What is the process of a fan translation?

[FrozenRaven]

Hey everyone

I am interested in the process of fan translations for VNs and would like to know more about them.

Like what happens first, who does what, that kind of stuff. 

Thanks.

 

[Deep Blue]

I don't know about the professional translators or even good ones but I just grabbed the script and started translating every day till i got tired until it was finished  After that I re-re-re-re-re-read my translation which was futile because errors kept appearing mysteriously. And then a cool guy helped me with the translation of menus, editing, coding, etc and creating the patch itself.

 

[firecat]

things that you must know:

how the code works, why the author has made it, the words and time.

thats all you need to know.

[Nosebleed]

I just type stuff in English and then smart people put it in the game.

[Eclipsed]

As an uninformed person, I think its

1. Get the game
2. Hack the game for the scripts
3. Translate / edit / quality check the scripts
4. Put the translated scripts back into the game
5. Create a patch for all to enjoy

[Rose]

I'll try to give a decent explanation, though keep in mind each group works differently.

Hacking comes before anything else since you need to grab the scripts. Your hacker will extract the scripts, image assets, and anything else you may need for you to work with. Later on he might help you out with technical details but that depends on a plethora of factors that may or may not happen throughout the translation.

With the scripts in hands, the translation begins. Some games divide the scripts in big chapters, some in just scenes, others have the whole VN in a single script, things can change depending on that. Well, I think the most common would be multiple scripts with a scene in each.

Here's where things will start to differ from group to group. After a script is translated, where will it go? More often than not it'll go through a process of grammar and spelling checking, some groups might have someone responsible to read the translated script and see if any changes can be made to rearrange the words into proper phrases and not just some word by word translation. I honestly don't know the appropriate name for each function so I guess those would be the editor and the reviser respectively. Well, after those two are done we have the quality checking/assurance. The QC/QA will read the script and check if everyone else did their jobs right. Some groups may add a translation check and/or a proofread (whatever that is) somewhere.

Image editing usually doesn't needs anyone else other than the translator to provide the translation for the menus and texts on the images if there's any. Kinda like the weird kid on the block.

After all is done, either the leader of the project will pack everything up and upload the patch somewhere or the hacker will come back from his slumber to make things happen again. Some teams will throw a beta test before the patch is released but I don't think all of them choose to do so, it kinda delays your release and at that point everyone should be burned out.

Maybe there's more and I forgot but I think these are the important aspects of a fan-TL project.

[Okami]

 Some groups may add a translation check and/or a proofread (whatever that is) somewhere.

Translation check/proofread is when usually a second translator checks for any mistakes in translation,  it is usually done after an editing because of an possibility of editing changing some lines and making some mistake in translation itself while making it sound better in English.

Quality checking is when a second editor checks for quality of editing.

In fan translation those two are often done at a same time by a single person.

Editing is a processes of fixing spelling/grammar mistakes and making it sound better in English.

Translating is well translating.

Hacking is a processes of extracting a script/s from a game and then ones translation and everything else is done putting it back in a game and creating a patch.

Image editing is a processes of editing text in photos and CGs and replacing Japanese text with an English.

Not all fan translation groups do everything true and an absolute min is hacking and translating true there are even times when there is only translating too and translation is distributed as a text that you can read while playing a game.

This is how processes goes when everything is done:

Hacking>Translating>Editing>QC=TC>Hacking,  with Image editing anywhere in between Hacking. There are some cases where TC is done before editing true this is not a very good thing to do. If TC and QC are done separately it completely depends from group to group witch is done first depending on whatever you put more importance on conveying an original meaning or the way it sounds in English, if former TC is left for last if latter QC is.

Ofcourse you won't w8 for one processes to be done completely for another to start (With exception of hacking) and usually it is like when translator does some number of lines he sends them further to editor while continuing translation, editor does the same as well as QC & TC. The exception is when a single person is doing multiple jobs, such as Translating and TC or Editing and QC in that case you can't send it further and continue your job as the person who is suppose to be further is still doing something else or it is you yourself. Or in cases where one person is doing everything then s/he is just going to w8 to be done with one process to start another.

[Narcosis]

Lots of arguing about the most trivial of things. In the end nothing ever gets done on time, but translation gets finished eitherway. Pure magick.

[Yuuko]

I can't find the "disappear without a trace" part?

[FrozenRaven]

Thanks guys, I think i have a better understanding of the process now.