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Topic: A beginner's question... (Read 934 times)
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meko
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« on: October 27, 2006, 04:25:01 pm » |
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I started to learn how to translate roms awhile ago, and practiced on some old Japanese gameboy games. I inserted fonts in a few, and learned enough to be able to translate menus and textboxes and understand pointers and those things... And those were all going pretty good. But for the three games I really wanted to work on (a Gameboy Colour one, a SNES one, and a Gameboy Advance one), I can't even FIND the fonts to add in romaji... (well, except the gameboy colour one... That one's just weird, there's a minimum of five fonts used in the game, two were in TLP's default gameboy format (2bpp?), one was in 1bpp, and the other two (the intro font, and naming screen/battle menu font) I can't find with any of tilelayer's formats...)
Does that mean the fonts are... um, compressed? And if so, could someone tell me some nice guides for how to uncompress fonts? (all the compression documents I could find are for compressed scripts... Is it called something else when it's the font that's compressed?)
I'm sorry if these are newbish, I'm not very good at these sort of things, but I really did look and try to do it without bothering anyone. Anyhow, thanks a lot for reading!
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RedComet
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« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2006, 05:02:13 pm » |
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Compression's compression regardless of whether you're compressing a script, a font, a submarine sandwich, a title screen, enemy radio transmissions or whatever. It's all data. It might represetn something other than a string of numbers, but it's still data.
At any rate, if the fonts are compressed, you might need to do some asm work or it might just be stored in some weird-ass format. Which games are you looking at? Someone might be familiar enough to offer a little more specific assistance than what I've given thus far.
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DaMarsMan
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« Reply #2 on: October 27, 2006, 05:27:45 pm » |
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Make sure you use tile molester and look at all the different modes. It could be in a format you are missing but it's unlikely. Chances are if you really searched hard and didn't find it then it's compressed. I find that 99% of the time, if the data stays in VRAM after it's decompressed it's easier to code some asm to insert a new font over the old one than it is to locate and code a decompresser/compressor. What are these games that you are working on? I have never seen a gameboy compressed font but I'm sure they are out there. Sometimes games have a generic compression scheme that they use for all graphical data.
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meko
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« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2006, 05:37:57 pm » |
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ASM... I was sort of afraid of that... I don't know or understand that at all, except pointers if those count. Which games are you looking at? Space-net: Cosmo Blue (GBC) (The weird one with quite a few fonts... and even after replacing all the ones I could find on every format, it still didn't change the naming screen or battle menus, or the intro but that was in english already) Angelique (SNES) Sansara Naga 1x2 (GBA) (also looked at SN2 for SNES, but I couldn't find the font in that either...) I'll try to use Tile Molester, thanks! And I'll look at the ASM tutorials too. Thanks again for the replies!  |
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RedComet
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« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2006, 05:55:31 pm » |
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Angelique is a 12x12 uncompressed font. FEIDIAN can handle it, no problem. Don't know about the others though.
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Gideon Zhi
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« Reply #5 on: October 27, 2006, 06:05:32 pm » |
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You might also want to take a look at this, in which I walk satsu through replacing Eien no Filena's compressed font with a not-compressed font. Even if you do go the route of reverse-engineering your compression stuff, this will at least walk you through finding the routine you need to reverse-engineer, and will provide a beginner's lesson in ASM anyway. |
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tomaitheous
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« Reply #6 on: October 27, 2006, 06:12:50 pm » |
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ASM... I was sort of afraid of that... I don't know or understand that at all, except pointers if those count.
Dont be afraid to learn ASM. It's actually really simple once you get past the basics and start using the debugger. |
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DaMarsMan
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« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2006, 07:45:10 pm » |
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(also looked at SN2 for SNES, but I couldn't find the font in that either...) Hey, that's my project! Yeah the font is compressed. I already have most the menus done and the script is inserted with temporary place holders. If you want to see it in English just find someone willing to translate it and I'll finish it up. |
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meko
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« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2006, 08:26:20 pm » |
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Thanks for the replies and encouragement, I'll look at Gideon's log and FEIDIAN once I finish this post. Hey, that's my project! Oh sorry! I didn't know anyone else was working on any Sansara game... I won't touch it again then. If you want to see it in English just find someone willing to translate it and I'll finish it up. I can think of a couple people who might be interested, I'll ask and PM you if they say yes.  |
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DaMarsMan
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« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2006, 09:19:12 pm » |
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It's a very small script...May want to mention that to them. Thanks.
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KingMike
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« Reply #10 on: October 27, 2006, 10:27:47 pm » |
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Hey, that's my project! Yeah the font is compressed. I already have most the menus done and the script is inserted with temporary place holders. If you want to see it in English just find someone willing to translate it and I'll finish it up.
What the hell is up with Sansara 1 for the NES? Bad dump? Incomplete emulation? Or is supposed to spaz out with random sound effects and text and kill you whenever you talk to someone?  (although I'd guess it could be emulation. Metal Max 1 vomits garbage text on the tank status screen. Might or might not be coincidence it uses the same mapper, MMC3, IIRC) |
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meko
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« Reply #11 on: October 27, 2006, 10:38:32 pm » |
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Hey, that's my project! Yeah the font is compressed. I already have most the menus done and the script is inserted with temporary place holders. If you want to see it in English just find someone willing to translate it and I'll finish it up.
What the hell is up with Sansara 1 for the NES? Bad dump? Incomplete emulation? Or is supposed to spaz out with random sound effects and text and kill you whenever you talk to someone? (although I'd guess it could be emulation. Metal Max 1 vomits garbage text on the tank status screen. Might or might not be coincidence it uses the same mapper, MMC3, IIRC) Nope, that's normal. You stole the dragon egg from town (hence why all the guards and dogs were chasing you out of it in the intro), and why you get beaten up if you head back into that town and talk to some people (particularly... the woman with the baby). The dogs chase you back out in the GBA one, and in either version they steal your clothes too. :laugh: The Sansara games are like Earthbound... they can be really deep at one moment, then silly and very awkward the next. |
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