recruiting Popotan PO! Translation PJ [ENG] - (2017)

[XDarkMario]

Im sure this has been talked about plenty of times before but here's another thread trying to collect some translators to get this game out of translation hell.

a couple of years ago i have been working on translations for this game with some others but over time it seems that everyone who was involved in the project has fallen out of contact or has given up entirely.  i dont know japanese but i can make sense of rough translation and piece it together then pass it along to someone to input it to the game. for starters i would like to know the tool used to modify the exec.dat because whenever i add translated or modify text i get crashes and freezes using notepad++ or hex editing

if theirs anyone who has a interest in this or has knowledge in this this is the right time.

[SirHigginsXIX]

Hello,

I've shown this thread to two people who have a little experience with modifying VN scripts. I'm not sure if they have the time or interest to help you with Popotan-Po, however I know where you can start looking.

Online I found a MTL'd exec.dat file for the game, which looks like it belonged to your translation project. Thanks to that, I was able to play around with the file using a hex editor. I assume this file works with the game, because currently I don't have a copy of it.

I don't know exactly what's causing your game to crash, but when my friends and I started working on Pure Pure, we had the same problem at first. We found that Pure Pure's script files have a header that is basically supposed to dictate what the size of each file is. When we open a script file with the hex editor, the first hex string contains the header. For our game, the header is precisely the size of the script file (in bytes), subtracted by 12, converted into a hexadecimal value, and then this value is rearranged so that instead of 20B2 for example, the header is B220. Once they finish working on a file like this, they would modify the header using a hex editor to follow this formula. It became more complicated as my friends continued translating, but you get the idea. This is a useful website for converting numbers to hexadecimal values: http://www.binaryhexconverter.com/decimal-to-hex-converter

But here's the kicker: exec.dat does not have a header on the first line of hexes.

I've followed the same procedure to determine what the header should be. The file size is 9,703,194 bytes, so if we plug in 9,703,182 to the website above, it spits out 940F0E. Since 940F0E does not appear in any of the hex strings, my first assumption would be that this value is rearranged in sets of two, like the B220 example above. I searched 94, 0F, and then 0E, and I found an interesting pattern. Every time each of these three sets appears in the file, the two hexes beside it basically counts upwards by one (0E 90, 0E 91, 0E 92, 0E 93) etc. Unfortunately the formula we are dealing with isn't that easy, because in some places there are nearby hexes with values like 0A, 0B, 0C, 0D, etc that follow this same pattern. I have to go to sleep soon, and someone more knowledgeable could chime into this discussion one day, so I'll leave it at that.

Also, if you are in need of a translator, I'm interested. However I am not 100% sure at the moment if I will have the time to do it, because I may soon be busy with more important things, and unfortunately I can't know that soon enough. I'm not totally knowledgeable in Japanese, I basically use the ITHVNR + Rikaisama method of reading in Japanese, which you can check out here: https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/wiki/vnhooking I look up the words that I don't know using my EPWING dictionary files, and use my knowledge of Japanese grammar, kana, and vocabulary to put the sentences together. I can understand over 90% of the script for one VN I tried reading, and I can make out some of the other lines using Google Translate, so I guess I'm almost ready.

Sorry for the wall of text, I had fun tonight with the hexes. It's likely a different VN engine, but I hope my experience helps.

[marcus-beta]

I have no interest in the project, but in the last case maybe I can create a patch to inject the text as I did with if my heart, if you do not have another exit try contact-me.

Edited September 11, 2017 by marcus-beta

[XDarkMario]

2 hours ago, SirHigginsXIX said:

Hello,

I've shown this thread to two people who have a little experience with modifying VN scripts. I'm not sure if they have the time or interest to help you with Popotan-Po, however I know where you can start looking.

Online I found a MTL'd exec.dat file for the game, which looks like it belonged to your translation project. Thanks to that, I was able to play around with the file using a hex editor. I assume this file works with the game, because currently I don't have a copy of it.

I don't know exactly what's causing your game to crash, but when my friends and I started working on Pure Pure, we had the same problem at first. We found that Pure Pure's script files have a header that is basically supposed to dictate what the size of each file is. When we open a script file with the hex editor, the first hex string contains the header. For our game, the header is precisely the size of the script file (in bytes), subtracted by 12, converted into a hexadecimal value, and then this value is rearranged so that instead of 20B2 for example, the header is B220. Once they finish working on a file like this, they would modify the header using a hex editor to follow this formula. It became more complicated as my friends continued translating, but you get the idea. This is a useful website for converting numbers to hexadecimal values: http://www.binaryhexconverter.com/decimal-to-hex-converter

But here's the kicker: exec.dat does not have a header on the first line of hexes.

I've followed the same procedure to determine what the header should be. The file size is 9,703,194 bytes, so if we plug in 9,703,182 to the website above, it spits out 940F0E. Since 940F0E does not appear in any of the hex strings, my first assumption would be that this value is rearranged in sets of two, like the B220 example above. I searched 94, 0F, and then 0E, and I found an interesting pattern. Every time each of these three sets appears in the file, the two hexes beside it basically counts upwards by one (0E 90, 0E 91, 0E 92, 0E 93) etc. Unfortunately the formula we are dealing with isn't that easy, because in some places there are nearby hexes with values like 0A, 0B, 0C, 0D, etc that follow this same pattern. I have to go to sleep soon, and someone more knowledgeable could chime into this discussion one day, so I'll leave it at that.

Also, if you are in need of a translator, I'm interested. However I am not 100% sure at the moment if I will have the time to do it, because I may soon be busy with more important things, and unfortunately I can't know that soon enough. I'm not totally knowledgeable in Japanese, I basically use the ITHVNR + Rikaisama method of reading in Japanese, which you can check out here: https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/wiki/vnhooking I look up the words that I don't know using my EPWING dictionary files, and use my knowledge of Japanese grammar, kana, and vocabulary to put the sentences together. I can understand over 90% of the script for one VN I tried reading, and I can make out some of the other lines using Google Translate, so I guess I'm almost ready.

Sorry for the wall of text, I had fun tonight with the hexes. It's likely a different VN engine, but I hope my experience helps.

interesting info! someone also just sent me a editor for this and ill give it a shot as well

[SirHigginsXIX]

On 9/11/2017 at 12:14 AM, XDarkMario said:

interesting info! someone also just sent me a editor for this and ill give it a shot as well

That editor that you received, did it work? It'll save us a lot of time if we don't have to figure out the header/file signature for each script file.

Also, when your group worked on the project years ago, did you guys manage to figure out how to edit the images in the game? Ideally we'll need to be able to edit them so that we can replace the Japanese with English.

[ratboi]

Are you looking for any proof readers?