|
Post by tancients on Mar 3, 2012 0:47:13 GMT -5
Images are linked here and there on this forum. Anything on YouTube will still be there.
If anyone wishes to foot the bill for the domain name, it doesn't expire until the 27th of March. Feel free to get whole of me outside of these forums.
There will likely not be any news updates. There's nothing to update about zwei 2 since it's just the waiting game at this point, with Zwei!! close behind to be at that same waiting point. Building rapport for a shattered inspiration seems a waste of energy. It'll be released eventually, but I can't say when since the control is out of my hands, and I simply don't see any incentive to release an incomplete translation patch. Were it all under my control, Zwei 2 would have been released last April, but it isn't.
I won't be checking here anymore, there are alternative methods to reach me at if there's something important to say or ask.
|
|
|
Post by jakeslogan on Mar 3, 2012 9:39:07 GMT -5
Maybe you will not see this but Hey, you just only leave this thread but not the forum right?
It must be really painful when you have translated everything and still have to wait for almost eternity for it to be in English. It's just life, sometimes it didn't go like we wanted so please don't feel so down. Well, I don't know much to say, I've been waiting for this and that, and one more really does not matter much. To be honest, I have just discovered this game and bought a copy, I still feel excited and I play it bit by bit everyday hoping the Eng patch will be released before I finish it, a hope that has not been shattered yet.
It's kinda sad to say goodbye. But I want to bid you farewell and good luck.
|
|
|
Post by SkyeWelse on Mar 3, 2012 10:28:26 GMT -5
I don't mind picking up the domain if it can be transferred to my godaddy account. I may not like their ads and message, but they are definitely the cheapest and when you have a few domains, saving money is important.
I would be able to provide any needed we space as well, domain or not. Just a matter of hosting the files from the existing website. I host quite a few websites and definitely don't mind taking on one more, especially for an important Falcom project like this one.
I can understand tancients frustration, but the fact of the matter is that we still have a lot of graphics to edit and it's not an easy process. It also doesn't help that I've had to more or less rebuild the settings of one of the newer photoshop docs since somehow s good chunk of it became rasterized... I worked a little on this project on my vacation in Japan, but there's still a lot to take on and there has been very little downtime from our plans. In a few days I will be returning to my place of work and no doubt will have a lot to catch up on in my absence. I do want to work on this project but it is a pretty daunting task still ahead of myself and MP83 and this really has to be worked on when we can afford free time. I know for myself at least, when you work around 60-70 hours a week for a 40 hour salary job working with computers and staring at glowing lightbulbs all day, a.k.a monitors, the last thing I tend do want go work on is something tedious and time consuming. I think that once I can rebuild my template and basic process for getting some of these graphic files completed, it will turn into faster results. I am open to other photoshop help and or training someone on how our process works so far if they have photoshop, do let tancients and myself know if you are interested.
-Thomas
|
|
|
Post by jakeslogan on Mar 3, 2012 11:33:52 GMT -5
Hey, glad to see you're back. How was your vacation. Japan is a nice country, isn't it?
Sign me up, I want to help out, I got photoshop 7 on my good old PC, But I think that I need to be tutored about how to use it. It's been years since my last experience with photoshop.
|
|
|
Post by SkyeWelse on Mar 3, 2012 18:37:30 GMT -5
Hi Jakeslogan,
Not back yet actually, coming back in a few more days. We're rounding the end of our trip. Japan is a very beautiful country with many interesting places to see and visit, great meals to be found everywhere, even at your neighborhood convenience store, unparalleled customer service and work ethic, and a treasure trove of things to find for collectors! I'm not looking forward to coming back! lol Except to see our two cats and rub their bellies... That and I need to get back to work so I can pay bills... You know that whole thing.
I'm not sure if Photoshop 7 has the same features that some of the newer versions have. I currently use CS4 and I believe some of the necessary options in terms of filter settings labeled as "effects" turned on or accessed through the layer panels was added in CS or CS2. I think that the same types of effects could possibly be accomplished manually in an older version of PS, but it would probably require some knowledge of how to do all of that within the program.
In a nutshell this is how Zwei 2 uses its graphic files. There are two bit map graphics for every 2D graphic in the game. One is a image set with full color on a black background and one is a white Alpha channel only graphic that looks like a silhouette of the graphic it corresponds with. In a alpha channel export it shows white for everything you want to have appear and black for everything you don't.
The goal is creating a new graphic for everything still left in Japanese and then rasterizing the final image so that it is one giant selectable chunk. Then you can select it, create a new alpha channel based on this selection, paint that new alpha channel white and then export both the graphic in RGB color and just the alpha channel without RGB into 24 bit Bitmaps.
You also have to take in account the resolution as well so that you don't lose quality. I usually bump the 72 dpi graphics up to 300 dpi before beginning work, then keeping the Rez the same, adjust the image size back down to the original image size of the graphic at 72 dpi.
-Thomas
|
|
|
Post by ggtsu on Mar 3, 2012 20:23:50 GMT -5
wow... I wish I had discovered this thread sooner. I am a huge Zweii 2 fan. Just beat the game second time around. I was considering doing a fan translation myself but I'm not well versed in my Japanese. I used mostly jisho.org and and google translate to get through most of the game and I doubt my quality of translations would be ever as good as anyone with experience in the field.
It would be considered an honor to help expedite this release. I have professional level experience working with Photoshop (CS5) as I worked as a graphic designer and as a 3d artist for an animation studio in the past. Also, need programming help for building a redistributable patcher? I can do that too. If there is anything that has been blocking this release let me know ASAP.
I will be taking a 2 week vacation by the end of this month and I probably won't have anything better to work on during then.
|
|
|
Post by jakeslogan on Mar 3, 2012 23:05:47 GMT -5
Thank you Thomas, That explained a lot. I now have a much clearer picture about how things work. Fortunately, my dad's PC has photoshop with CS5, and I can borrow it when he's away at work, it's just a bit inconvenience.
I'm glad to see that there'll be more helps. Hopefully, the patch will be finished soon.
|
|
|
Post by SkyeWelse on Mar 4, 2012 2:17:08 GMT -5
ggtsu, Nice to meet you and it sounds like you have a large amount of experience with this kind of work. Nice to see a fellow 3D animator as well, although I've never really worked professionally in that field save for a few client-requested team projects at my college awhile back.
We are about to leave from Japan pretty soon and so things right now are a bit hectic with the preparations, but I would definitely like to talk with you and Jakeslogan soon to see if you both would like to lend assistance with this project. I had written a guide about how I managed to make a few graphics so far using the process I outlined above, and perhaps when I get back to America and get my notes together, we can exchange ideas to how to improve this work flow process. Who knows, there may be something I'm missing in this process which could shorten the amount of work going forward.
I'll touch base again real soon through private messages if that's okay with you two.
-Thomas
|
|
|
Post by jakeslogan on Mar 4, 2012 9:19:48 GMT -5
it's OK, I'll be waiting here.
BTW, about the website, shouldn't we contact tancients, I'm not sure if she will visit this page again or not.
|
|
|
Post by SkyeWelse on Mar 4, 2012 23:07:03 GMT -5
My email is not working at the moment at our location in Japan, so I will email her this week after I get back. Going to get back rather late tonight and then work starts again at 7:00 a.m. in the morning... : ( I miss Japan already and haven't left yet. lol
-Thomas
|
|
|
Post by jakeslogan on Mar 5, 2012 20:10:43 GMT -5
Hi MP83,
Nice to see you. How are you today?
Wonder if SkyeWelse is back yet.
BTW, what about other stuffs like hacking and else?
|
|
|
Post by SkyeWelse on Mar 7, 2012 19:28:01 GMT -5
SkyeWelse: At least you've been to Japan once. You greedy, bastard. Well, my wife is Japanese, so we go over there to visit her family. But man oh man, it was indeed the sweet life for awhile. Free food, lodging, natural hot spring bathes outside with the cold air, warm sake by night and sight seeing and shopping for treasures by day! It was indeed sweet... That and on one day I got a chance to meet the Panzer Dragoon creator and play his new game Crimson Dragon, blasting the scores of the other players with an "S" ranking and getting my picture taken with him. Oh and I got a chance to eat a brain. ... Brain cake, that is, from a Resident Evil menu item at the CapBar in Shinjuku. : ) Now I'm back where the food isn't all that great, the fish and sake tastes terrible, where bad customer service and work ethic runs wild, and back to work at my job taking on new responsibilities that aren't all that fun. Whee! tis' Reality again. But, I can deal with it. Because I just got my MSX 2+ A1GT Turbo R in the mail today and successfully replaced the Floppy Disk Drive belt and it's working!... without sound, that is, or maybe I just don't know what I'm doing yet... Anyhow, I was contacted just recently by ZZBlue who was the programmer working with tancients and he explained somethings to me that might indicate that my process for exporting the edited PSD files into bitmaps and alpha channel bitmaps may not be entirely correct and that he might be able to use the PSD files themselves to make what is needed. I asked him to see if he could explain this process to us a little more and/or I can send him one of the finished edited PSD files to test soon. -Thomas
|
|
|
Post by ggtsu on Mar 7, 2012 20:04:59 GMT -5
As I understand it, everything else is ready with the exception of some images with Japanese in them, which there are a bit over a hundred. Sounds easy enough. Give me the original images, the translated text in a .txt file and I will whip up an automated script to generate the majority of them. If they need special formating or effects, I can have them generated as a PSD file for tweaking in photoshop.
|
|
|
Post by jakeslogan on Mar 7, 2012 20:08:00 GMT -5
Oh, wow, now I want a Yamato Nadeshiko wife. A1GT Turbo R? this is the first time I hear of MSX, what're their uses? developing game? I hope that what ZZBlue said won't affect the progresses in the negative way. Sounds easy enough. Give me the original images, the translated text in a .txt file and I will whip up an automated script to generate the majority of them. If they need special formating or effects, I can have them generated as a PSD file for tweaking in photoshop. Hail the age of automation.
|
|
|
Post by ggtsu on Mar 7, 2012 20:18:37 GMT -5
Sounds easy enough. Give me the original images, the translated text in a .txt file and I will whip up an automated script to generate the majority of them. If they need special formating or effects, I can have them generated as a PSD file for tweaking in photoshop. Hail the age of automation. Automating tasks that people do manually is my day job.
|
|
|
Post by jakeslogan on Mar 8, 2012 22:31:31 GMT -5
Automating tasks that people do manually is my day job. That sounds interesting. Mind telling me more about it? BTW, I wonder when can we start helping the project?
|
|
|
Post by SkyeWelse on Mar 9, 2012 0:05:55 GMT -5
I'm still waiting to see if I can test a PSD file with ZZBlue first to see what kind of file we need to get at for it to work with the game, then if ggtsu wants to to take a stab at automating the process to get files to the point that ZZBlue thinks we can use them fine with the game, that might be all we need really since so many of the files that need to be edited are similar.
I wish I knew more about automation in photoshop, would have saved me countless hours I'm sure if I knew what I was doing with it! Especially with the 2D to 3D project I did awhile back from my last trip in Japan. That took forever and I'm still not completely satisfied with how it turned out, definitely needs revisiting...
In the mean time, I have emailed tancients about the domain and to see if I can open the doors to new help, meaning access to the files and content currently hosted online. Once I have her approval on that, I can set ggtsu and jakeslogan up and we can see where everyone can best be placed.
-Thomas
|
|
zzblue
Rheboll
'''|'''|'|'''|'''
Posts: 16
|
Post by zzblue on Mar 9, 2012 16:10:44 GMT -5
Sounds easy enough. Give me the original images, the translated text in a .txt file and I will whip up an automated script to generate the majority of them. If they need special formating or effects, I can have them generated as a PSD file for tweaking in photoshop. This was done for the animated map names for zweii!! but do not see this helping much with zweii 2...
|
|
|
Post by jakeslogan on Mar 10, 2012 10:28:32 GMT -5
Oh, hi, zzblue, it's nice to see you here. How are you today? Did you have talk with SkyeWelse? How was his PSD? And is it still possible for automation?
|
|
zzblue
Rheboll
'''|'''|'|'''|'''
Posts: 16
|
Post by zzblue on Mar 10, 2012 18:25:42 GMT -5
No not talked to SkyeWelse only have sent some PM's... But checked a old PSD file i have it has some problems. Zero of this going to change if automation is possible..
|
|