[FaustWolf]

Thanks Tauwasser, I hadn't seen the second one before. The use of the word "han" in that database has got my curiosity piqued. There seemed to be some sub-files tagged "han" along with files tagged "map" and "clut" in the PSP files. The "map" and "clut" files would seem to be graphics related at first glance, but I'm wondering what the tag "han" could mean. I always associated this word with Chinese and not Japanese, so I've been confused about it. In any case, the "han" files aren't anywhere near the Unicode text; they're in the same area as the "map" and "clut" files.

[Tauwasser]

Han is just used for Hanzi, the Chinese 漢字, because many other actual Chinese characters and derivatives as well as new creations are used in CJKV languages. However, your "han" files might simply be an abbreviation for some Japanese word that starts with はん and is relevant to maps, events etc.

cYa,

Tauwasser

[DarknessSavior]

It seems there have been a lot of complaints about the English translation for Suikoden II especially? Does this mean you'd prefer to launch a re-translation project rather than use the English text in Suikoden II-PSX?

I was hoping to do a re-translation of Suikoden I, actually. And if that worked out well enough, I would do the second one.

And by the text being "right in the PSP files", do you mean in the gsd.bin files, or the files within there?

I'd need to do alot of things to make this work out right. Gotta get a lower-case font in there (by default, Suikoden I has an upper-case English font, but no lower case one) for both normal text and battles. And possibly look into making the font dimensions smaller (if memory serves me, the English font in Suikoden I PSX was 16x16).

But thanks for looking into all of this.

~DS

[FaustWolf]

The file structure you'd have to go through to find the text is like this (still using Suikoden II as an example):

ISO file (converted from CSO file)
-> gsd2.bin
--> GZIP compressed file tagged "va01.bin" (carve this out of gsd2.bin either by hand or with an extraction/injection tool down the road)
---> va01.bin (the true file after WinRAR decompression)

The text seems to be toward the very end of each decompressed va## file and stored in straight Unicode with the exception of special opcodes for various functions. I'm not sure how sensitive the game engine will be to tampering at each level of the file structure. Rebuilding the ISO file and converting it back into a CSO should work theoretically, but custom tools might be needed for rebuilding gsd2.bin from the translated and recompressed files if the game engine wants to be picky.

I'm not in a position to take on more projects, but I'd love to see the PSP release playable in English someday. I saw some video of Suikoden I&II the other day and I was impressed that they apparently made new sprites for diagonal direction walking on the field maps.

[Gemini]

converting it back into a CSO

Unnecessary step.

[Guadozoku]

KaioShin said the right thing. Format of this archive is plain and easy.
It's just an archive with many gzipped files in there.

A ton of games seem to do this, someone should write a program that extracts all the gzip files for use in winrar.

[creaothceann]

Or you can use the command-line program gzip instead of WinRAR.

[DarknessSavior]

Or you can use the command-line program gzip instead of WinRAR.

Would that actually work properly? If I were to throw one of the giant files into gzip, would I be able to get all of the smaller files out of it easily?

~DS

[creaothceann]

Or you can use the command-line program gzip instead of WinRAR.

Would that actually work properly? If I were to throw one of the giant files into gzip, would I be able to get all of the smaller files out of it easily?

gzip works on streams, which may be read from a file or from standard input (e.g. "<file1.dat  gunzip -c  >file2.dat"). So if you give it one file or stream you'll get one file or stream in return.

[DarknessSavior]

Or you can use the command-line program gzip instead of WinRAR.

Would that actually work properly? If I were to throw one of the giant files into gzip, would I be able to get all of the smaller files out of it easily?

gzip works on streams, which may be read from a file or from standard input (e.g. "<file1.dat  gunzip -c  >file2.dat"). So if you give it one file or stream you'll get one file or stream in return.

I don't really get the streams thing. But if I'm just giving it one file (that contains multiple files), I'll only get one file back?

~DS

[creaothceann]

But if I'm just giving it one file (that contains multiple files), I'll only get one file back?

That's what I said.

I don't really get the streams thing

Stream = channel for program input or output.

When you open cmd.exe and use the "dir" command, it lists the content of the current directory by writing text characters to StdOut. By default that's the console window. When you use "dir >tmp.txt", the output is written to the file "tmp.txt". (">>" appends to the file instead of overwriting it.) When you use "dir |more", the text is redirected to the program "more", which reads text from its StdIn, writes it to its StdOut and pauses after each page. So you can build entire pipelines.

[DarknessSavior]

But if I'm just giving it one file (that contains multiple files), I'll only get one file back?

That's what I said.

Would this one file be something like a normal archive that I can open and get all of the files from, or what?

~DS

[creaothceann]

No. gzip is not zip!

Think of gzip as a compression scheme. It really handles only one big block of data.

KaioShin said the right thing. Format of this archive is plain and easy.
It's just an archive with many gzipped files in there.

[Rudy]

Any more progress on decompressing the files?

[Sephiroth 1311]

Hi there, today I stumbled upon a French translation project for Suiko I&II PSP, so I thought you might be interested in asking them for help.

Would be nice to have this game in English too.

[FaustWolf]

Ooh, why do I have the feeling an Italian translation might be in the works soon? 

As I recall, we have a handle on how to g-zip decompress and probably recompress the necessary files, and dialogue text has been identified (not sure how that reflects on getting at miscellaneous and image-based text though). What's missing is a nice front-end utility for taking care of repointering text strings, though that could be worked on by hand in a pinch. The big challenge IMO is finding a PSP emulator with full debugging and tracing capabilities, not to mention waiting until the coast looks clear for PSP translation projects, with respect to US modders. Anyone interested in a translation project could make a big difference by investigating what tools the French project is currently working with.

[Sephiroth 1311]

Ooh, why do I have the feeling an Italian translation might be in the works soon? 

As I recall, we have a handle on how to g-zip decompress and probably recompress the necessary files, and dialogue text has been identified (not sure how that reflects on getting at miscellaneous and image-based text though). What's missing is a nice front-end utility for taking care of repointering text strings, though that could be worked on by hand in a pinch. The big challenge IMO is finding a PSP emulator with full debugging and tracing capabilities, not to mention waiting until the coast looks clear for PSP translation projects, with respect to US modders. Anyone interested in a translation project could make a big difference by investigating what tools the French project is currently working with.

Actually, my group and I are working on the PSX version of the first Suikoden. We currently don't have plans for the PSP version, as long as an unofficial translation into a European language comes out.

Anyway, you're absolutely right when you speak about the lack of a decent PSP debugger. I was really startled when I saw those images from the French forum (I occasionally check it, since it's the biggest european forum about romhacking and translations), and I immediately thought of this topic.

I really hope they'll be willing to share some information with this community, an English translation would be a great present for the international Suikoden fanbase.

[DarknessSavior]

Is there anyone here who has enough French experience to ask them for help as far as getting to the text and inserting that font and whatnot? Or should I risk looking like a fool and write up a large post and run it through Google Translate?

This is literally my dream translation. FFIV is my first RPG, so it'll always have a special place in my heart. But Suikoden I is my absolute favorite RPG. And I would give anything to translate these two games and bring them to the Suikoden-loving public.

~DS

[Gemini]

Erm, they do understand English.

[DarknessSavior]

Erm, they do understand English.

I didn't want to make the stupid assumption that most Americans do: that everyone around them speaks English.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

~DS