Broken characters while translating to PT-BR

[PuggyDoggo]

Hey, folks.

First of all, great job on the Enhanced Edition! It's amazing how much the community can still get out of this game almost 20 years later!

I have been trying to make a new Brazilian Portuguese translation, as the available one has quite a few mistakes. I did some research and found similar issues for other languages, but they didn't solve what's happening on my end.

I'm using the Ultimate SH-MES Recompilator to extract the English .mes files and translate them. I did try using the SH2MSGConvert tool, but I got this error when opening it on the CMD Prompt app:

usage: sh2msg.exe [-h] [--file-list FILE_LIST] [--output OUTPUT]
                  [--table TABLE] [--table-jap] [--raw-mode]
                  [FILE [FILE ...]]
sh2msg.exe: error: one of the arguments FILE --file-list/-l is required

Anyway, I translated the Options file as a test, and it came out all wrong:

I did look at the .tga and .bin font files issue, but they seem to include all special characters used in that screenshot:

• ç
• ã // õ
• ú

(If you want to be more specific, the Portuguese language can use the acute, grave, circumflex, and tilde accents, but only on vowels -- with ç being the exception.)

I did try grabbing the .exe from another fan translation and tested one line in the Control Options (Opções de Controle). That one worked well. But then I tried the line when James encounters the first save point in the forest and that was a bunch of trial and error, switching between the EE .exe and the PT-BR .exe. Eventually, I managed to extract the broken line with the SH-MES Recompilator, but that doesn't work often. It feels super finicky. It extracts the files exactly as I translated them, and I have no idea how I got it to extract with broken characters the one time.

It's weird because if the issue was with the font files, it would have never worked -- unless I'm missing something! At some point, both of the .exes displayed the correct characters. It was only when I decided to translate the whole menu that I couldn't manage to get it working again.

Could it be the extract tool I'm using? If so, what am I missing to make SH2MSGConvert work?

[Polymega]

James has always spoke Japanese for the DOG ending. And yes, video files are never translated for SH2 (any version).

[PuggyDoggo]

James has always spoke Japanese for the DOG ending. And yes, video files are never translated for SH2 (any version).

Cool, thanks!

[IlDucci]

Also, I'm guessing translating the UFO ending is not possible, right? Editing videos and all that.

The UFO Ending is, actually, translatable. The subtitles are located in the last strings of file stage_hotel_3f_f. They're probably dummied out in the English version, but you will find them full in the other languages.

[PuggyDoggo]

Also, I'm guessing translating the UFO ending is not possible, right? Editing videos and all that.

The UFO Ending is, actually, translatable. The subtitles are located in the last strings of file stage_hotel_3f_f. They're probably dummied out in the English version, but you will find them full in the other languages.

Oh wow, you're right! Thanks, @IlDucci! To make it work, I had to rename all the English TXT files to their Italian respectives (so I get the English localization to translate from) and replace it from there. So my translation pack will end up replacing the Italian one, not English or Spanish.

The only side effect is that I'll have to add the language.ini file into the pack, but that's super OK!

[Polymega]

That is really neat. I never played the UFO ending in any language besides English. Nice to see they planned that out for the other languages. 👍

[PuggyDoggo]

@Polymega @elishacloud I noticed something on the hospital that I initially thought was me messing something up on the translation but the English text shows the same. Image below:

Notice that the text says something, but the actual texture says something else. Is that how the game works, and maybe just based on the puzzle difficulty, or a known bug?

[Polymega]

It's not a bug but an oversight by the dev team; Team Silent didn't account for this riddle having different text depending on riddle level, so it only uses the one image, regardless of riddle level.

The same happens for the apartment clock memo (next to the phone)... but not how you would expect.

In this situation, there are two versions of this image, with correctly different text, depending on riddle level. But if played on Easy Riddle, when you view this image from your memo list, it will incorrectly show the Normal/Hard/Extra Riddle image instead.

[PuggyDoggo]

It's not a bug but an oversight by the dev team; Team Silent didn't account for this riddle having different text depending on riddle level, so it only uses the one image, regardless of riddle level.

The same happens for the apartment clock memo (next to the phone)... but not how you would expect.

In this situation, there are two versions of this image, with correctly different text, depending on riddle level. But if played on Easy Riddle, when you view this image from your memo list, it will incorrectly show the Normal/Hard/Extra Riddle image instead.

OK, thanks! Just wanted to make sure.

[Polymega]

Sure thing. I don't think we can do much about the carbon print memo, since there was never another image in the game's code to reference to here.

But for the apt clock riddle that might be fixable. It's just been a thing that hasn't been super important to look into at this time.

[IlDucci]

It's not a bug but an oversight by the dev team; Team Silent didn't account for this riddle having different text depending on riddle level, so it only uses the one image, regardless of riddle level.

The same happens for the apartment clock memo (next to the phone)... but not how you would expect.

In this situation, there are two versions of this image, with correctly different text, depending on riddle level. But if played on Easy Riddle, when you view this image from your memo list, it will incorrectly show the Normal/Hard/Extra Riddle image instead.

Maybe you could modify the HD image so the text is somewhat illegible?

[Polymega]

Maybe you could modify the HD image so the text is somewhat illegible?

@IlDucci I have done this for the next update.

[PuggyDoggo]

Hey folks, just want to tell you that the translation is now available. I'm trying to upload it to a few sites and included it on the PC Gaming Wiki as well. I'll also keep an eye on the Enhanced Edition updates in case I need to change something.

For now, it's available on my Google Drive. @Polymega, I know you mentioned the possibility of including translation links in the future on the EE website, so feel free to use the link I provided or to reupload it. If the latter, just let me know how to send you new files in case I need to update them.

Thank you all so much for your help throughout this thread!

[Polymega]

Thanks @RobertoSAG ! I still plan to make a new section on our project site that has download links to fan translation packs (such as your's). I'm still not sure when I'll get around to this, but when I do, I'd like to reach back out to you to offer this on the website. :)

[PuggyDoggo]

Thanks @RobertoSAG ! I still plan to make a new section on our project site that has download links to fan translation packs (such as your's). I'm still not sure when I'll get around to this, but when I do, I'd like to reach back out to you to offer this on the website. :)

Awesome! As I always receive notifications for this, feel free to ask whenever you want.

[PuggyDoggo]

Hey @Polymega, here's the pack with the updated textures: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OkFAXcLUDhju_xvQayOZ7w6JVJms6blQ/view?usp=sharing