you should see if they work or not. Packing them into a .vp will not affect their functionality in any way.
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That's what I want to do :) I want to pack all the directories in a new stu_fs1.vp (that's why I needed a software that could create new directories in a .vp file)
In theory, the game will recognize the directories INSIDE the stu_fs1.vp, and find the new wav files (fortunately, the old wav files have exactly the same name that the wav files in the stu_fs1.vp).
I think this will work, I'll try it soon and post to say if it works or not.
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I'm just trying to say, that according to FS modding basics, you don't need new .vp files to test these things. If you have the voice files, place them to the correct subfolders under \freespace2\fsport\data\ . They don't need to be in .vp files. If you place the voice files under \freespace2\fsport\data\ and there are files with the same name inside the FSPort .vp files, the game engine will use the ones under \freespace2\fsport\data\ , ignoring the ones in the .vp files.
The point is that the testing part is a lot faster and easier if you skip the vp creation altogether. Once everything works, then you can create .vp files with a working set of files.
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Thanks, I didn't know that ^^
It's ok for the voices, it's so good to hear some french voices :)
Packing it to stu_fs1.vp in progress...
Well, Maja doesn't work when extracting the .vp file : it does nothing. I just choosed a directory in My Documents, put the name stu_fs1.vp, and when I clicked on extract, the directory's selection window just closed... no message "stu_fs1.vp extracted successfully" or something like that.. When I looked in my directory, there was nothing changed.
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There was an attempt to port the Port into German with strings.tbl some time ago, I don't know if it ever succeeded. But it's certainly possible to get French text as well as voice, if the localization is set up properly. It would require a lot of work from us, though, and as far as I know there's not really the demand for it.
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It didn't succeed because it was never really started. At minimum, we would have to add localization for all the text. This means going through the FSPort tables and missions, and adding XSTR numbers for every single line of text. This is a massive amount of work, and we wouldn't want to do it without making some sort of program to automate the task for us.
After getting all the XSTR numbers set up, we would then have to link them to their translated equivalents in the French and German versions. Theoretically this could be done using the same sort of automation, but if the translated versions have more or fewer lines of text than the English version, the translations could easily get out of sync. So that would be another complication.
I haven't had time to write this XSTR program, so this project is currently on indefinite hold. And there hasn't been much demand for it so far.
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I don't really understand... when I read sm3-10a.fs2 from fsport-missions.vp, the command briefings texts are in :
// beginning at line 66
#Command Briefing
$Stage Text:
I know why the Ancient Ones were destroyed, and I know what they knew. I know that if not for the Shivans, they would have perished long before. Without the Shivans, someone would have discovered the Ancient Ones in their infancy and eliminated them, just as surely as they eliminated countless billions of others.
$end_multi_text
$Ani Filename: cb_train-01_c.ani
+Wave Filename: none
$Stage Text:
I believe it is only the destroyers who are killed. The Shivans are the Great Destroyers, but they are also the Great Preservers. That is why, when we moved into space, there was no one powerful enough to kill us.
$end_multi_text
$Ani Filename: cb_lucifer.ani
+Wave Filename: none
$Stage Text:
Long had we been the destroyer. Our turn had nearly come.
In the Vasudan War, we learned how to adapt. We learned how to study our enemy. We learned how to overcome. We learned how to survive. And so we did.
$end_multi_text
$Ani Filename: cb_gta.ani
+Wave Filename: none
$Stage Text:
All the jump points from Earth are gone. But the Shivans can rebuild them.
I'm told we can expect them again... but not in my lifetime. Such is liberation.
May you live to see your home.
$end_multi_text
$Ani Filename: cb_ancients.ani
+Wave Filename: none
// ending at line 96
If I replace the English texts by Frenchs translations, why wouldn't it work ??
Yeah, putting an option in the game to translate text into french would be a very big job, but just replacing vps files with their translations in french could be a solution :)
--- edit ---
Well, I started translate .fs2 files, translating all the XSTR of the btm-01.fs2, and it works pretty good ^^
I'll do it for all other .fs2 files, and then I'll have Freespace Port almost at 100% french ;)
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If you need help for translations to French, you can ask me, I'm French too. However, I tend to despise official game/films translations, especially voice acting, because of how inaccurate and botched they tend to be. At least, we know a bit about the FS universe to redo that...
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Yeah, I remember the ancients films traduction, I always thought that the voices acting in these films weren't appropriated to the FS universe..
For the missions, texts translations IN the mission itself are not difficult to find : just have to open the french .wav of the voice and write what the man says. However, for briefings, there's no french voices, so a complete traduction is needed.
My priority is about the text, not really the voices ; I know there are some voices that could be changed, but first, changing texts are the most important. (and I don't have the appropriate hardware to record new voices..).
If you want to help me, do so ^^ I don't have much time now... but in August, I think I'll have many more time to translate a great part of the files.
I think this week-end I will translate all the training missions = the btm-*.fs2 ; if you wanna translate too, try not to translate files that already have been translated :D
Thanks for help :)
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Your welcome :). I think I'll start on tech room descriptions.
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There's a LOT more to localization than translating (@potterman28wxcv the English word for "traduction" is "translation"), especially in FS2. If you've ever looked in the tables, all of those $XSTR("blah", -1) entries are things that have only the English version... ones that have translations have some number other than -1, corresponding to an index in a table (tstrings.tbl, i think). It'd be a huge project.
Unless you just want to take the existing version and make your own French version from it, but that wouldn't get updated when the rest of FSPort got updated.
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I'm personally taking it as an English training, it can't hurt :) but even if I'm French, I wouldn't want to play a French version, mainly for the reasons mentioned above.
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True, the game ambiance in English is better, but I'll give you an example : I play Freespace since the game has been released (but I discovered Freespace 2 SCP only last year) in French, so I know almost all of the missions and objectives of FSport.
But when I play STR for example, I don't know any mission in the campaign, so when there are dialogs when I'm fighting, I can't read the dialogs and be concentrated in the fight at the same time (I understand very good English when it's written ; badly when someone is speaking), so I must press F4 to see the dialogs.. But it's true too that sometimes an English word express more than a French word.
My purpose is to get Freespace Port more accessible to other French people that don't understand English, but yeah it'd be a huge project as you said, and it is an English training as Matth said lol (I remember I learnt English basics in an English game called Diablo). But I will continue translating :)
:) but that is a good experience to discover how SCP works with the files :nod:
But I'm a C beginner developper (I'm in high school ; in 1ère, so it would be the... 10th year of school in England ?), and I would like to know, what refers the first argument of XSTR to ?
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You guys misunderstand our difficulty here. There is already an existing French translation for the FSPort (specifically, the French release of FS1). What we haven't been able to do yet is the localization, that is the linking of translations to missions via the XSTR numbers.
If someone wanted to organize a volunteer effort to do that, then I could probably be convinced to write the XSTR program I mentioned above. :)
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I still think that retranslating the non voice-acted parts should be done in order to have a more faithful and accurate version. I'd love to have a look on the official translation while you work on you XSTR thing.
But as far I know, none of the FSPort texts use those XSTR things - they are fairly obvious in FS2, but nowhere to be seen in FSPort. I guess that is the problem you were talking about. I would love to work on it, but I need to know what exactly need to be done.
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Hmm. Well, I have the German translation, but not the French translation. Anyone have the French version of FS1?
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Well, working on modifying the existing french version would be useless : in the french version, translaters forgave something vital. They just put accent like é, è, à, â, ô... but when there was an accent, the game showed a blank... well, here's an example of what I'm saying for the sentence "Follow your instructions to the letter"
In French, it must done : Suivez vos instructions à la lettre
But in fact, the game translated it by : Suivez vos instructions la lettre
So, if we take the existing traduction and modify it, we must modify too the texts.... A lot of work to get the same result.
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Notepad++ -> Ctrl+F -> Replace -> Search "à" Replace with "a" -> Replace All
26 occurrences were replaced.
5 second job.
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Except that the reason why these letters don't show up is because the font doesn't support them. That's something that should be fixed.
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Point. I should post a request about that. Where does it belong, SCP ?
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Technically, yes. That or FS Modding.
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If the FS1 translation contained accented letters, then the FS1 translation should have come with its own font. We can simply include that font in the French modpack for FSPort.
Unless the same font was used for all versions. Potterman28wxcv, do you have the French version of FS1?
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Bonjour, c'est peut être un peu tard mais oui j'ai bien la version française de freespace 1. :)
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(Je ne parle pas français, donc je vais écrire en anglais. Vous pouvez utiliser Google Translate ou un service similaire si vous en avez besoin.)
I already have everything from the French version of FS1. I just need to fix the bug described in Mantis 3049 (http://scp.indiegames.us/mantis/view.php?id=3049) first.
Do you also have the French version of Silent Threat?
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I think no french silent treat version has been released. The battle pack contained french FS1, but only english Silent Threat.
That might be why I didn't play it back in the days.
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Silent Threat actually was released in French, and that translation is currently in FSPort.