question about a (custom) translation

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:51 pm

hey folks,

I've got quite a special request...
well, the request itself is not that special and a few words would be enough to ask that question, but it's special for me.

My dad and me constantly were at war when I was young, because I wasted too much time in front of the C64 and lateron the ST (to some extend of course he was right about that, as he was right about so many other things). Things have changed, we both have become older (he's close to 70 now, I'm 34), he is retired now and I'm realizing, although we differ greatly about certain topics in politics, philosophy and ethics, subconsciously I always tried to step into his footprints (which I did, I'm actually doing the same job now).

We have grown fairly close the last few years and I'm quite happy about that. We both share a passion for old machinery, classic cars and the art of growing wine and of course consuming it.

Recently he showed interest in what I was playing on the PPC (it's his old machine I got as a gift for christmas) and I was -very- suprised he remembered Dungeon Master on the ST and was even more suprised as he was willing to give DMI a honest try.

Problem of course is: a senior like him isn't very good in english and the regular german translation is one of the most lame translation I've ever seen in a game. The falchion for example is translated as "Hackmesser" which sounds ridiculous in german and I know something like that would truely spoil the fun for him. So I would like to better that.

The version of course would be CSBwin for PPC, so writings on the walls could be changed thanks to CSBuilt, but what do I need to access the ingame text for the objects + infotext (eye, leveling up)?

greetings
T0Mi

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 12:30 am

See:

http://dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/QuotedStrings.txt

Those are probably most of the
strings that occur in the CSBwin
executable. Many are not of interest
to you.

Objects can be renamed by editing
the graphics.dat file. I don't know how
but others have done it.[/code]

Are you willing to provide a new graphics.dat
and translations of all the necessary
strings in the executable?

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 12:26 pm

Of course.
A few glitches lateron probably won't matter, but especially the first impression really will. I need to change the "Enter/Resume(/Quit)" entrance graphic, also the graphics for "Food", "Water", "poisioned", etc. which can be done using ADGE. Just found out: this prog also enables editing of item names, so the way to do 'it' is almost laying before me now, I just have do start walking.

The only things left are the strings in the *.exe itself.
huuu... this looks like I have to install Visual C/C++ and compile the whole thing... damn, I was hoping for an easy HEX Editor job.

(havn't tested yet, let's see)

I took a quick look at the strings (and translated them on-the-fly) and into chaos.cpp (to get a feel) I've found on your page. this is all very intersting for me. I did some coding on the ST back in those days (truely minor stuff... you'll agree hearing the term roxl-scroller) and this all looks very familar, but of course I'm far from understanding it.

greetings
T0Mi

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:24 pm

TOMi wrote:this looks like I have to install Visual C/C++ and compile the whole thing... damn,

No...I think it would be nice to have an
optional 'Strings.txt' file that would be
read upon initialization. I would fix CSBwin
to look for the file and substitute the
text for the 'wired-in' strings.

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:23 am

you would? that'll be great!
I think it's still a bit early to go into detail, there are still many scrolls to rewrite, items to be named properly, but I've uploaded the modified QuotedStrings.txt here:
http://hometown.aol.com/TToommii/DM/cus ... s_MODI.txt

(Couldn't find the strings for antifire/magic though. For CSBCode.cpp shouldn't there be a pointer Pointer16822[5] (+ [6])?)
I tried not to touch anything that will not appear in DMI.

In case you're thinking of a multilingual package including various versions / languages of DM + CSB (or even Conflux), I'm of course willing to to the translations there (and elsewhere) too. I'm making progress, found some more fitting names for some items / writings avoiding umlauts and lenghten some words (there are only 300 characters available as sum for ALL of the attack names).

My dad never -ever- played any games on the computer, he always said: "it's a true waste of time, the only things you gain maybe are a few bytes changed on the disk." resulting in the "what-life-is-all-about" discussion with a 14year-old ignorant (me usually). hehe... I'm looking forward to see him wondering about "cast your influence cast your might".

We've spend some time together yesterday while driving through Stuttgart to visit a GM car trader (I need to get an exceptional permission to access the new "enviroment zones" in the future with my beloved Chevy equipped with the a-so-dirty 6.2 Diesel engine with no exhaust gas threatment) and we had a good talk. It's kinda strange we spend so much times with the people at work and so little time with our relatives.

There is a saying in german, which unfortunately looses a lot when translated:

when I was 6, my father was a god to me,
when I was 16, my father was a goddamned idiot,
now that I'm 26, he's not that bad after all.

amazing... he's slow in clicking and typing, but he reads almost any professional PC magazin on the market and withhin a few years he managed to outclass me in almost any way concerning the knowledge about computers. I doubt I could ever do this with my children when I'm close to his age. Grown up in afterwar Germany, struggeling truely for surviving + having to feed a family... I'm sure that is what may form a personality that won't ever feel the need to "play". Somehow I'm sorry for him and maybe I can give him back, what he missed. I will try hard.

T0Mi

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:47 am

there has been a multilanguage dm version around
(way back on the amiga)

you had to choose between german , french and english.

maybe there is something like string files on the encyclopaedia??
(the german translation was not bad, as far as I recall)

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 5:50 pm

Get:

http://dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/German.zip

Flip the coin. Shoot the (empty) bow.
Look at character stats.

It is your responsibility to complete the
'Translation.txt' file and to test all the
possibilities. CSBwin 10_037 translates
only a few things. You have to tell me
which translations do not work. I will
keep updating CSBwin until we are both
happy that all the necessary translations
are being done.

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 7:37 am

This is an amazing offer, paul.
I found myself busily adding strings to "translation.txt" and see if they work.

I'm very grateful for you gesture, giving me the net I can fall into when I fail!

But... modifying DM in a way my dad can play it with joy, I feel it simply -has- to bear some pain for me. Can you understand this? I will need hours to find out about what others need minutes for. I do not care. This is not just a translation. The tools are there, I just have to learn how to use them. From what I've seen what can be done with EDGE and CSBuilt alone, this should be manageable even for me.

I will need your help at the very end, when it comes to add the few leftover strings in the *.exe using translation.txt and of course finally transfering it to the Pocket PC.

Thank you!

T0Mi

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:58 am

I've done some work:

Scroll, wallwritings and the char (last)names were changed using CSBbuilt. Using "find text" and "text dump" I could easily get to the leftover scrolls hidden in chests and alcoves. Some Bogus illegal chars (funny way to say: "now check these, there is something way wroooong!") at the beginning, but now everyone seems fine. Funny: using objnames.txt exported from EDGE could even change the itemnames displayed in CSBuilt, so if my dad ever wants to create custom dungeons, I could provide a proper translation.

you can have a look here:
http://hometown.aol.com/TToommii/DM/cus ... _03_08.dat

I encountered an little error/glitch in the original dungeon.dat: On level 12(25/30) the 4 end sayings (starting with a A, B, C, D for 4 chars) are seperated using "/" like usually used for wall writings. But I guess these are displayed as a text, so there should be no need for the "/"? (I've added them anyway)

In general it isn't a truely acurate translation, as it would destroy a lot of the ingame atmosphere (IMHO), so for example the Firestaff isn't translated as "Feuerstab" but as "Flammenstab", which retranslated would be Flamestaff, but it sounds cooler in german, eh... I mean: more hot.

I also added a welcome and a few hints as text on level 1 and 2 on how to handle mirrors, doors, preasure pads and thelike. I didn't touch anything else.

Using "translation.txt" the char stats (Health, anti-magic, vitality, etc.) could be changed to their proper translation. I'm happy! There are still some things leftover, but this isn't my main problem right now as I just can't make EDGE to work properly. Can't load original DM graphics.dat (only CSB graphics.dat, even the heavily modified ToC graphics I used for item names testing), it gets stuck on file 561. I've tested this on 3 Computers, installing various VB packages but didn't succeed. Well, this seems to be the pain I wanted.

greetings
T0Mi

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:31 pm

Adge cannot edit dungeon.dat files, they are the levels. ADGE is only for the graphical files!

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 3:00 pm

of course. I simply permuted the term "dungeon" and "graphics" in my post (edited it now). My fault. Loading dungeon.dat results in an initial error, while orig DM graphics.dat results in a freeze on file 561. I learned in this forum it is because CSB had a additional set of (4) leftclickable rectancles on the Health/Stamina/Mana Bars to access the inventory, a feature unknown in DM. Fixed version from kentaro (Candy04b_2x) based on rains work is no more available as are earlier versions of ADGE (like adgev03b). I will have to try out some of the more 'older' tools.

T0Mi

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:05 pm

Superb !!!

Thanks alot for providing Candy_v02.
( http://www.dmjump.net/ADGEv02bCandy1fix1.rar )

It all seems to work the way I would love it to work. I was on the edge of using DMextract and various other tools to import orig DM graphics.dat as raw files back into CSB graphics.dat to have mosters/title/items changed to their origin look and still be able to use ADGE as a tool for translating attacks and item names.

THANX!

off to work...

T0Mi

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:14 pm

Oops, sorry, was swapping between computers and placed the link in the wrong place! Glad to be of service, hope it helps.

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:45 pm

it does!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:05 pm

wow, that looks like it's all working as it should! hope your father can enjoy it now!

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:14 am

Jo, looks nice!
(immer die Schriftrollen lesen

)

Post by **Sophia** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:45 am

Sehr gut.

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:29 am

There is still some translation work to do.
Germans tend to love details way too much.

The screenshot of course shows the cherrys picked out of the cake.

I do not want to rely on Paul too much, wasting his precious time for a one-person project. The work he has done already enabled me to change Health, Staminea, Vitality, anti-magic, aso.
His synapses seem to be hard wired into the source code of CSBwinCE right now anyway, flipping the bits by pure mental force.

As I'm doing this for a single person, the community won't gain much as long there is no other german-only who wishes to play DM.

There is one thing coming to my mind, which -may- improve the whole business with graphics.dat concerning the number of chars that can be used as attacknames, which is limited to 300 right now. I'm sure the original german version pushes this limit, as the german attacknames where all very long ("MELEE" for example was translated as "HANDGEMENGE"). I havn't found the german graphics.dat so I can't prove and I'm sure there are other ways to push this limit that already have been discovered. (Anyway, I have found quite well fitting names for the attacks, so there is no real need for me.)

There is a little -tiny- chance I might do/continue this (or at least some of the needed work) on my own. So I would love to get my hands on the source code of CSBwin(10_037) and maybe get some hints on what tools are best used for a someone like me, missing the proper "coder gene". Most likely I will terribly fail, but at least I would love to give it a try. Also this has to be transfered to the PPC as CSBwinCE and I can't judge what further work is needed to do so and if its saving work to do it for PPC right from the start.

There is also some plain translation work still to do:
I havn't found fitting substitutes for

Neophyte - Neuling
Novice - Anfaenger/Einsteiger
Apprentice - Lehrling
Journeyman - Geselle
Craftsman - Handwerker
Artisan - Kuenstler
Adept - Adepte
Expert - Experte
Master - Meister

can't help, but "Geselle Ninja" or "Lehrling Kaempfer" sounds plainly stupid.
I tried military ranks which also would make the ranking more clear, but I don't like the way they sound 'nationalistic', so it's likely I'll stick to the ranks a craftsman usually gains.

Any ideas?

BTW:
There is a fact about "Journeyman" you might find intersting. Don't know if it is alike in other countries, but in the southwest of Germany there are still some professions whose members have to become -true- Journeymen after they finished the 2-3 years of being an apprentice, yet before they settle down as craftsman. And that means to roam the land with little more than a bag on their shoulder, wearing a traditional outfit, with no or very little money, so if they want to eat or sleep, they have to ask nicely in a restaurant or little hotel using traditional ryhmes and poems.

Sadly this tradional way of becoming a craftsman will surely die out, like so may other things do. Can you imagine: my senior farmer from whom I've rented the barn I keep my horses, has on rare occasions been away from his farm more than 20 miles, so in the past becoming a journeyman truely was something exciting...

ah well... OT again, sorry.

greetings
T0Mi

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:40 pm

T0Mi wrote:There is a fact about "Journeyman" you might find intersting. Don't know if it is alike in other countries, but in the southwest of Germany there are still some professions whose members have to become -true- Journeymen after they finished the 2-3 years of being an apprentice, yet before they settle down as craftsman. And that means to roam the land with little more than a bag on their shoulder, wearing a traditional outfit, with no or very little money, so if they want to eat or sleep, they have to ask nicely in a restaurant or little hotel using traditional ryhmes and poems.T0Mi

Wow, now that is great to know! I am very surprised to hear that this still happens in modern Europe, but I love the fact that some old traditions are still preserved. Thanks for sharing that information.

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:04 pm

afair, it is

00""
01"Anfaenger"
02"Neuling"
03"Lehrling"
04"Arbeiter"
05"Geselle"
06"Handwerker"
07"Fachmann"
08"Experte"
09"Lo Meister"

Wenn man es umdreht, hoert es sich ganz ok an, denke ich:
(reverse it>)
Zauberer Geselle Ninja Arbeiter

vielleicht auch nicht, wie auch immer...

maybe it doesn't sound better, whatever

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:21 pm

Yes, these ranks sound much more fitting, I will use them. Dankeschön.

You may have a look at the current state of the translation downloading this files:

http://hometown.aol.com/TToommii/DM/custom/graphics.dat
http://hometown.aol.com/TToommii/DM/custom/dungeon.dat
http://hometown.aol.com/TToommii/DM/cus ... 10_037.exe
http://hometown.aol.com/TToommii/DM/cus ... lation.txt

As you see, there is still some work left.
I had my father test the first version and added his suggestions.
- darkened the inscriptions on the walls to make it more readable for aging eyes
- added footprints to lead the way to the first grate
- added a Reading Room with additional hints on scrolls
(todo) - letters on scrolls should be more readable (EDGE doesn't seem to take these)

@Gambit: glad I could be of service, dropping some lines of interest. I guess there is much more we all could learn from each other.

Post by **Zyx** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 11:49 pm

T0Mi wrote: I had my father test the first version and added his suggestions.
- darkened the inscriptions on the walls to make it more readable for aging eyes
- added footprints to lead the way to the first grate
- added a Reading Room with additional hints on scrolls
(todo) - letters on scrolls should be more readable (EDGE doesn't seem to take these)

I'm glad you found the time to work on a personnal project, TOMi.
I'm interested by these modifications for accessibility... keep sharing any future enhancements!
If you ever modify the X and N for the scrolls, I will thank you for ever for making the riddle "Standing on a big X" understandable at last.

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:28 am

I'm happy you find my work interesting.
4 free days I spended mostly fiddling with editing on a -very- basic level, and I'm far from understanding what's truely going on.
I may however write a editing tutorial for beginners. Secretly (huuhuuu) I'm working on my first little dungeon that will let you choose monsters instead of Heroes and with the features of CSBuilt it is so easy to create nice "go and kill that expert fighter and bring me his head as proof you've been there" quests.

But how could someone like me, not able to code a single line of DSA could ever shed light on a riddle your twisted mind has created?

I was not even aware of the X to have something to do with the seemingly leftover X in the attack names.

(so for me it would be like stabbing the fog, but I will give it a try anyway)

T0Mi

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:49 pm

sorry Zyx...
I'm plainly stupid.

anyway... I'm feeling fine.

Had a happy day at work, finally the winter returned with quite a bit of snow and most important:
frozen grounds, so I could let the horses have a free run on the paddock.

ahhh... I am a horseman... could watch them for hours.

Running, bucking and farting.

Good,
clean
fun.

What the heck are people doing in front of a Computer?

well...

my dad and me had another look at the current version, both on the PocketPC and his Desktop machine and beside some minor errors (some overlapping texts, length of a few itemnames, so many things he should know about, but won't fit onto scrolls) there is one big change:

He preferes CSBwin for PC, as even the darkend wall inscriptions are too hard for him to read properly on that little PPC screen. This will ease up thing, as the transfer to PPC is not needed anymore. Also the sound will be much better, hopefully providing more atmosphere. No one will be angry if I include some of the sounds used in ConfluxIII? (Cows and Gambit are responsible for those, right?)

T0Mi

Post by **Zyx** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:07 am

No no, I stole most of them myself.
Anyway, go ahead and take what you want.

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:20 pm

Thanks.

Paul kindly provided the link to the source code of CSBwin, so I can change the ingame text on my own now.
I was dumb and blind not seeing it on dianneandpaul.net.

This will be the first time since about 12 years I'll "compile" something. I'm looking forward.
There is a (rather dull) saying in german: "Don't invest time in things another less abled person can manage too". I'm happy Paul doesn't live this saying.

Although I will be totally satisfied seeing my father play for the first time + playing the one and only, I hope there might be other germanonlys (*grin*) who as a nice sideeffect could then play DM without grabbing for the dict or being annoyed by "KASE" or "HACKMESSER".

T0Mi

Trantor · Post by **Trantor** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:36 pm

Very nice project there T0Mi! Don't forget to change Dagger to Dolch, not Degen as in the official German version... Though I still think that "Hackmesser" is quite alright (and it wasn't the Falchion, but the Hardcleave; Flachion is called Pallasch, but that's stupid anyway

).

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:58 am

Thank you! I used "SPALTAXT" for the Hardcleave and will change "MESSER" to DOLCH" as it is more fitting and won't make people think of bread and jam.

At the beginning of the translation work I tried hard to be accurate, but soon found out it's much better to simply catch the sense and then find suitable words. German language isn't at all suited for creating atmosphere and most of the time I used the german version for training back in those days as the mana/health regain while asleep was much faster than in the (first) english version. So for example "SPEED BOOTS" correctly translated would be "GESCHWINDIGKEITSSCHUHE"" which won't fit withhin the char limit, so I translated it "(7)MEILENSTIEFEL" like the fairy tale ones. Avoiding umlauts is a pain too. "GREEN GEM" could be "SMARAGD" (as it is a green gem) instead of "GRUENER EDELSTEIN" (which is both too long + having a umlaut) or "GRUENER STEIN". I'm still fiddling with the names and for some, there seems to be no fitting translation. "POWER TOWERS" are "KRAFTSCHIENEN" now, which sounds quite dull. Luckily it is no common item.

hehe... BTW:
your nick brings back beloved memories:

T0Mi · Post by **T0Mi** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:57 pm

So here is my all-german version of CSBwin, compiled after changing the ingame strings, menues, etc. This all gave me lots of fun! Trying to code a simple prim number generator I usually get about a thousand errors, billions of warnings and a treat to have my fingers cut off. So this was like stretching out (Wurst)fingers to a far far away planet.

In case you're interested, get the modified files

CSBwin_cusD.exe
dungeon.dat
graphics.dat
(edit: filename)

and run it with your config.

Beside a few things like the menu about leftover items, everything ingame should be shown translated.
I'm also guilty to have sacrilegiously changed the runelike inscriptions to a more readable Arial.

T0Mi

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 2:58 pm

Perhaps you should name the executable
something other than 'CSBwin.exe'.

I hold no copyright to the name or anything
like that, but it might be confusing to people
who chance upon it. Maybe you could call
it 'CSBwinGerman.exe' 'TOMiCSBwin.exe' or
somethig similar.