178 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

BTW, I have sent an email to Zenjus (via the email provided by Doctor Who) letting him know about my mods and asking if he's interested in cooperating in making his translation installable as part of my Fixpack. We'll see how it goes.

Qwinn

[Buzzn Frogg]

As I understand it, tra files are an special filetype used by WeiDU only, used specifically for translation. You can't find them on a clean install.
I think, you would have to traify your files that add strings to the dialog.tlk and just translate those resulting tras. Then you'd put them in appropriate folders (an "english" folder and a "german" folder, for example) and distribute them with your mod. Thes files are much smaller than a dialog.tlk, because they only contain the stuff you want to change.
How you'd do it with an already finished translation is beyond me, without more research into this topic.

I attached a very basic tutorial that I once found somewhere to my post. Maybe it is of some help. Also, be sure to take a look at the WeiDU documentation. There's something about tra files, too. I also could send you my PS:T dialog.tlk, if you still need one.

Well, I still hope, someone with more experience in translations chimes in and saves the day.  




 WeiDU_as_a_Translation_Tool.rar   4.37K   291 downloads

[Qwinn]

That pretty much confirms how I'd come to believe it all worked, thanks much Buzzn And for the attachment as well, documentation is always appreciated.

And alright, I'll start modifying the mods to use .tra's for stuff I change. Not that there's much. Mainly just the Tome o' Cheats, the Morte-Ingress's Teeth banter, the changing of the shipped Ratbone's name to Carver, and the casting speed fixes. The last two would be easy for me to do myself given a translation of the originals. The first two would require a new translation.

I can do all of this without collecting all of the translations so as to make them installable with my fixpack... but I still think it would be a very cool thing to do, to have them all assembled in one place. But that's up to the owners of those translations to agree to or not, I'm insistent about not ripping off anyone's hard work.

Qwinn

EDIT: Oops, almost forgot, the Save Nordom! tweak has new dialogue as well.

Edited by Qwinn, 09 June 2008 - 10:35 AM.

[Qwinn]

I won't incorporate translations in your recent patches, because it will bloat them

*nod* Good point, I didn't think of this. You get spoiled by a FIOS connection after a while, and forget that some people are actually still on dialup.

Alright, scrap that idea. I'll work on just traifying the changes I make. If I am making a minute change - for example, just changing the casting speed in a spell description - would you all think it'd be alright to just use those specific strrefs from the existing translations, and make just the change I need? Or do I need to get permission for even that much (sigh)? I don't know what the convention has been for something like that in previous mods/fixpacks. Do people historically just steal those bits from existing translations, or look for someone to redo them completely, which could of course mean the style wouldn't be consistent with the more popular translations?

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 09 June 2008 - 11:42 AM.

[Qwinn]

Oh, and the .tra's do get applied to the dialog.tlk file, I think, just selectively so based on the language selected.

Naturally, the dialogfixes.tph spelling/typos fixes will have to be separated out, with a big old ENGLISH ONLY warning attached. I can think of at least one person who will be happy about this.

EDIT: Or actually maybe not?... I can just make my english.tra contain the typo fixes, can't I? Would actually take three steps out of my preparation procedure for release. Hmmm.

EDIT2: Nah, actually, I think those .tra entries would have to have corresponding STRING_SETs to actually apply and do anything... so yeah, back to it being a separate, english-only component.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 09 June 2008 - 11:51 AM.

[Buzzn Frogg]

Yes, including all the translations realy wouldn't be a good idea. But there is something you could for the german version. You see, ZenJu and the others didn't really translate the english dialog.tlk, because there's already an original german one shipped with the game. All they did was fixing grammar, spelling and translation errors and incorporating them into the original german tlk. So if you'd get the permission from one of them to use their changes (especially from ZenJu, as he included all the previous fixes in his patch too), you could probably easily WeiDu them and include them into your fixpack. Much as you did with your own dialog fixes (which would have to be english-only, if you go for multi-language). But I don't know if that would be too much hassle.  

Anyways, in the attached txt I copied the german descriptions for the spells I believe you changed. I also already made the appropriate changes to casting speed (Initiative), so it should be just a copy&past job for you.
And when you have your tras ready, I could give it a try at translation. I'm not really good at dialog, but I can do the more technical things, like item descriptions and stuff.

Oh, and Ratbones german name is "Rattenknochen". Carver would be "Schnitzer" then.



 spell_descriptions.txt   17.82K   360 downloads

Edited by Buzzn Frogg, 09 June 2008 - 12:04 PM.

[Qwinn]

Awesome! Thank you for that I should definitely be able to do it for german then. And since I am... technically... fluent in spanish (although it sucks, been many many years), I'll see if I can't do it for that as well.

At some point (hopefully soonish) I'll have put together an english version of all the string changes I make that actually count as fixes, and will post them for folks to translate if they have a mind to and would like support for their language.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Cool, good info, thanks. At this point, I plan the first multi-language release to include at least german and spanish.

That next version isn't going to get released till WeiDU 208 comes out, though... thebigg is kindly adding some tools to WeiDU which will make some of this stuff -vastly- easier, particularly in the change of "Ratbone" to "Carver" (and "Rattenknochen" to "Schnitzer"). We should be able to avoid having to have any of that stuff in the .tra files at all - we can just do a text replacement on the existing text depending on the selected language.

However, before that, I -should- hopefully be able to release (via attachments to a post in this or a new thread) my english .tras for all 3 mods, so that those who would like translations in their language can go through them and work the problem. In some cases, like the casting speed fixes, I can fill out most of it just by referring to the existing translated dialog.tlk's, but some smaller dialog fixes I'll still need translations on. Anyway, I'll release the english .tras as soon as I'm able.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 10 June 2008 - 06:44 AM.

[Doctor Who]

It's great to see how fast this is progressing. :up:

Your dedication is really impressive, Qwinn.

[Qwinn]

Thanks!

Now if only someone would actually say the words "I've played this mod for more than 2 hours and haven't run into a problem yet", I'd really be happy, lol. The most feedback I've gotten so far is "I installed it and yes, I did get the extended Morte intro". *sigh*

I can haz feedback?

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

I would also be interested in a german translation, maybe I could help, although I have to admit that I don't know anything about IE modding. I ever had the plan to check at least platter's Candlestick Quest to be available completely in german, but never found the motivation and the time to do it all alone, especially when I have no programming or modding experience.

If the german dialog.tlk that Black Isle translated was a complete translation of all the strrefs in the english dialog.tlk, then the candlestick quest shouldn't need any further translation, as Platter's mod didn't add any new dialog that wasn't in the dialog.tlk already. Neither does my UB version of it.

As noted before: the only stuff in UB or the Tweak Pack I can think of that actually adds new dialog that will require translation are the UB Morte/Ingress's Teeth Banter, the Save Nordom! tweak, the Scale of Souls tweak, and the two Tome of Cheats components (UB and Tweak). Other components might add strrefs such as character's names, but unless the translation changed those names (which I would think would be an exception rather than a rule) that shouldn't pose a problem.

I would also be interested in a german translation, maybe I could help, although I have to admit that I don't know anything about IE modding.

You won't need to. When I'm done, I'll just be posting a file with a list of strings. Translate 'em. I'll do the rest.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 10 June 2008 - 02:59 PM.

[Qwinn]

Alright... here's my english.tra and my german.tra for the fixpack (both attached).

The german one should be about 99% done already. I grabbed all the casting speed descriptions from the german dialog.tlk I downloaded, and adjusted the casting speeds. There's one strref in the middle for "Carver", which I made "Schnitzer" as advised above. The next to last strref, I tried to assemble from other, existing strrefs... please compare it to the same strref in the english.tra and see if I got it right. Otherwise, the only strings that should need to be translated are on the first page, I think the last strref that really needs it is @48158, but do please eyeball the rest and make sure I didn't screw up too badly.

I honestly don't know if I have the energy to do that all again for the spanish one, heh. If someone wants that spanish (or any other) translation in the next release, I recommend making a copy of the english.tra, grabbing a spanish translation to replace all the spell descriptions with spanish versions, and just adjust the casting speeds to match that in the english.tra.

If you're going to edit any of these files, by the way, I strongly suggest doing it in Microsoft Word. Other text editors have a tendency to do awful things to the carriage returns, I've found (especially ConTEXT).

I'll try to produce english.tra's for UB and Tweak Pack soon. That's going to require 100% translation on someone else's part, I'm not going to be able to do the bulk of it like I did for this, I'm afraid.

Qwinn

EDIT: Replaced files to also include Installation Prompt text.

Attached Files

•  english.tra   16.98K   287 downloads
•  german.tra   20.19K   275 downloads

Edited by Qwinn, 10 June 2008 - 08:10 PM.

[Qwinn]

Here's the english .tra files for Unfinished Business.

Some things should be noted when translating ub.tra, particularly if you've got a particular translation for your language in mind... you should try to make sure your translation is consistent with other entries in the translated dialog.tlk you plan on using:

STRREF 19 is just STRREF 6166 with the combat stats and the NOTE stripped off.

STRREF 1117 contains the text of what's written on your back, as read aloud by Morte. That text should match what's in STRREF 39516, which is your transcribing what he read to you into your journal.

STRREFs 11999 and 13287 just have the usability changed from "Xaositects" to "Chaotic Creatures", so if you have a translation for those already, just use them and make that change. Note that each strref needs 2 such changes - the usability restriction is repeated in the text of the description.

STRREF 33606 should be identical to 33600.


That's it. The other two files, you're on your own translating. Remember to use Microsoft Word to edit them so that carriage returns don't blow up when you save it.

Qwinn

Attached Files

•  ub.tra   4.27K   235 downloads
•  dcheats.tra   3.35K   239 downloads
•  MorteTeeth.tra   4.74K   230 downloads

Edited by Qwinn, 10 June 2008 - 09:56 PM.

[Ghildrean]

That's it. The other two files, you're on your own translating. Remember to use Microsoft Word to edit them so that carriage returns don't blow up when you save it.

Do you use Microsoft Word to create/edit lines? It is better use notepad or another text editor (ConTEXT, UltraEDIT, etc) instead of MS Word.

I'm looking at tras and maybe two o less days could be translated. I though it contained more text...

[Qwinn]

And here's the english .tras for the Tweak Pack. Phew.

The dcheats.tra for the Tweak version is identical to the UB version, so I'll just use that for the Tweak version as well whenever it gets translated.

Qwinn

Attached Files

•  qtweak.tra   4.08K   257 downloads
•  dscales.tra   16.8K   245 downloads
•  SaveNordom.tra   2.93K   261 downloads

Edited by Qwinn, 10 June 2008 - 10:51 PM.

[Qwinn]

Do you use Microsoft Word to create/edit lines? It is better use notepad or another text editor (ConTEXT, UltraEDIT, etc) instead of MS Word.

Well, I've had issues whenever loading text from the dialog.tlk file into anything other than Word. When I pull them into ConTEXT, the carriage returns get doubled. When I look at them in Notepad, I get bizarre corrupted CR CR LF stuff which essentially makes it all one long concatenated sentence surrounded by odd character symbols. It may be that by my own working on them with Word I've removed the problem, but still, I recommend Word if you have it available.

And the biggest pain is going to be that DSCALES.D... about 151 lines in that .tra. You should be able to nail big swaths of it with some proper replaces though, as a lot of it is repetitive.

I'm looking at tras and maybe two o less days could be translated. I though it contained more text...

Hey, I said a few times, it was only a few components that had real issues with dialogue There are other components here and there that need a line or two, but overall I did try to keep new dialogue to a minimum.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 10 June 2008 - 10:56 PM.