The Dark Mod Readables TTF Fonts

[Fidcal]

The fonts used in the Dark Mod readables are available in TTF format for anyone that wants to use them, eg, on a map to match the handwriting of a message.

 

They are all available around the net anyway but they are all gathered together in one zip HERE

[Melan]

Thank you. I have been looking for these for reference.

[Tels]

Mirrored here:

 

http://bloodgate.com/mirrors/tdm/pub/DarkModFonts.zip

 

They should probably added to thedarkmod.com.

[SiyahParsomen]

thanks.

[HellFier]

Greetings! Im from www.darkfate.ru. we started to work on Localization of TDM & the FM's, but we have problem with russian (Cyrilic) fonts. What could be done about this? We can find simillar Russian fonts in ttf format, but how we can put them into the game...

P.S. I already have 7 TTF font's

that coul'd be used in Russian localization's

Edited November 9, 2009 by HellFier

[Hyeron]

EDITED - See crispy's posts further in the thread.

 

If you got it, just export to dds, zip into your tdm_fonts01.pk4, and pray it doesn't look bad in the menus.

 

If it does, you'll just have qualified for a round of manual tweaking : q3font -decompile your .dat file, and edit the fnt manually.

 

 

 

 

More than this I do not know yet, I'm still trying to figure out my offset problems with accented fonts. Just hop it helps you

[Fidcal]

I found it easier to use Exportfonttodoom3 then Q3font to repair the offset. See http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Font_Conversion_%26_Repair

[Hyeron]

Yeah... The problem is : exportfonttodoom3 doesn't use extended characters... So the tool will depend on how many letters he has to get in his font :/

 

Now that you speak of it though... I wouldn't be against a few explanations about offsets ^^

 

 

[Fidcal]

Looking at the wiki article I see I omitted the actual offset fix. What you need to do is first get an ascii list so you know the ascii codes for each letter. The range is listed on the wiki, eg, j is 106. Then use Q3font to convert the dat file to a readable .fnt file. I recommend a batch file or controlling program with history like Ztree as you find you have to repeat this so often.

 

In the .fnt file search down for the character header, eg, char 106.

Within the curly brackets below the header are the various values.

Look for xSkip.

Say it has a value of 12. Try reducing it to 9 to reduce the offset.

Convert back to .dat format and check in-game.

 

It is tedious work because I found no way to reload fonts in Doom3 without closing it and starting again. I did think of keep renaming the font which should force it but I think it might be more trouble than it's worth. An additional problem is there are 3 dat files and I was uncertain when each is used. I think I only changed 12 and 24 and decided 48 is not used at the scale of our readables.

 

I'll add about xSkip to the wiki.

[Hyeron]

Thanks a bunch.

 

I'll fiddle with the fonts again tonight and see what I can do with these informations. Menus look quite messy atm (well, only part of them in fact, that's quite strange, I'll have to check the gui's too ).

 

 

[HellFier]

I have been searching for: ExportFontToDoom and Q3Font - but i didn't find them... where can I download them? At WIKI page have been told that they on FTP what the links to them?

 

 

 

 

[Fidcal]

I have been searching for: ExportFontToDoom and Q3Font - but i didn't find them... where can I download them? At WIKI page have been told that they on FTP what the links to them?

Might not be easy to find so I've uploaded them to my own website:

 

http://www.fidcal.com/DarkMod/downloads/ExportFontToDoom3.zip

http://www.fidcal.com/DarkMod/downloads/q3font.zip

[Hyeron]

Okay, back to this problem.

 

xSkip I understand, and it explains the exaggerated horizontal spaces that won't allow the texts to fit (vertically speaking) in, say, ModToInstallParent (if I read the gui correctly) ... But how the hell would you explain THOSE O_o :

 

http://yfrog.com/9eaccentswtf1j - Vertical misalignment in the list of missions... Understandable so far... Yet the text on the left displays correctly - same size (24)

 

http://yfrog.com/b6accentswtf2j - Vertical misalignment on the settings... Understandable so far... Yet the name of the settings is fine (except for the spacing)

 

http://yfrog.com/09accentswtf3p - And here it looks about fine, though the spacing is to be corrected. (title uses another size it seems, didn't mess with it yet - or was it in the description of the FM? Anyway - irrelevant here)

 

Could the menus render the letters from top to bottom, cancelling the rendering of the bottom on the way 'cause the renderer is asked to just display x pixels of the font, of which y are just blank? That would explain what happens on those shots - EXCEPT for the misalignment in the settings (and even then, why does "La Couronne de Pénitence" appear more correctly in the FM list? O_o)...

[Fidcal]

Needs some thought. We've seen this cropping sometimes on the inventory loot I think but couldn't figure out what caused it. My first feeling was that the gui rectangle was quite high enough but I think I checked that before. Also, why does it work on the english version of the font? It's the same font.

[Hyeron]

Precisely. Same font, same VERSION of the font, same EVERYTHING. Just exported through q3font (as I still couldn't have Exportfonttodoom3 take ascii above 127 into account (that's something I guess anyone wanting to have a go at localization will HAVE to deal with... :/))

[Fidcal]

Looks like only the 'data' text is cropped so it would seem to be a code thing. And yet ... it doesn't do it with the other font convertor which makes it seem that Q3font is doing something different. This also agrees with our earlier observations of this - it only started after I repaired the fonts with Q3font.

 

OK, try this: Back up the dat files then open one of the .fnt files and try changing the values of one character, say capital L which is cropped. L is ascii 76. Search down for char 76 and try changing height or imageHeight to see if it has any effect. I don't know whether you should do _12, 24, or _48 so unless you know, maybe change all three. If that works then it might mean changing them all manually. I might have to do this on all the english fonts as well.

[Hyeron]

Well I'll have to process ALL of the fonts of TDM anyway, if it's to do any good at all (well, I'll still be unable to do japanese, chinese, russian etc, but as far as the usual european languages (french, german, italian, spanish, ...) are concerned, we all use more or less the same accents, and I guess we'll all want to use an accented version of the basic fonts so we still can play the english FMs with no trouble at all... So if it works for the localized versions, it will work for the english version without any further processing. The ASCII codes remain the same for you. It's my burden to do the editing... It's an expansion, not an addition - in the end at least (or did I misunderstand you remark about the english fonts? ).

 

I'll just have to use two DM's. One in english, one in french using the english texts, and get a pixel-perfect copy (or as close as I can at least).

 

(it's 24 on those shots, btw - and I don't mind having to change all of the fonts manually. Sure it's so boring I might as well shoot myself, but that would help localizing for so many languages it's worth the effort imho - and the other people trying to translate, such as HellFier, might learn something useful out of it anyway, even if they don't use the same fonts. It'll be the same process, it's all that matters. - the other sizes will have to be modified too, but I'll have to find where they hide first, then edit them bit by bit. It'll be time consuming, but it should be doable. With that said, you were right : 24 is by far the most used of them. Having this size to begin with would be a GREAT step forward. And once debugged, the rest will be more or less routine.)

 

Anyway, once the y "offsets" are corrected, the next problem will be ADDING the accents in the fonts that don't already have them. I found a few softwares for this, I just hope one of them will work. Otherwise, It'll be manual tga edition after q3fonting - and THAT would be REAL boring, even compared to editing the .fnt... But it's something that doesn't have anything to do with this topic anymore.

[Fidcal]

In the menus, Carleton is mostly used I think. It is capitals only (the lower case being small capitals) so there are no descenders. I only repaired fonts where the descenders were badly spaced out so no effect in the menus. But we have seen this problem in the inventory but it is intermittent. Might be the screen res for instance or font scale. So if you find that changing imageHeight really does solve the problem then I'll have to change the english fonts (I'm assuming here that the work you are doing is to produce an *additional* set of fonts not to replace our current fonts?)

[Hyeron]

Well the answer depends. It WILL replace yours. For a french version at least, and for anyone who wants accents (FURTHER EDIT - and wants to use this version of course). It WILL be the same fonts, hopefully with the same spacing and all. At the end of the day you can't even consider it a hack after all. It's universal. Just painful to maintain.

 

It would have no sense doing otherwise. It would mean any FM created in a localized version and used in a basic english version would be basically unusable, unless the authors pack their fonts with the mission. It would also mean we'd use two Carletons - yours for the basics, mine - or those by another translator - for the rest.

 

It would mean having to change ALL the fonts in EVERY mission that someone translates, having to go through the process of finding a font that resembles the original not to lose the "feeling" of the original readables, THEN q3fonting it (because of the extended ascii problem), THEN editing the fnt, and going through the whole "debugging" loop. Then adding the font in the pk4 of the mission, or creating YET ANOTHER tdm_font pk4.

 

Time-consuming. Exhausting. Painfully boring. Better to have one slave than never seeing anyone translate anything because every poor guy wanting to translate a mission has to spend hours, days, weeks maybe processing fonts, converting to dds, recompressing the pk4 and debugging his mission. No-one would do that I think. If I hadn't such love for translation (and Thief) I think I wouldn't even do it. Don't ask.

 

So there's quite a lot of reasons to do it this way. You guys incorporating it in the mod is something I won't ask for. IF I get those fonts packed, you're certainly free to use them. That's not for me to decide, is it? I'll just publish them so anyone wanting them may get them and reuse them. My success is no certainty, there's a TON of obstacles in the way. But as I told greebo, I certainly won't give up without a fight.

 

So, well... Yes and no, I guess. The goal is to make a pixel-perfect, accented copy. If it works and you want them, once again, they'll be around. If I fail, too bad. If it's just a part of them, it'll still be a bit better for everyone, allowing non-english mappers to create without wondering if it'll be the same everywhere, just having to remove the accents for the english version.

 

The goal is to recreate tdm_fonts01.pk4. The same one. Accented. Or as much as I'm able to recreate at least. Having even four or five "common" fonts would be absolutely great: the only limitation for authors would be to search and replace all accented characters with unaccented ones if it was "parallel" to the original pk4. That's all... In my humble opinion, it's the best compromise for everyone. Except for a merge, but once again, it's never been the goal. All I meant is: I'll have to do it anyway. If you want to spare some time and bore and give me a bit of advice as you already did, it's possible to do it for everyone (with latin alphabet) in one go... (EDIT - Though it does mean incorporating them in the mod, now that I think of it. Sorry for the confusion. )

 

Bleh, don't even know how to express it correctly. Hope you get my point and there's no misunderstanding between us. =)

 

 

 

 

(if it's not clear, don't hesitate to PM me to discuss the matter further. It's not always easy for me to express myself in a language I didn't learn properly )

[Fidcal]

Je vous comprends. Votre anglais est plus meilleux que mon francais.

 

In related news, today I finished two game maps with a lot of english text on them. I'll keep the originals which are layered so easier to replace the text. They are pspimage files. I was wondering what paint package you use. If Photoshop, does it import Paintshop Pro files?

[Hyeron]

The Gimp. And it does import them... Though correctly is another question, never tried that. Still worth a try. 

 

(thanks for my english btw. Harrap's alone is a harsh teacher though, so don't mind my mistakes. I just hope my POV is clear, it's all that matters. )

 

 

[Hyeron]

Now that's better already... The correct parameter was Top, it seems. Here's a quick shot after raising it by 3 :

 

http://yfrog.com/3oyeahnsj

 

Seems I'll have to raise it by 4 or 5 in all, there's still a misalignment in the settings (the settings themselves are still fine, their names are now closer, but still a bit lower). I don't quite get it, but it works indeed.

 

It's certainly worth further investigation, as the Tops of the letters seem completely out of bounds (going up to over 20 for some of them), but... Well. It works. Once that is correct it's xSkip, then correcting the whole stuff by superimposing shots of the english and accented versions, I guess... This could be much easier than I thought. Time-consuming for sure, but...

 

Two more questions...

 

1. Your font is bolder than mine... q3font or rendering due to the .fnt parameters?

 

 

2. TTF unrelated, but worth asking: both versions are misaligned compared to the lines (or am I dreaming?)

 

 

[Fidcal]

Wish I had more time for this but I can only make suggestions at the moment.

 

I don't think I converted the original for Carleton but I'm guessing it was done with fonttodoom. Why q3font should lose the bold I don't know. My guess is that it is cropping it sideways?

 

Dunno if the original was misaligned but your latest clearly is going out of synch with the background line stripes. I would think that is because the change in imageHeight also determines linefeed. That is bad. I suspect q3font is not only cropping the bottom but probably shifting its window upwards so it is showing an extra (blank) pixel line at the top. Try restoring imageHeight and experiment with height, top, and bottom. Make notes of anything you find as this is useful to know.

 

I suggest you don't do any extensive work changing until we have fully understood what is happening.

 

If I can find any time over the next week I'll try some tests myself.

[Hyeron]

Sure. Anyway, the misalignments can be seen on the original version too, so it may have something to do with the spacing on the gui too (unless it's my dds, but that part of the screen was left untouched so I'd think not). See this psd, two layers - one with each version. The fourth line - or fifth one (IIRC, don't have a gimp available right now) isn't in line on any of them.

 

Oh, and imageHeight I left untouched too. The only parameter I modified is top.

 

http://www.4shared.com/file/149429637/ffd11b54/fonts.html

[Hyeron]

And to whomever would try q3font : be aware that exportfonttodoom3 DOES export slightly bolder fonts than q3f does (don't know if that's the only reason right now, but it's at least part of the problem)... This is looking more and more like manual edition of every character in the textures.

 

Such a pity the exportfonttodoom3 authors never thought of extended ASCII (or so it seems at least)...