Zeroigar Translation Thread

[Filler]

Just want to say I like the yellow text with black shadow. I've always thought those classic yellow subtitles are the most readable against changing backgrounds.

[xcrement5x]

Just want to say I like the yellow text with black shadow. I've always thought those classic yellow subtitles are the most readable against changing backgrounds.

I agree, it also gives me a bit of nostalgia for those fan-subbed anime tapes I would watch/swap back in the day.

[elmer]

Well, I think that you're both going to be happy ... it looks like we are going to go with the yellow-on-black text ... it does have a really nice feel to it. 

Thing's are currently delayed while I track down, and try to fix, a bug in the original Zeroigar code that's randomly (and rarely) messing with SamIAm's lovely new videos.

[elmer]

Some more updates and pictures ...

There have been more changes to the Repair Screen to make it more consistent with the other screens.

Thanks to Mednafen's author, we tracked down why the the Sakuraigar Mode story screens weren't displaying properly in Mednafen (it was yet another bug in the Zeroigar code).

We're trying to get the subtitled Title Song video inserted on to the CD so that everyone can post karaoke videos of themselves on YouTube! 

 

[esteban]

Some more updates and pictures ...

There have been more changes to the Repair Screen to make it more consistent with the other screens.

Thanks to Mednafen's author, we tracked down why the the Sakuraigar Mode story screens weren't displaying properly in Mednafen (it was yet another bug in the Zeroigar code).

We're trying to get the subtitled Title Song video inserted on to the CD so that everyone can post karaoke videos of themselves on YouTube!   

¡Jesus Christo! 

[NightWolve]

Ah, you got Ryphecha's help with this too ? Nice! This after she tracked down a way to access the hidden Ys IV Debug mode, previously only known to Asian PCE fans. Rare talent coming together around here that would've been great years ago to get more projects moving along!

[elmer]

Ah, you got Ryphecha's help with this too ? Nice! This after she tracked down a way to access the hidden Ys IV Debug mode, previously only known to Asian PCE fans. Rare talent coming together around here that would've been great years ago to get more projects moving along!

I'd never seen the sidebars on the Sakuraigar Intro screens in Mednafen, and was surprised to see them appear when I finally got to see the game mode on a real CD.

When I sent Ryphecha a savepoint so that she could actually unlock that game mode, she pointed out that Zeroigar was setting one of the background size registers to an illegal value.

I suspect that Rypecha probably knows the PC-FX hardware better than anyone else on the planet at this point!

Once I knew what was wrong, it was easy to find out where the game was setting the bad value and fix it.

My part of this translation wouldn't have been possible without Ryphecha's hard work in writing Mednafen.

Her great generosity in making it Open Source, has let me customize it for my own personal preferences as a debugging tool.

I really do hope that more PCE/PC-FX programmers will be willing to make some of their tools freely available under Open Source licenses so that we can all build upon each other's work rather than having to constantly reinvent the wheel.

[PunkCryborg]

looking good guys! I got my PCFX back from my friend and look forward to playing this when it's ready!

[elmer]

For anyone that doesn't go there ...

SamIAm recently unveiled the Zeroigar project on romhacking.net, and announced our projected release date ... August 8th.

That's the 18th anniversary of the game's original release.

romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=20071.0

[elmer]

It's been a while since this thread had a nice new screenshot so ...

As we're approaching the release date, we're adding in some things that we didn't originally feel that we were going to be able to do.

One of those things is adding soft-subtitles to the level name screens.

I hope that people like them. 



[EDIT]

Fix deleted photo. This is why I hate external links!

[esteban]

Deep Ocean.

[elmer]

Time for another update ...

I'm happy to announce that the parody mode slide-show cut-scenes are now also going to be subtitled ... woohoo! 

Screenhots of that a little later ... after it's had a bit more polishing.

We've found a hidden "Easter Egg" theme song to the parody mode; a song that has probably never been heard by more than a tiny few of the game's original Japanese players.

I'm not sure what we're going to do with that ... perhaps make it available as a new track on the CD???

We're also planning on replacing the Title Screen with an English version, which will feature our updated translation of the game's name ... "God-Fighter Zeroigar".

So ... lots still going on as we get closer to the release date!

[NightWolve]

I guess I can add a little update here as well before I resurrect my old TurboRip thread on PCEFX.

A little while ago, elmer asked me if it'd be possible to update TurboRip to finally get some PC-FX TOCs in it to handle ripping Zeroigar and so that it can be included in the upcoming patch. I agreed to give it a shot and try to compile a new release to meet his August 8th time table. I've put some work hours into it and so far have updated my TOC Perl script to produce a "C" header file of a TOC database with PC-FX TOCs in addition to all the previous PCE ones, so TurboRip now detects Zeroigar!! Got that far!

The problem here is that I was in the middle of an overhaul to upgrade TurboRip to rely on Microsoft SPTI for SCSI commands and to properly analyze the Q subchannel data of a track to detect indexes instead of what I did originally which was hardcode rules based on NEC PC Engine CDs typically following the standards put forth in Redbook and Yellowbook - this was WRONG! I'm referring to the PREGAP 03:00 in a CUE when you transition from an audio track to a data track, and PREGAP 02:00 when you go from data to audio... I hardcoded that for existing versions of TurboRip and that only made it accurate for 9X% of NEC PCE/PCFX CD-ROMs, but it's actually detectable/readable! As a consequence, CDs that have PREGAP 04:00 or more will not have a proper CUE file created to reflect that unfortunately so TurboRip shouldn't be used for those oddballs - CloneCD or whatever else should.

Anyway, long story short, Zeroigar is a standard mixed-mode CD-ROM of redbook audio and yellowbook data tracks, so I just need to reenable my hardcoded rules that apply here and block out the unfinished code I was working on for real detection of pregaps, which really are the same thing as INDEX 00 commands, just another way of reflecting it in a CUE file. A few other things, and a new version of TurboRip will be ready. I'm a slow poke in everything that I do, but yeah, I should make it in time for inclusion in this patch!

[elmer]

I should make it in time for inclusion in this patch!

Thanks! 

And thanks for the explaining the problems with ripping stuff ... as is often the case with programming, it's something that's considerably more complicated than it seems at first!

I'm glad that it will be available for those people that are going to rip an original CD on Windows ... or who have downloaded something that's acting just a little bit ... weird.

For everyone else ... we'll include instructions and my port of a Linux utility that will extract the individual .iso/.wav tracks from a .cue/.bin CD image.

[esteban]

...A few other things, and a new version of TurboRip will be ready. I'm a slow poke in everything that I do, but yeah, I should make it in time for inclusion in this patch!

Awesome.

[BigusSchmuck]

It's been a while since this thread had a nice new screenshot so ...

As we're approaching the release date, we're adding in some things that we didn't originally feel that we were going to be able to do.

One of those things is adding soft-subtitles to the level name screens.

I hope that people like them. 

This only makes me drool even more for a PC-FX.

[elmer]

This only makes me drool even more for a PC-FX.

It does look really nice, doesn't it!

The original developers went to a lot of trouble to put that screen together ... it's the only one in the game that uses that combination of screen modes.

The thing is ... it's entirely done with the PC-FX's HuC6270 video chips, the same type of chip in the PC Engine.

So, much to my surprise,  this is actually one of the few screens in the game that could have been done in exactly the same way on the original 1st-generation PC Engine, with very little difference in the end-result! 

[turboswimbz]

It's been a while since this thread had a nice new screenshot so ...

As we're approaching the release date, we're adding in some things that we didn't originally feel that we were going to be able to do.

One of those things is adding soft-subtitles to the level name screens.

I hope that people like them. 

This only makes me drool even more for a PC-FX.

You need to see the way it appears on screen.  It's quite beautiful the way it's done and looks.

[xcrement5x]

I love the look of that subtitle, it reminds me even more of an old anime.  Can't wait for August to get here.

I just wanted to make sure I fully understood though, the consensus is that there will be no community bootleg being produced for this?

[elmer]

I just wanted to make sure I fully understood though, the consensus is that there will be no community bootleg being produced for this?

I am not, personally, opposed to the community getting together to get some CDs made for members here ... but SamIAm and I do not want there to ever be any for-profit sales of the translation without the permission/involvement of the game's original copyright holders.

Esteban is very generously working on a manual, case inserts, and templates for lightscribe/printable CD-Rs, and I believe that they'll be available on his site ...

https://www.tg-16.com/print_your_own_stuff

The idea is to make it possible for anyone to print out and put together a really nice looking "professional" package at home (or maybe with a trip to Kinkos).

So ... if you want a really nice package, and you don't feel able to put it together yourself, and it's OK with esteban, then perhaps someone here will make up some nice-looking kits with a case, a manual, and a pre-labeled CD-R that they'll give away or sell for a nominal fee.

AFAIK, the PC-FX has no problem with good quality CD-Rs (when its laser is in good condition).

http://www.mam-a-store.com/sithapforcoi.html
http://www.mam-a-store.com/mtc74wpgos-100.html

I hope that anyone trying to do a 'Tobias' and charging a fortune for such a kit here on this site would cause a huge community uproar ... but it's pretty obvious that eventually there will be some idiot that is going to be selling them on eBay.

That's one of the goals of trying to get as much publicity for the translation as possible ... so that the news that all the materials are freely available will get out, and make it a little harder for the eBay gouging.

[esteban]

I have no problem with folks printing/burning stuff if it is free/nominal fee for materials/shipping.

As elmer said: the key thing is NO PROFITEERING.

We should have no problem helping each other out.

Of course, take note of the many leeches who will suddenly appear out of the swamp as soon as folks are doing stuff "at cost" ... Which is why I feel more comfortable when we do favors for folks who have established themselves and tell folks we don't really know to simply print it themselves.

[xcrement5x]

Gotcha, that makes perfect sense.  Yeah by community driven I was thinking something like if all the docs were in order and it got pressed/printed they would be sold at the cost for pressing.  Obviously someone would be stuck sitting on some extras though because I'm not sure there would be demand for like 500 copies.

[16bitgium]

I love the fact that this is heading in the right direction. I would love to see an actual pressed discs because my PC-FX does experience problems with CD'rs as opposed to actual pressed discs.
But I guess that is difficult to achieve I wonder how many copies you would actually sell. Would there be more people interested then a  hundred?

[elmer]

We're getting really close to the release, now!

In what could well be the final set of screenshots, here's what the Sakuraigar (parody) Mode story slideshow used to look like, and what it looks like now with the subtitles ...



The Sakuraigar Mode level name screens have been given the same type of subtitles as the regular Anime mode, but with anti-aliased black borders so that they don't get lost.

[turboswimbz]

We're getting really close to the release, now!

In what could well be the final set of screenshots, here's what the Sakuraigar (parody) Mode story slideshow used to look like, and what it looks like now with the subtitles ...

The Sakuraigar Mode level name screens have been given the same type of subtitles as the regular Anime mode, but with anti-aliased black borders so that they don't get lost.

I have no clue how you made everything look so beautiful.  I am awed by these screen shots! can't wait for the finished product.

[elmer]

I have no clue how you made everything look so beautiful.  I am awed by these screen shots! can't wait for the finished product. 

Thanks! It's nice to have all the hard work appreciated. 

As part of the never-ending tinkering with things, the in-game speech and the parody-mode story slideshows have both been changed to use a variable-width font so that they look a little nicer.

It's fun to compare this screenshot to the ones earlier in this thread to see the project's progression over time.

[NightWolve]

Nice!!!!

[grafik]

New PC-FX owner here... so looking forward to this!

[SamIAm]

Unless a problem turns up in testing, we are good to go for the 8th.

I'll let you guys see this first:

[NightWolve]

Yikes, better finish up my TurboRip ReadMe!!! I'll make it in time!

[elmer]

Yikes, better finish up my TurboRip ReadMe!!! I'll make it in time!

Thanks! 

TurboRip will be especially useful for anyone that wants to rip a CD and then patch the game using the xdelta version of the patch, instead of the executable version of the patch.

[JoshTurboTrollX]

Unless a problem turns up in testing, we are good to go for the 8th.

I'll let you guys see this first:

Making me regret selling off the PC-FX all those years ago. 

Great work guys!  Truly amazing!!

[elmer]

Unless a problem turns up in testing, we are good to go for the 8th.

I just wanted to let everyone know that we've got a build, all sitting there ready to release ... but "REAL LIFE"^tm has kind of gotten in the way.

Soon, hopefully!

Apologies to anyone that's been checking this thread today, waiting for it.

[NightWolve]

Bah, and I rushed a new TurboRip out the door trying to meet your timeline!!! ;) Boo!! Boo!!!

[elmer]

Bah, and I rushed a new TurboRip out the door trying to meet your timeline!!! ;) Boo!! Boo!!!

Yeah ... some of us useless developer-types never can keep to a schedule!   

It should be all "submitted" within an hour or two, and probably "downloadable" sometime tomorrow.

I'm going to have a beer or two and try to convince myself that still counts as an Aug 8th release!