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Conversion of ALL fan missions to i18n system (important)


ECHELON

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Hey thats very nice!, its about putting all the texts into a single reference file for editting, isnt it? Sounds very cool to me, though I have no clue how will all that be available... I still kind of think translated missions should be linked in the main page but be a different file than the original mission (so you wont have to update all the mirrors)? Is this accurate?

Edited by RPGista
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I still kind of think translated missions should be linked in the main page but be a different file than the original mission

 

Yes, I agree. At the moment it's not possible to translate a mission without modifying the original pk4, unless the author prepared it for translation in advance.

 

If someone wants to translate A Score to Settle they're welcome to do it, but it will have to be saved separately. I don't want the original mission pk4 modified by anyone other than myself.

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I have already given permission for the translation of my missions (Bikerdude shares credit for the revised Return to the City, meaning his voice is also important), but I request that

  • the translation should not have an impact on the playability or aesthetics of the FM;
  • if someone undertakes translation work, he or she should give his or her best -- I spent a lot of time writing those readables and briefings, meaning you should also do them justice.

Of course, ideally language conversion would be done via some sort of module, like an extra pk4 file, but I have no idea about the technical side.

 

Still, I trust you people to do it right. :)

Edited by Melan

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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No updates coming from me and I got same requests as Melan. This is a matter of trust since we have absolutely no means of controlling the quality of the translations. It would be unbearable if the mission broke due to translation work. Are the translated missions betatested to make sure everything is alright? The english version should be exactly the same that was originally launched.

 

I wonder if we can get some statistics... Just how many additional persons play the mission once it has been translated. Is it really worth the fuss and the risks of breakage?

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Well, speaking just for me, I have mostly limited my translation work to the mod's official maps (training mission and Thief's Den 1) as more of an effort to make the basic concept of TDM easily available to people who have difficulties with english, give them the minimum necessary to enjoy it. I have translated those thoroughly (including graphics like maps), with a lot of attention to accuracy and keeping the tone (also with Fidcal's permission). One of the reasons (the other being time) I havent translated bigger missions is because it does take time and care to translate perfectly and do the original's justice, I think thats the only way to translate anything and expect its the same for anyone else doing it.

 

IMHO, if the translated missions were just separate files, there wouldnt be any problems in relation to possible bugs being introduced (even in terms of mistakes to the texts being made in the translation). Big future updates in a mission could include, if the author wishes it, the translated data in them from then on (or if not, the translated mission is just a different snapshot).

 

I think there is interest in translating these works, there is still a lot of people to whom english is quite the barrier.

Edited by RPGista
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No updates coming from me and I got same requests as Melan. This is a matter of trust since we have absolutely no means of controlling the quality of the translations. It would be unbearable if the mission broke due to translation work. Are the translated missions betatested to make sure everything is alright? The english version should be exactly the same that was originally launched.

 

I wonder if we can get some statistics... Just how many additional persons play the mission once it has been translated. Is it really worth the fuss and the risks of breakage?

 

Y'know, you just nailed it, there. It's something I've been thinking about for a few months now, given I've been translating a few more games in the meantime, and given I've witnessed the trainwreck the French translation has become (and more. You wouldn't believe it).

 

There's no failsafe way of checking the quality of a translation. The only thing you can do is feed it to a word processor, set grammar and spell checkers on for the wanted language, and see if your screen turns red or green, to what extent, then ask your translator what he has to say about it.

 

And that's purely from a technical point of view. As far as style goes, it's still a question of trust. It's not that much of an effort. If one isn't willing to tiptoe into these waters, there is another problem (that's not meant as an attack, mind you - just something I see every now and then, such as people telling me I can go fuck myself and they would approve of a translation in any language except French, for example).

 

I can say I'm doing my best. Not exactly to keep the original shape - sometimes it's plain impossible - but to bring the translation as close to it as can be, to bend the original slightly so the overall "feel" of the work remains (where needed), and, if possible, to improve it where I can (such things can happen, sometimes you put so much into your work it leads to an oversight. But the same can be said of translations).

 

Though yeah, I hear trust is a material that's hard to come by, and easy to lose sight of. Most unfortunate. OTOH it may be better that way. Every time I try and trust a fellow French "translator", rage ensues.

Edited by Hyeron

"Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; Steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for a trickster and catch him at first attempt, but beware of an honest man"

- Arab proverb

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Just to clarify, the conversion process does not touch at all the graphics, aesthetic, gameplay, performance, etc. ....

 

It 's just a change to the texts so that they can be read in an external file.

 

Then, the quality of translation.

 

regarding to the Italian translation, we have tried to make our translations increasingly close as possible to the original. Indeed, we must say that sometimes the quality of our translations has exceeded the original (as some mappers have a bad way of writing).

In addition, Sotha, see it from this point of view: The average Italian generally does not understand English well, so he will do not understand almost nothing of your original texts. With a translation, though with some small mistakes, he would SURELY appreciate more the mission.

----------------------------

 

Said that,

there are two ways to convert the missions:

 

1-All file regarding the texts are converted/copied in external i18n file, even those who do not have to be translated. In this way, is not touched the original file of the mission, but translators should be careful not to touch the gui files and translate only file.lang and image/maps.

 

2-It's converted both mission and external file. In this way, the original file must be changed, but the i18n contains only the file to be translated.

 

the first method would be best for the mapper, and the second best for the translators.

although with the first, the translators don't have limitations, however. must be only conscious of what they translate.

 

 

 

you choose. :)

Edited by ECHELON
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Just to clarify, the conversion process does not touch at all the graphics, aesthetic, gameplay, performance, etc. ....

 

The automated conversion process does change the original .map file, however. And it can introduce errors into the English version...I found a few readables that had "/" characters in them after the translation script was run on St. Lucia.

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The automated conversion process does change the original .map file, however. And it can introduce errors into the English version...I found a few readables that had "/" characters in them after the translation script was run on St. Lucia.

 

I found this as well when I ran it a couple weeks ago. I mentioned it to Tels, and he changed the script to no longer do that. I verified that the change corrected the problem.

 

If the script is still inserting backslashes, Tels should be told so he can fix it.

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I and knymed are intentioned to convert all existent fms to the new multilanguage system.

I hope this news makes happy a lot of people.

 

Dude, this is awesome! Until now, translating TDM FMs was tedious work, so in the end, while I was motivated, I translated only three of them. With your work, any future translations should progress much faster and easier. Thank you very much, both of you!

 

There's no failsafe way of checking the quality of a translation. The only thing you can do is feed it to a word processor, set grammar and spell checkers on for the wanted language, and see if your screen turns red or green, to what extent, then ask your translator what he has to say about it.

 

And that's purely from a technical point of view. As far as style goes, it's still a question of trust.

 

LOL Hyeron, you just described my ongoing attempts to find suitable translators for Russian (for my day job). Although there are many translators on the market, it's really difficult to find translators you can work with. They have to fit several requirements (which partly apply to FM translations, too). The key requirement of course is understanding the source just as well as target language. Many people out there think of themselves as pretty fluent in English, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are actually good at writing in their native language.

 

Also, regarding TDM FMs, how much effort are you willing to pour into this (sometimes thankless) work - especially if the mapper himself couldn't care any less about what you are doing? How close are you willing to stay to the source while staying with the conventions of your native language?

 

And then there is the matter of being open to criticism. That's the final requirement and the point where many potential candidates fall through. It's all good and well if you put great effort into your translation, and you surely should be able to say why you translated the way you did (or even defend your translation), but in the end it comes down to obey the client's wishes. You either learn that (and fast) or be gone.

 

Yes, trust has a lot to do with letting someone translate for you. In the end, the only thing you can do is to try out different people to find someone who ticks the way you do. And if you find that somebody, you treasure this person and hope that (s)he never gets sick (or pregnant).

 

The automated conversion process does change the original .map file, however. And it can introduce errors into the English version...I found a few readables that had "/" characters in them after the translation script was run on St. Lucia.

 

Spring, these are (smallish) bugs that can and will be ironed out in time. What's important is to change the mindset of some mappers - that translation of their babies is something to frown upon and to discourage, lest their baby is somehow hurt. While I absolutely agree that a bad translation can lead to severe WTFs in the target language's community, I think that this should be welcomed as a way to open TDM to an even larger audience. There will be accidents (in the form of bad translations) along the way, but overall these efforts will lead to something The Dark Mod will benefit from.

  • Like 2

My Eigenvalue is bigger than your Eigenvalue.

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There is a problem with my mission (I think). The German version is on v.1.3 and the english one is still on v1.1 as far as I can remember. I still could not finish the english one. So the actual version would be the German one with the english text pressed on it. Is there an easy way to combine those two?

Ich konnte mich nicht erinnern Teleportation gezaubert zu haben und doch stand ich da... alleine und nackt.

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What's important is to change the mindset of some mappers - that translation of their babies is something to frown upon and to discourage, lest their baby is somehow hurt.

 

Well, I'm not the person to change that mindset, as I basically have it myself. It's not that I'm concerned about poor translations...that doesn't really bother me as long as people are aware it's a translation. But I don't like the idea of anyone else modifying my .pk4 files, because I then become responsible for any errors or problems that are introduced, without having any way to know what those might be. It's already happened once.

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1-All file regarding the texts are converted/copied in external i18n file, even those who do not have to be translated.

I myself would prefer the separate l18n.pk4 file.

Just so I'm sure I understand, this separate pk4 would include "replacement" files e.g. xdata and gui?

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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Just so I'm sure I understand, this separate pk4 would include "replacement" files e.g. xdata and gui?

 

Yes. The I18N.pl perl script automatically generates the translation-ready xdata files, but the translation-ready gui files need to be done by hand.

 

A translation-ready version of the *.map file is required because it includes entity fields that need to be translated.

 

For example,

 

1 - inv_name

2 - all objectives

3 - any entities that include a "text" spawnarg

 

I'm sure there are more.

 

So if the PK4 is deemed off-limits to all translation-ready files, plus the English string assignments (strings/fm/english.lang) then they'll need to appear in another PK4, and it has to override the main not-translation-ready PK4.

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Just so I'm sure I understand, this separate pk4 would include "replacement" files e.g. xdata and gui?

 

Basically running the translation script creates a new .map file (where all your text is now replaced by "str #20005" type numbers) and a new strings folder with an english.lang file that has all the text. These then have to be bundled into a pk4.

 

Changing briefing guis has to be done by hand, I believe, but it's the same idea.

 

Here's a question I don't know the answer to. If someone runs the translation on, say, Alberic's Curse, and then saves the newly created .pk4 file as "Alberic's_Curse_Translation.pk4", does the downloader install it as a separate mission, or does it automatically overwrite an older installation of Alberic's Curse? I was assuming it was the former.

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I was thinking...

 

-TDM uses the translation package when in the same directory there are the pk4 and the l10n.pk4 (ex. fm1.pk4 and fm1_l10n.pk4).

 

-Every files inside the l10n.pk4 have the priority over those on the original pk4.

 

so... it is possible to leave the original pk4 untouched and use the 1.07 system only in the l10n.pk4?

 

Inside the original pk4 file the structure will remain in the pre-1.07 format (without using the strings #str_xxxxx) but the files inside the l10n.pk4 will have the priority on those of the original pk4.

Edited by knymed
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Also, regarding TDM FMs, how much effort are you willing to pour into this (sometimes thankless) work - especially if the mapper himself couldn't care any less about what you are doing? How close are you willing to stay to the source while staying with the conventions of your native language?

 

And then there is the matter of being open to criticism. That's the final requirement and the point where many potential candidates fall through. It's all good and well if you put great effort into your translation, and you surely should be able to say why you translated the way you did (or even defend your translation), but in the end it comes down to obey the client's wishes. You either learn that (and fast) or be gone.

Yup. Is also why I now try to be as transparent as possible when explaining what I'm doing, how and why to my clients. If there's a hurdle or a question, it helps figure things out together in a way that's fitting for everyone. Just as, when I have to adapt something, I'll be as clear as possible about it, explaining how it impacts the French version in English. It can be a tad convoluted at times, but the message usually goes through without a hitch.

 

And then sometimes you have to cope with constraints and come forth with a possible solution, and neither you nor the client know if it'll work (The Journey Down for example has harsh constraint, as it's all subtitles timed on the spoken English dialogue, so you have to make it VERY short, yet clear - basically, I tried to rehash the Jamaican accent of the protagonists in a few ways. No idea how it will look for players though, so even though it looks fine for me and the client, it may still change based on feedback.)

 

It all leads to the last problem: how do you cope with player feedback? I'll usually have a very solid style, somewhat hard at times (when a project just ASKS for it (e.g. Manor of the Damned) in particular), vocabulary that may sometimes be slightly out of grasp for your average poorly educated (pre)teen... If one such player and his friends who don't even comprehend word gender lash your work, what next?

 

It's not something I have witnessed yet. But I'm fairly sure it would make for interesting data. Even more so in this particular case, as the client had the translation reviewed by people with a master in French - who gave the translation the green light, making it pretty much safe from harm.

 

What I mean is, even if you have a fair idea of what has been done, trust will still be of a great importance. It hurts not to be trusted by your client. No matter what your motives to translate their work are, no matter if you're paid or doing it for free, not being trusted is bad for everyone. True as it may be that many fools think they can handle the job, even though they do NOT - and that is certainly not defined by any kind of diploma when you're on your own and without the safety nets provided by translation services - you won't be able to find wheat if you're intent on only finding chaff. :/

 

Here's a question I don't know the answer to. If someone runs the translation on, say, Alberic's Curse, and then saves the newly created .pk4 file as "Alberic's_Curse_Translation.pk4", does the downloader install it as a separate mission, or does it automatically overwrite an older installation of Alberic's Curse? I was assuming it was the former.

I would also assume it's the former - that is, at least, the behavior shown when messing around with translations locally (I usually renamed the whole folder (and the pk4) as buddys_fan_mission_fr,), the downloader agreed to send a copy. :)

Edited by Hyeron

"Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; Steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for a trickster and catch him at first attempt, but beware of an honest man"

- Arab proverb

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Here this the external package of Mad's Mountain, with italian translation (my old italian translation):

 

http://www.mediafire...ce545r2pj5rigb8

 

It works with the original mission package. The only file to be translated is strings\fm\*yourlanguage*.lang

 

Take a look at this for the structure.

 

This afternoon i will upload the prhase book external file.

Edited by ECHELON
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Here's a question I don't know the answer to. If someone runs the translation on, say, Alberic's Curse, and then saves the newly created .pk4 file as "Alberic's_Curse_Translation.pk4", does the downloader install it as a separate mission, or does it automatically overwrite an older installation of Alberic's Curse? I was assuming it was the former.

 

I would also assume it's the former - that is, at least, the behavior shown when messing around with translations locally (I usually renamed the whole folder (and the pk4) as buddys_fan_mission_fr,), the downloader agreed to send a copy. :)

 

Well good. Then a translated mission could be saved as a different name "[mission]_translated.pk4" or something, so that there is no change to the original pk4. People who need a translation can get one but there's no chance of disturbing the original. Also keeps people who don't need the translation from having to download the mission again. That's what I'd prefer for my missions.

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It looks like the best solution indeed, from a player POV. Server-side, OTOH... Remains to see what happens after a while. And it would probably be interesting to have an option to hide EN/I18N missions in the GUI, so it doesn't become an annoyance for everyone. Pretty low priority though.

 

EDIT - lemme rephrase that: "option to show only EN / only I18N missions, or both"

EDIT2 - dang. And that doesn't cover "pure" missions (onlyavailable as EN / only available as I18N). Well here's a head-scratcher. :/

Edited by Hyeron

"Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; Steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for a trickster and catch him at first attempt, but beware of an honest man"

- Arab proverb

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EDIT - lemme rephrase that: "option to show only EN / only I18N missions, or both"

 

Well, maybe the mission downloader could filter missions that don't have a I18N file if a foreign language has been selected in the main menu. And any mission with "translated" (or whatever the convention would be) in the title gets filtered if the menu language is English.

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I'll usually have a very solid style, somewhat hard at times (when a project just ASKS for it (e.g. Manor of the Damned) in particular), vocabulary that may sometimes be slightly out of grasp for your average poorly educated (pre)teen... If one such player and his friends who don't even comprehend word gender lash your work, what next?

 

For what's worth (and if I understood you correctly), when I was a pre-teen I used to be fascinated by language and that's something that attracted me to rpg oldschool games and fighting fantasy books, and comics like Conan, because of the way they would challenge me with words and meanings I had never experienced, something beyond the infantile fantasy fiction I was used to at the time (mostly cartoons and marvel comics). So I would say, way to go, games for children should be educational in some way, even if its not their theme, at least in language, or something like the message...

 

Springheel - Wouldnt that perhaps confuse players? I think it wouldnt be immediately clear that you can get more listed missions if you swap from your language to english menus. But I do see the point that it would be annoying to have several instances of the same mission listed in all different translations, cluttering the place. Maybe just add a link in the mission downloader menu pointing to an specific page in the TDM's website with all translated missions sorted by language?

Edited by RPGista
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