Translation Plugin Enhancements

[DarkPulse]

Some To-Dos regarding the translation plugin, in order of general "need."

• [x] Add the ability to load multiple text files. Filename doesn't matter (with one exception - explained below) - AwesomeFile and MyTranslationFile are both valid, as is any other main filename. This allows for sequestering of individual sets of strings and prevents massive, monolithic translation files, making things easier and more organized for translators, as well as those who will seek to use the English translation to translate to other languages (no hunting for text in one huge file).
• [x] To help translators, set some kind of hotkey where upon pressing it, the plugin reloads the strings from the file. This will generally not replace already-translated strings (because the file is replacing the moonrune, so as far as the game is concerned, the translated strings are the "right" ones), but for any new translations, this would allow them to be loaded in without forcing a game close + relaunch to see how the new strings look and feel, since (as of the time of creation of this issue) new strings do not get loaded in if the file is saved after game launch, even if the user exits the maker and re-enters.
  • [x] Optional: That said, it possibly would be an improvement if the plugin can keep track of what the "original" string was, check if it's been altered since last string replacement, and if so, replace it even if it's been already translated - then strings can be freely modified at runtime with no need to reload the game if an extant translation is tweaked, allowing for faster iteration on translations and giving essentially WYSIWYG capability to translators. Not sure if this is possible, however. This could also be used to reload graphics/textures/etc. as well - this is how it was done with CM3D2's translator plugin, and the end result saves time for modders as well as translators who are tweaking things. (Though this functionality for graphics/textures/etc. may be in a different plugin - in CM3D2, for historical reasons, the two were combined into one.)
• [x] Investigate why the plugin just does not translate some instances of strings if they are in multiple clothing item lists. Examples in Tops include ジャージ前開き=Open Jersey (which is found untranslated in Top Types, but translated in Outerwear Types), 白衣=Doctor's Coat, and スーツ=Suit. Examples in Bras include レースビスチェ=Lace Bustier, レオタード=Leotard, and ハイレグレオタード=High-Leg Leotard. There are more examples than this probably.
  • NOTE: May not be related to being in multiple lists - ビキニ水着=Bikini Swimsuit is in both Bra + Underwear, and string gets applied in both fine?
  • Not an actual bug. Illusion screwed up naming some things.
• [x] Regex string support. This will be especially needed for the Studio, which tends to add numerals if you load multiple copies of an item or a character into a scene, and would otherwise need dozens of potential static strings just to account for the possibility someone might load 50 copies of their waifu. This will also help us cut down on the base game translations as well - instead of needing 20 separate strings for "Slot 1" through "Slot 20" we can just use one Regex string, which will either help keep filesize down, be faster than loading 20 different strings, or both. (It also helps for futureproofing if Illusion adds more Slots for some reason, for example - it's already covered by the Regex.)
  • [ ] Need to change JP fullwidth numbers (０-９) into regular numerals (0-9), since Illusion isn't consistent in these. Perhaps consider adding it via directive support, especially if performance is too bad to have it run constantly? Need to make sure string dumper/replacer accounts for this as well.
  • [ ] Some arrays (like the "Type" or "Slot" stuff) need to start at 1, not 0, whereas arrays for the Studio (assuming Illusion follows their usual routine) start with 0. Maybe can be done via a directive some sort?
• [x] Multiline support - some places (likely especially maker and studio) will use multiline text; we need to be able to catch those and translate those as well.
• [x] Ensure dumper does not strip ANYTHING. Illusion has a bad habit of accidentally adding in different spaces, Japanese punctuation instead of western, etc. and we need to ensure that the strings that get dumped out by the dumper are the exact strings that are getting translated. Current versions of the dumper do not handle these cases properly, forcing some kind of manual checking in the files to get the actual string to know what to correctly put down into the files to be translated.
• [x] Investigate handling colored text - plugin currently fails to apply it on any colored text, even though it dumps the string and a string translation can be provided. Easiest test is in the Sliders List menu in both Face and Body options, on the string ※ 各項目の変形に関するものをまとめたものとなります。 which is colored red.
  • May already be handled - this is probably Illusion adding spaces to strings again. Still potentially worth adding so that we can color-code stuff ourselves, however.
• [x] Add processor directives. The full game will almost certainly ship with a studio and the main game as separate EXEs; it's helpful for the plugin to know which one is being launched and ignore loading the file if the EXE doesn't match. An example directive could look something like #set TargetEXE KoikatsuStudio_32|KoikatsuStudio_64 as a line in the file - this would set the file to be loaded by the plugin only if it detects one of those EXEs; KoikatsuGame_32 or KoikatsuGame_64 would not match and so the plugin would ignore loading that file's strings for them, even if there's an identical level in the game versus the studio.
• [x] Add per-level loading in some fashion, be it via directives in the text files or through filename - doing it by filename (for example), Filename.1.txt, only gets loaded when the game loads Level 1, and Filename.2-4-7-17.txt would get loaded on Levels 2, 4, 7, and 17. Anything without a number in its filename is treated as global and loaded at all times. This should help keep the plugin zippy by loading only the strings it needs at a given time. Not sure how to handle this via directives, but the same rules would apply - file only to be loaded if level number is running in current EXE (along with a Target EXE directive to make sure it's the right EXE), with some sort of way to have critical/global lines running as well.
• [ ] A few extra functionalities -\n to force a newline in case the automatic wraparound fails to look nice (and because it will almost certainly be needed to support translating in-game dialogue on full game release), #set autosize true|false to give control over autosize, #set fontsize <points> to allow a specific fontsize, and #set overflow true|false to control if a label can be overflowed, since if the label size is too small for the text, it will tend to show nothing (unless Illusion has learned Unity...), along with appropriate #unset directives to restore the control of it to the game. While these may not seem very necessary at first glance, in my past experience dealing with Illusion and KISS Unity games, these come in handy more than you would think.
• [x] Comment support: // for single-line comment, and /* */ for multi-line comment. Possibly get "partial" matching in so that a line like 赤=Red // This is Red can work fine and still be translated despite the comment at the end, as that will save some lines via in-line commenting.
• [ ] Consider replacing the current format of Jap=Eng to Jap<tab>Eng for easier pasting to and from spreadsheets, as most of the work will likely be done via some kind of Google Doc.
• [ ] Label overriding: Illusion sometimes fucks up and makes a certain string apply in more than one place. Giving us the possibility to manually override it and force a label will solve this situation. (This happens right now in the current maker with Facepaint 01 Type also being used for Face Overlay - the ideal solution is to translate it to Facepaint 01 Type, and to force Face Overlay to be overridden.)
• [ ] UI Editing: Ability to move/expand various labels, checkboxes, and UI elements. If we can do this somehow, this will save us a lot of times where we'd otherwise be forced to use overflow directives as well as to make some very "chopped" translations. The Accessory Parent Attachment UI panel is an excellent example of where the limited space really makes things tough.
• [ ] Alternate Translation Language support. At least one person doing an alternate language translation has said that it's hard because either they can have their own partial translation (with no English) or the English translation will override theirs if loaded first, and right now the only way to have both is to do their translation directly on top of the English one. Perhaps have some folders (with IETF country codes?) and let the user set via config.ini (or launcher?) what their preferred language would be. en-US is the default, of course, and if the user sets some other type, anything that is not filled in the localized file will be filled in by that, meaning the end-user only sees JP if both the English file and the localized file fails to have the string. Otherwise, localized takes precedence over the default, as set by the user.
• [ ] Replace Latin Font. The Japanese font has a charming, somewhat handwritten feel to it; the Latin font is just totally ugly in comparison. Ideally we can find a better font than that and replace it to give the game that same charm and feel.
  • [ ] Optional: If you want to go whole-hog on this, allow for outright font replacement so that non-Latin fonts can be put here as well - for example, Cyrillic fonts if it were a Russian translation, perhaps tied into the alternate localization system as above. This way, alternate translations could have their own fonts without too much trouble, if their language doesn't need/use the Latin Alphabet. (Not sure how you'd handle languages that read right-to-left though, like Hebrew/Arabic/etc.)
• [x] Create new repo for translation - the format is likely changing, and this one will get messy quick if it's used.
• [ ] Optional: Figure out potential fix for pulling "proper" strings for right sidebar, most item selection lists, and (most visibly) on the Clothing Copy Menu upon hot reload of string table with F10 - currently, these are obliterated by the process. This is only visual, however - selecting a new option in those boxes or an item on the list will restore the label. Some things, however, like character information, don't get updated properly at all anymore, forcing a return to the main menu/relaunch of the game to work again properly.
• [x] Hook up proper name loading - currently the list only translates it in the "Random" box as a string but doesn't apply it in the slightest to the cards themselves or the actual character profile, thinking it's still the JP original strings.
  • EDIT: Not necessary if Usagirei's random name plugin is used/added/adapted. Stock cards have been modified to make this step unnecessary for them as well (which is just as good, as most of their names aren't in the random name lists by default).
• [ ] Investigate why the plugin does not dump a clothing item's string if it is the item that is selected by default when the maker is loaded - switching to another item and re-dumping does not dump the string, forcing a manual string rip.
• [x] Add in subtitle support for voice lines, as this may be necessary during H-Scenes at a minimum. Downside is we would need someone to transcribe these lines unless (somehow) they are provided by the game... or if this functionality is added by the game itself.

[DeathWeasel1337]

It seems the issue with Suit and others not being translated is related to their names containing a trailing space. For example スーツ=Suit does not work, but スーツ =Suit (that's a space before the equals) does work. I've noticed the same for Lace Bustier and the two Leotards as well.

[DarkPulse]

@DeathWeasel1337 Thanks for finding that, that's exactly what the problem was. We can nuke that issue off this list now, since it's not the plugin's fault at all, but Illusion's lousy quality control.

[ghost]

I think regex are a terrible idea. They completely ruin performance of the game because you cannot make a dictionary lookup. If I remember correctly in CM3D2, the authors of the translation plugin strongly recommended against using regex for this exact reason.

And if it is just the populate a string with a "variable" value from like 1-100 or the likes, then there are solutions that can solve this through "directives" in your translation file, and then simply populating the dictionary with 100 values for each variation.

Also I would not worry about having a large dictionary, they are basically always super performant.

I also recommend enabling newlines simply by encoding and decoding the character "\n" and/or "\r", as is suggested here.

Also, I would like to see the alternate language support through the use of "en", "ja", etc. somewhere in the path of the translation file as suggested above. I do not think it makes sense to include the country in that (en-US).

[DarkPulse]

@leakim1336 I'm not sure who said that. Usagirei was behind the UnityInjector translator plugin, and I did the customizer translation - both of which were plenty fast with regex, even when we torture-tested it by doing replacements with 1000 ridiculously long strings (which would never happen in the game) we're talking fractions of a millisecond. We've even still got the results from the benchmark Usagirei wrote up when someone else complained about the speed of regex. Suffice to say, the speed concerns of Regex are greatly exaggerated.

As for what it's needed for, part of it would indeed be that case (Type 1, Type 2, Type 3...) but part of it would also be due to the Studio - Illusion Studios append numbers to characters, items, etc. so that if you use multiples of them, there is still a way to uniquely identify a given one. And short of coming up with tables of 100+ numbers, regex is the only way to catch them all - and will generally be faster than having to parse an array of hundreds of numbers.

[ghost]

@DarkPulse I hear you man. :)

My point was simply if you use "directives" in the translation file to populate the dictionary with 100 values during startup where you would otherwise need a regex, it would be tonnes faster, because a dictionary lookup is basically always O(1), even if there are a 1000000 entries in the dictionary.

I also think it is easier to implement, and that was really my main point, and you keep the game loop really snappy by basically only doing a basic dictionary lookup when it really matters. :)

Now, obviously, it matters less here given that the Illusion, thankfully, don't use IMGUI. But I certainly feel it is a consideration that is worth taking.

[ghost]

You could of course, also make use of regex + directives to populate the dictionaries during initialization. In that case you would not need to come up with your own syntax. You could probably just use named groups.

[LordGinger]

One other suggestion: lines shouldn't be replaced if there's nothing after the equals sign/after the tab/whatever method you choose. So, for example, if I have カメラエフェクト=, the line shouldn't be replaced with an empty string. I can't imagine where replacing with an empty string would be useful anyway.

[LordGinger]

Also, Dark Pulse did mention overflow, but there should also be a way to override text alignment. So far I've encountered places in the options menu where it could be used.

[dearmochi]

Not sure if this is the best place for this, but I've been fiddling around with a translation of my own and a string containing the protagonist's name came up (bolded).

壮亮くん、おはよー。よく寝てたから先に出るぞ

As far as I understand, if I wanted to make a translation for this string, it would only work for this string only (aka only if the protagonist's name is 壮亮くん). As soon as I choose a protagonist with a different name, it'll count as a different string and thus my translation will not work. I don't really have a solution for this, or perhaps I've been doing this wrong, but I'm hoping there's a way to solve this issue. It's my first time writing translations for a game so I'm not quite sure how to tackle this.

[LordGinger]

We don't currently have a way to solve that problem. My suggestion is putting a comment above lines which have your character's name so that your translation is still usable when we make the switch to a new system.

[enkephalin07]

Another suggestion to shorten regex searches, esp in global files, is to specify a subsection either by filename or labelled section of translations. For example, you could specify an exclusive search for names to use only ones in "translation_eng.names.txt", and if not found in the file, terminate search and pass the string untranslated. Or you could have section headers to identify a series of firstnames, lastnames, or nicknames, and search them in the order they're most likely to appear.

[DeathWeasel1337]

Closing this as DynamicTranslationLoader will no longer be supported. In the future, all translations will be done through XUnity.AutoTranslator. XUA has grown extremely powerful, incorporating nearly every feature of DTL and is actively developed and maintained, while DTL has nearly no activity.

https://github.com/bbepis/XUnity.AutoTranslator