Zeroigar translation, from the intro

[SamIAm]

EDIT:

OK guys, you may think this is lame, but since it looks like this is turning into a proper translation, I'm yanking my little first draft here.

See my post below for a nice surprise. 

[SamIAm]

I only wish I hadn't kept making consecutive posts.

[SamIAm]

It's a little embarrassing, actually.

[SamIAm]

There are a lot of posts, too.

[SamIAm]

I mean, they just keep going.

[SamIAm]

I feel like such a noob, ha ha.

[SamIAm]

And that's the last one.

[Filler]

Nice work on the translation. Any ideas where I can find more info on that tool to sub PC-FX video?

[SamIAm]

Talk to Esperknight. Maybe I misunderstood him, but I don't think so.

All that's really necessary is a codec that can play and re-encode PC-FX videos. If you can do that, it's probably not much of a stretch to apply virtualdub and swap the new video into a CD image.

[esteban]

Why hasn't there been more activity in this thread?

Anyway, this is very nice work, thank you

Clearly, I speak for many when I say that your work is appreciated

[NecroPhile]

Neato!  Mr. Cook wants to see this one completed some day.

[SamIAm]

I think I missed something...

Anyway, thanks guys. The mpeg subtitling might come together soon. Beyond that, who knows?

Actually, I beat Zeroigar on hard yesterday and accessed the Sakuraigar mode. That uses a simple narrated slide-show between each stage instead of mpeg video, so subtitling that would be difficult. We'd have to see if making a sort of auto-subtitling software could work. The system should have the resources for that, but it is still a completely different pain in the ass.

I'll see what Esperknight says.

[Aggie Tsubi]

Awesome, thanks so much for translating all of that.

[Djangoo2]

I think Esperknight would be game, but I don't want to distract him now.

It's very easy to distract ol' EK. He just loves to poke and prod at just about every game he can get his hands on.

[SamIAm]

OK, boys and girls, check it out: the pre-titlescreen intro from Zeroigar, fully edited and subbed. I'm pretty happy with how it looks.

See for yourself.

(Note: This was made with a youtube rip, and the quality of the video is not as good as I expect to get from a direct, lossless rip from the game. That is, if my stinkin' PC-98 emulator ever rips the damn files.)

[SamIAm]

So guys, here's a question I've thought of recently:

Can you think of any other shooter on any other system, ever, that has the same production values put into its animated cutscenes as Zeroigar? I don't mean system-animated stuff like Gate of Thunder's (totally bitchin') intro. I mean FMV anime produced by a dedicated anime studio using what you might call traditional animation.

Radiant Silvergun on the Saturn has nice opening and ending scenes, but watch them back-to-back against Zeroigar, and they look very simple and maybe a little drab. I've played a boatload of Saturn shooters, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head that have anime that is really even in the same league as Zeroigar. I'd be willing to learn if such a game exists, though, on the Saturn or otherwise.

I ask this in part because I've been watching these cutscenes over and over again for subtitling and continue to be impressed by them, and in part because when the translation is done, I'd like to lay something down like "best anime to grace any shmup in history" to get people all the more interested in it.

The subtitles are done, by the way. At least the writing and the line-timing part is done. We just need clean rips to put them on and a nice reinsertion for them to work.

[KiddoCabbusses]

After the subtitles are put in, how difficult would translating in-game content such as the menus and text dialog be?

[SamIAm]

It shouldn't be too difficult. Perhaps I'm speaking too soon, but I can't imagine that those little pieces of text are compressed and/or stored in a really funky way. Finding where they are in the image may be a bit challenging, but changing them may be easy. I suspect that the game is using a system font, and I think the system font includes the alphabet. If that's all true, then this would be the kind of thing even a beginner hacker could tackle.

Either way, I'm hoping that Esperknight is up for getting at least the title-screen options, the in-game dialogue, and the inter-stage text hacked into English. This is kind of on his back-burner, so again, I invite any aspiring hacker to take a look if you're interested.

The real challenge is the Sakuraigar mode. For those who don't know, if you beat the normal game on high-difficulty, you get access to a kind of parody mode where you get to play as Sakura, the green-haired girl from the animations in the main game.

The trouble is that in between each stage in this mode are story segments that are NOT full-motion-video. They're bitmap slideshows, with no text, that have voice-overs. On one hand, the number of people who take the time to get this far is going to be very few, but on the other hand, the parody mode is actually quite an addition and is pretty funny. The only way we'll translate it, though, is if it's possible to code some kind of subtitling program. Actually, because of how simple the slideshows are, this might be the perfect opportunity to test the viability of a such a thing in general. We'll see, though.

[Filler]

I want congratulate you on the subtitles. This is looking excellent. If I may make two suggestions, I think you mean "wielding" not "yielding". Also I'd say both the font and the stroke could probably be 1pt smaller. The animation looks great in this and it seems like a very cool setting for a shooter. In fact I can't think of another shooter that has as much set-up for an actual story and a rich world, though I don't play a lot of shooters. The closest I can think of are things already based on an animated story like the Macross shooters.

EDIT: Because it relates to your question and since I mentioned it, here is a video of Macross DYRL on the PSX:

It's probably cheating if the FMVs come from a theatrical movie. I don't know if new FMVs were made for the game or not.

[SamIAm]

Damn, I'm retarded. Thanks for catching and telling me about that mistake. It reminds me that I'll need to have everything proofread a few times before we go final.

I agree about the font, but I'm not going to sweat trying to figure out exactly which font and font size to use until I can do some tests. Real hardware, a real TV, and the effects of the lossy encoding are all going to have an effect on things. I'd also like to try seeing what it looks like to scoot the image up several pixels (there's essentially black bar at the top and bottom) and maybe let the bottom line of subtitles fall entirely in black space. It's all worth a shot.

Apparently DYRL contains mostly footage from the movie mixed with a little bit of stuff made just for the game. I'll check it out. I think there's some prerendered stuff in there, too. Point, Zeroigar!

Thanks for your support! I'm looking forward to seeing the fruits of your labors as well.

EDIT: Here is a fixed version of that intro movie.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32377930/01Zeroigar.avi

[SamIAm]

Hey, anybody good with photoshop? Look at these two pictures. I hate to give Esperknight another thing to worry about, but since the title screen image basically appears to be a single image, I think it would be easy enough to swap in an English title screen.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/pc-fx/chshin-heiki-zeroigar/screenshots/gameShotId,394496/
http://www.pcfxtoo.com/images_scans/Tyoushin%20Heiki%20Zeroigar%20back.jpg

Somehow, I think that just "Zeroigar" would have more elegance to it than the whole "Super God Trooper Zeroigar" shebang. That's just my first thought, though.

[KiddoCabbusses]

Somehow, I think that just "Zeroigar" would have more elegance to it than the whole "Super God Trooper Zeroigar" shebang. That's just my first thought, though.

I fullheartedly agree. I'll give a fan translation I tried playing recently as an example of how doing completely literal translations of those kind of titles has become a pet peeve for me lately.
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1645/
I mean, jeez, the title screen was even edited to such an extent that the most proper identification of the game is in the smallest font and crammed in the upper-left. I would've just edited out the Japanese from the original logo and called it a day.

[Filler]

Like this?
EDIT:
Note: I like transliterations of titles in cases like these.

[NecroPhile]

"THE" looks out of place to me.

[Djangoo2]

That title screen looks pretty good and "PRESS RUN BUTTON" is what I'd go for. Zeroigar looks pretty good, but Chousin Heihi sounds like mumbo jumbo to me since I don't know a lick of Japanese. When I google the game, it seems most every site on the web refers to it as Super God Trooper Zeroigar. If that title's too clunky, you could always just remove it and go with a bigger Zeroigar logo.

[Keranu]

I agree with the two posts above.

This is one exciting looking project! Just the menus translated alone would be a big help for me, there are so many different modes of play.

[Filler]

Thoughts?

EDIT: Posted another one with the white stroke removed so it's more like the original. Bumped the top text up a little to make it more readable.

[EsperKnight]

Awesome images filler   I'd like to see one with the top text with a white border then no white border on the bottom (a mix of the two).

[Filler]

Your wish is my command.

[Keranu]

I like the top and bottom text without the border, especially the top since I have a harder time reading it with the white border. The new font is slick!

[esteban]

Nice work!

I think "Super God Trooper Zeroigar" is still too long. We should shorten it to simply read S.G.T.Z.

Seriously.

 S.G.T.Z.

Ok, not too serious.

[EsperKnight]

I think it looks great with the top bordered in white as I couldn't read it to well with the white lights in the background.

And now I need to figure how to get in a new title sceen... hrm...

[Arm]

I had sent to SamIam last week 2 different kinds of font (that I also modified manually) for the title screen of ZeroIgar. I tried to find fonts corresponding to the style of the original. I thought showing them here too, just in case.

[SamIAm]

I freakin' love you guys.

I've been spending some good hours on this, and it's just about to pay off. Some very good news is on the horizon. Stay tuned.

[SamIAm]

I have a question for you guys.

In subbing these MPEG movies, we've been figuring out more about what to do to get the best results possible from the re-encoding process. One aspect of this is setting a constant data-read rate from the drive. What's interesting about this is that we can theoretically adjust it at a per-kilobyte rate, if only in the encoding program settings.

However, even though 300k/sec is apparently what the PC-FX drive is rated for, I wonder if it puts undue stress on it to read at such a rate? We're wondering if setting the program for 280k/s or 290k/s might be better. It barely makes any difference in the encoding quality if that's the only compromise we make, and if it is easier on people's drives, it's a worthy compromise.

If you are very familiar with CD-ROM drives and have some advice, please let me know. Thanks!

[KiddoCabbusses]

I would assume the quality of the CD-R the ISO will be burned to is significantly more important to factoring in what could theoretically tax a PC-FX to death.
That being said, I'd propose you try to keep it as close to what the original was as possible. If you're really concerned, perhaps you could one version that's a 1:1 lossless encode and another one that's a "lite" version where the video could theoretically be reduced to around Youtube-quality.

[SamIAm]

I would assume the quality of the CD-R the ISO will be burned to is significantly more important to factoring in what could theoretically tax a PC-FX to death.

I'd assume as much also, as well as that the drive naturally limits itself from trying to read too fast, but I could be wrong.

1:1 lossless encode and another one that's a "lite" version where the video could theoretically be reduced to around Youtube-quality.

Unfortunately, a lossless encode is not possible. It's going to be lossy no matter what, and it's up to us to diminish the negative effects of that as much as possible. Remember, the original video off the disc is very lossy already (more than youtube), so putting it through another pass has the potential to make it very poor looking.

Fortunately, what we've got going now looks only one tiny step down from the original material, and that's at a 300k/s rate. At a 280k/s rate, the video basically looks fine as well, but we'd rather take the higher quality if it's all the same to the drive.

[SamIAm]

By all means, let me know any thoughts about the question above. Anyway, here's a little example of what's going on:



This is what the videos were looking like before, but I'm leaning toward doing this:




I simply scooted the image up the screen and stuck the subtitles in the black space below. This has two advantages - for one thing, the subtitles aren't blocking any of the image, and it just seems like a smart use of the space. For another, though, this actually makes the image compress a little bit more nicely, with fewer artifacts and other strange things from the re-encoding of the video.

Things are moving right along. Stay tuned!

[Ji-L87]

I think the lower one clearly is the best, because it doesn't cover the image. The sub is also easier to read, IMO. Looking great.

[KiddoCabbusses]

Yeah, the bottom one sounds good in theory, but I think it'd be a good idea to have someone test it on a normal hardware setup to make sure there's no unintentional cropping.

[SamIAm]

Way ahead of you there. 

[SamIAm]

Things are getting better all the time.

I'm switching to white subtitles because the yellow ones wind up having blue dots appear around them from time to time due to the heavy JPEG compression. With white subtitles, the dots still appear, but they're a much less conspicuous grey.

I think the current font is fine, but if anyone has any suggestions for free, XP compatible fonts, I'd be willing to take a look.

[esteban]

Things are getting better all the time.

I'm switching to white subtitles because the yellow ones wind up having blue dots appear around them from time to time due to the heavy JPEG compression. With white subtitles, the dots still appear, but they're a much less conspicuous grey.

I think the current font is fine, but if anyone has any suggestions for free, XP compatible fonts, I'd be willing to take a look.

The existing font is fine (it looks nice). The decision to move the subtitles is brilliant

[SamIAm]

The existing font is fine (it looks nice). The decision to move the subtitles is brilliant

Thanks, I think so too.

I'm really torn at the moment, actually. The white subtitles compress substantially better, and at a glance they look much cleaner, but I'm starting to lean back toward using yellow again. The white comes across a bit cold and plain, while the yellow strikes me as more warm and cinematic, plus it jives with the game's colors. I think yellow-on-black has been proven easier to read, too. Hmm.

[KiddoCabbusses]

Have you tried other color options? The yellow honestly looked a bit "90's fansub"-esque, if you get what I mean. (Particularly, they look like my old VHS Fansub Nippon Gold Dragon Ball Z tapes.)

Now, on the other hand, perhaps that was the idea...?

I would suppose a dark "military-esque" green or beige would also fit the atmosphere... Either that, or go with colors that match those for in-game text.

[Keranu]

I really love the yellow-on-black subtitles myself, reminds me of old kung fu movies.

[SamIAm]

I think Esperknight and I agree that white is out. It's so bland and out of place that it ultimately more of a compromise than any compression-gunk that forms around yellow subtitles.

For yellow, we can raise the brightness level of it slightly to reduce the gunk around the letters. I don't want to do it too much, though, or it winds up looking a bit washed out.

Have you tried other color options? The yellow honestly looked a bit "90's fansub"-esque, if you get what I mean. (Particularly, they look like my old VHS Fansub Nippon Gold Dragon Ball Z tapes.)

Now, on the other hand, perhaps that was the idea...?

I would suppose a dark "military-esque" green or beige would also fit the atmosphere... Either that, or go with colors that match those for in-game text.

I never thought of 90's anime fan-subs, but considering how old-school this animation is, there's nothing wrong it looking like that.

The problem with other colors is that they're always going to be on a black background, so we're limited to light shades. I have to politely disagree about military-esque colors fitting the atmosphere, though. Most of the cutscenes take place in space, and there are lots of inorganic colors from across the spectrum. Military shades are a little earthy, more natural and fit a limited color range. 

If anyone is interested, here's a couple of screenshots with yellow subs and some pixel junk. It looks fine on an LCD screen, and you don't see how it changes around in these static images, however when playing on a CRT set, this stands out a bunch more. It's still not that bad, though, and you'll have to enlarge the picture just to see it.

/zero-0007.png
/zero-0012.png

[SamIAm]

And now, for some very happy news:

The MPEG videos are done. They are all fully subtitled, fully re-encoded, and fully reinserted into a disc image playing exactly like they are supposed to during the game on real hardware, as well as in Mednafen. We've come a long way since the idea first came up - you'd be amazed at how many steps we had to take to get these videos working like they are. It's paid off, though, because now it's all ready to go.

Now there's just cracking the text. I'm praying it's as easy as it seems like it ought to be. Here's hoping!

[esteban]

And now, for some very happy news:

The MPEG videos are done. They are all fully subtitled, fully re-encoded, and fully reinserted into a disc image playing exactly like they are supposed to during the game on real hardware, as well as in Mednafen. We've come a long way since the idea first came up - you'd be amazed at how many steps we had to take to get these videos working like they are. It's paid off, though, because now it's all ready to go.

Now there's just cracking the text. I'm praying it's as easy as it seems like it ought to be. Here's hoping!

Awesome.

[Filler]

I've been neglecting to post a reply here for too long. Just want to say a huge congrats on this great accomplishment. I can't wait to see the results!