Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

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ArcaneAria
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Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Wed Dec 16, 2015 11:17 pm

So I started translating Dr. Hauzer for fun on YouTube, but I got a copyright claim on the background music. I've been trying to decompile the game, remove or change the offending bgm, then recompile the game. I successfully decompiled the Dr. Hauzer files, but I've been trying to recompile them (without changing anything) with no luck. I followed the tutorial here - http://www.3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/view ... =22&t=1758 - and successfully rebuilt Alone in the Dark with OperaFS[De]Compiler then signed it with the HomebrewToolkit. However, I can't get Dr. Hauzer to run; it just hangs on the banner message.

I saw there was talk here - http://www.3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/view ... lit=hauzer - about Saffron decompiling Dr. Hauzer, but running their code to compile the iso didn't seem to work for me either.

Also, since the Japanese is apparently stored in plain text according to the above post (haven't really dug into the disc contents yet myself), I could try translating those files and putting them back into the game so others could play the game in English. Currently I've been let's playing older games without translations, but a patch would be cool too.

Has anyone had any luck rebuilding this game or have any ideas to what I'm doing wrong? Thanks!

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by blabla » Thu Dec 17, 2015 9:28 pm

ArcaneAria wrote:So I started translating Dr. Hauzer for fun on YouTube, but I got a copyright claim on the background music. I've been trying to decompile the game, remove or change the offending bgm, then recompile the game. I successfully decompiled the Dr. Hauzer files, but I've been trying to recompile them (without changing anything) with no luck. I followed the tutorial here - http://www.3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/view ... =22&t=1758 - and successfully rebuilt Alone in the Dark with OperaFS[De]Compiler then signed it with the HomebrewToolkit. However, I can't get Dr. Hauzer to run; it just hangs on the banner message.

I saw there was talk here - http://www.3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/view ... lit=hauzer - about Saffron decompiling Dr. Hauzer, but running their code to compile the iso didn't seem to work for me either.

Also, since the Japanese is apparently stored in plain text according to the above post (haven't really dug into the disc contents yet myself), I could try translating those files and putting them back into the game so others could play the game in English. Currently I've been let's playing older games without translations, but a patch would be cool too.

Has anyone had any luck rebuilding this game or have any ideas to what I'm doing wrong? Thanks!
OperaFS[De]Compiler sometimes randomly breaks depending on which game you're trying to hack.
When i was trying to compile the iso for Doom, Versus told me that i should use the banner from the Game Guru CD so perhaps you should try that.
Saffran's OperaFS compiler needs some fixing before it can be used for that and she probably lost interest working on it.

Other than that, i don't know.

Have you tried without using your custom background music ? Perhaps it could be due to that.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Thu Dec 17, 2015 10:46 pm

Currently I'm just trying to decompile then recompile the ISO without modifying it to see if it works. I'll give the game guru banner a shot. I'm using the banner image from a homebrew ISO posted in that first thread I linked, so I don't think that's the issue. Not sure if it being a Japanese game makes a difference or if a file on the ISO needs to be modified before recompiling...

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by Versus » Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:30 pm

You need to use System/Kernel folder and romtags file too, not only gameguru BannerScreen.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Sat Dec 19, 2015 6:34 am

Versus wrote:You need to use System/Kernel folder and romtags file too, not only gameguru BannerScreen.
I've been copying everything except the Scripts folder from the homebrew's System directory then copying it into the Dr. Hauzer System directory. After, I've run the iso through the 3DOHomebrewSigning exe to patch the romtags file. I've done this successfully to the Alone in the Dark iso but not to Dr. Hauzer.

These are the steps I've been following from a ways into this thread: http://www.3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/view ... =22&t=1758
cdoty wrote:Here's a full list of steps:

Here's the english version of OperaFS[DE]Compler:
http://www.mediafire.com/?tm1vjze2mif

Here's the homebrew release:
http://narod.ru/disk/1528979000/3DO_Hom ... 1.rar.html

For orbatak:

Used the decompiler on the homebrew release (or Game Guru) to create PARCE_3DO* (or PARCE_GameGuru*)

Used the decompiler on Orbatak.

To use the decompiler, press the De-compile button (or the left button on the Russian version), and select the ISO. On larger isos, it can take a few minutes. On Vista the X will glow red, when a mouse pointer is over it.

In the PARCE_Orbatak directory, ensure there is a 'BannerScreen' file. If not, you can use the one from the homebrew signing kit or Game Guru/homebrew release.

Go into the System directory is both PARCE_* directories.

Copy every folder from the PARCE_3DO* (or PARCE_GameGuru), except Scripts, to the PARCE_Orbatak* folder.

Compile the ISO using OperaFS[DE]Compiler, this is the Compile button or the button on the right in the Russian version.
When doing this make sure that the PARCE_Orbatak folder is selected, and appears as an open folder. You have to double click on the folder. This was one of my first mistakes when I started messing with OperaFS[DE]Compiler.

If you end up with a large iso, or the program hangs, you haven't double clicked on the PARCE_* folder.

Using the iso from OperaFS[DE]Compiler type:
3DOEncrypt generomtags isoname.iso

The iso is now ready to be tested in FreeDo or burned to a CD.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by Versus » Sat Dec 19, 2015 2:02 pm

Try to make an ISO through mac emu.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by goldenband » Sat Dec 19, 2015 10:26 pm

Just wanted to say it's great you're working on this, since it could open the doors to 3DO translations for the first time. :)

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Sun Dec 20, 2015 3:10 am

Versus wrote:You need to use System/Kernel folder and romtags file too, not only gameguru BannerScreen.
This got me thinking that I might have been copying too many things over from the System folder. Just now I tried copying only Kernel and Programs over and I successfully booted to the main menu! Unfortunately, I can't get past the main screen. But progress! I don't know much about the 3DO system, so pretty much going to trial and error and hope I can figure out something that works.
goldenband wrote:Just wanted to say it's great you're working on this, since it could open the doors to 3DO translations for the first time. :)
Thanks! :D I recently started going back and translating old games that no one bothered translating. I finished ...Iru! and Echo Night 2 on the PSX by subtitling on YouTube, so Dr. Hauzer is my 3rd planned game. I'm open for suggestions after that if Dr. Hauzer goes smoothly, especially if we can get an English patch going!

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Sun Dec 20, 2015 8:11 am

So I'm not entirely sure what I did, but picking and choosing files in the System directory seemed to do the trick! I can recompile the game and load it up just fine now. Now the fun part begins~

I started messing with the script files, took me a while to figure out what was going on. They have the scripts in plain Japanese on the disc, but what the game itself reads looks like this:

@@@@’N‚©‚¢‚Ü‚·‚©I@@@@
@ ”ŽŽmI‚¢‚ç‚Á‚µ‚á‚¢‚Ü‚·‚©@
l‚Ì‹C”z‚ª‚Ü‚Á‚œ‚­‚È‚¢DDD
@ ‰œ‚É‚Å‚à‚¢‚é‚Ì‚Ÿ‚ë‚€‚©H@
@@@@ ‚ AŠJ‚©‚È‚¢@@@@
@‚³‚Á‚«‚ÍŠJ‚¢‚œ‚ñ‚Ÿ‚ªDDD@

(file is mes.scp if anyone cares)

which the internet seems to say is in Shift-JIS format. I'm trying to figure out how to convert English text into this format. I managed to make a few H characters appear on the screen, but that's about it :P. Gonna have to see if there's a good program to convert the text or just write one myself tomorrow.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by Versus » Sun Dec 20, 2015 2:45 pm

Wwwwwhat? What exactly you did with the loading problem?

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Sun Dec 20, 2015 9:51 pm

Versus wrote:Wwwwwhat? What exactly you did with the loading problem?
Did a bit of testing with it this morning, looks like I accidentally copied the Scripts folder over and that made everything work. Just tried it out again. Without the Scripts folder (but everything else in System folder copied from the homebrew iso) it doesn't get passed the splash screen. Copying over the entire System folder allows the game to boot correctly. So not sure why the previous threads I was reading ( http://www.3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/view ... =22&t=1758 ) said explicity not to copy the Scripts folder, but maybe that information was outdated.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by 3DOKid » Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:12 am

Good luck on this. It would be awesome!

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Mon Dec 21, 2015 7:35 am

3DOKid wrote:Good luck on this. It would be awesome!
Thanks! I noticed in the fansubing thread you looked into this game about... 6 years ago? What snags did you run into that stopped progress?

I successfully changed the subtitle text (see attached screenshot) but I can only change it to hiragana or katakana. I don't know much about how fonts work on the 3DO and if that's an issue or if I just need to figure out how this character encoding works. It seems to be in Shift-JIS (or SJIS) encoding, but copying from a Shift-JIS table doesn't seem to make a latin character appear. Looking at the Kanji browser on the Homebrew example shows latin characters, so it should be possible... Also I made an H appear at one point on accident, but I can't reproduce it >.<.

Looks like there may be a pretty strict character limit per line, so getting in English may be very limited. "Key doesn't work." "Walls look old." "It's a chair." Short phrases like that.
Attachments
2015.12.20_22.25.37 - .png
"Test Good evening" Changed the text, but only to different Japanese.
2015.12.20_22.25.37 - .png (24.53 KiB) Viewed 37167 times

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by blabla » Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:06 am

ArcaneAria wrote:
3DOKid wrote:Good luck on this. It would be awesome!
Thanks! I noticed in the fansubing thread you looked into this game about... 6 years ago? What snags did you run into that stopped progress?

I successfully changed the subtitle text (see attached screenshot) but I can only change it to hiragana or katakana. I don't know much about how fonts work on the 3DO and if that's an issue or if I just need to figure out how this character encoding works. It seems to be in Shift-JIS (or SJIS) encoding, but copying from a Shift-JIS table doesn't seem to make a latin character appear. Looking at the Kanji browser on the Homebrew example shows latin characters, so it should be possible... Also I made an H appear at one point on accident, but I can't reproduce it >.<.

Looks like there may be a pretty strict character limit per line, so getting in English may be very limited. "Key doesn't work." "Walls look old." "It's a chair." Short phrases like that.
I would recommend you to use either Notepad++ or Geany, switch encoding to Shift-JS and then write your text.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Mon Dec 21, 2015 6:16 pm

blabla wrote:
ArcaneAria wrote:
3DOKid wrote:Good luck on this. It would be awesome!
Thanks! I noticed in the fansubing thread you looked into this game about... 6 years ago? What snags did you run into that stopped progress?

I successfully changed the subtitle text (see attached screenshot) but I can only change it to hiragana or katakana. I don't know much about how fonts work on the 3DO and if that's an issue or if I just need to figure out how this character encoding works. It seems to be in Shift-JIS (or SJIS) encoding, but copying from a Shift-JIS table doesn't seem to make a latin character appear. Looking at the Kanji browser on the Homebrew example shows latin characters, so it should be possible... Also I made an H appear at one point on accident, but I can't reproduce it >.<.

Looks like there may be a pretty strict character limit per line, so getting in English may be very limited. "Key doesn't work." "Walls look old." "It's a chair." Short phrases like that.
I would recommend you to use either Notepad++ or Geany, switch encoding to Shift-JS and then write your text.
I tried using Notepad++ and have gotten some interesting results:
1. Katakana and hiragana work okay.
2. Numbers work okay
3. Some symbols work
4. Not all kanji works. So typing 博士、ご飯、長い時間  results in 博士、ご 、 い時間  as the subtitle.
5. Upper and lowercase letters don't appear. Even typing with the English keyboard, half-width romaji, and full-width romaji characters.
6. Copy/pasting directly from the SJIS character table doesn't work. Hex editing in the correct letters didn't seem to work either.

This is all on a Windows machine atm, but it seems more like the 3DO isn't quite using SJIS or something. If it's missing kanji, I wonder if they were trying to save space and have only certain letters appearing?

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by goldenband » Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:34 pm

If it were me I'd systematically step through the different hex values to build a table and see if Latin characters were hidden somewhere out of order. If not, someone would have to hack in the images of the Latin character sets, and ideally build a variable-width font to allow for more characters to be displayed, which can get to be a hassle. :(

Saving space is possible, but would be a VRAM issue, I'm guessing, rather than a disc-space issue?

If you want to try out another game to compare, you might look at The Letter That Overcame Time, which is very text-heavy.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Tue Dec 22, 2015 7:05 am

goldenband wrote:If it were me I'd systematically step through the different hex values to build a table and see if Latin characters were hidden somewhere out of order. If not, someone would have to hack in the images of the Latin character sets, and ideally build a variable-width font to allow for more characters to be displayed, which can get to be a hassle. :(

Saving space is possible, but would be a VRAM issue, I'm guessing, rather than a disc-space issue?

If you want to try out another game to compare, you might look at The Letter That Overcame Time, which is very text-heavy.
Yeah, I think systematically trying different options may be the way to go. I found the Kanji Viewer program on the homebrew iso which looks like it's the same font that Dr. Hauzer uses. I'm not really sure how to use it though. I'm guessing that 0x23 would be the first byte then the index on the table would be the 2nd byte? Messed around a little with the hex editor, but not much to show for it yet. Might take a look at The Letter That Overcame Time and see if they use the same font.
Attachments
2015.12.21_21.02.09 - .png
Kanji explorer on homebrew disc.
2015.12.21_21.02.09 - .png (21.08 KiB) Viewed 37127 times

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Wed Dec 23, 2015 9:27 pm

Alright, few more discoveries!

So I realized that the Kanji16.4 font file in the System directory came from the homebrew iso and that Dr. Hauzer doesn't originally have it. Looking through the files, I found "fontNew.bin" in the OrgData/font directory. Near the beginning of the file, it individually lists every Kanji and symbol that appears in the game. This explains why not all the kanji I typed appeared in the game.

Looking at the non-Japanese section I see

Code: Select all

"),-0123456789:;=@H_ 、.:
which explains why I could make an H appear on the screen, but no other letters!

I tried hex editing in a G next to the H, but that seems to mess up the entirety of the font file, resulting in gibberish on the screen. There's a lot more to this file other than those allowed characters at the top, so I'll have to see if I can figure out what any of it means. Hopefully this doesn't turn into a brick wall, but I'm not exactly sure how this file works or how to rebuild it correctly. I can post the font if anyone wants to look at it. Otherwise I'll continue trying to unravel this puzzle~.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by goldenband » Fri Dec 25, 2015 1:44 am

Just so I understand this, are you hex-editing a graphic file, or a text file? In conventional ROMS, with the right tools, it's usually easy to cut-and-paste font image data and just plop a different 8x8 or 16x16 Latin-alphabet graphic in the space where a Japanese character used to be. I don't know what would be involved on the 3DO, though.

If you're hex-editing a text file, I'm guessing those characters are functional in some way (e.g. pointers to data). If it were a checksum failure caused by making any changes, the whole thing wouldn't boot, I'd think.

Very glad you're still working on this! :)

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Fri Dec 25, 2015 3:58 am

It seems to be a graphics file, so I'd have to cut/paste a font in place. I've been searching for tools to view/edit the font, but I'm a bit lost since I haven't done this before. Probably would need something for ancient Mac fonts haha.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by goldenband » Fri Dec 25, 2015 6:20 pm

ArcaneAria wrote:It seems to be a graphics file, so I'd have to cut/paste a font in place. I've been searching for tools to view/edit the font, but I'm a bit lost since I haven't done this before. Probably would need something for ancient Mac fonts haha.
I use a Java-based program with the piquant name of TileMolester (ugh) to edit 8-bit console fonts, but I don't know what a 3DO font set would look like or whether TM or other programs could edit it.

It probably won't be a true font file (Mac or otherwise), just a set of graphics in some format. If you can figure out the boundaries for each character, you could try setting all the values to $00 or $FF and see what happens? Alternatively if you want to PM me a link to the file (assuming it's small) I could take a look, though I'm hardly a whiz at this stuff.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Sat Dec 26, 2015 7:46 am

goldenband wrote:
ArcaneAria wrote:It seems to be a graphics file, so I'd have to cut/paste a font in place. I've been searching for tools to view/edit the font, but I'm a bit lost since I haven't done this before. Probably would need something for ancient Mac fonts haha.
I use a Java-based program with the piquant name of TileMolester (ugh) to edit 8-bit console fonts, but I don't know what a 3DO font set would look like or whether TM or other programs could edit it.

It probably won't be a true font file (Mac or otherwise), just a set of graphics in some format. If you can figure out the boundaries for each character, you could try setting all the values to $00 or $FF and see what happens? Alternatively if you want to PM me a link to the file (assuming it's small) I could take a look, though I'm hardly a whiz at this stuff.
I should be able to just include the font as an attachment here on the forum in case anyone else wants to look at it.

I'm assuming it's against the forum rules to post the rom in its entirety, but I can upload a modified script file you can drop in if you need it to test out. Might be good if I compile the system directory changes that are needed to compile the iso. That or if you do make a change, I can try it and let you know if that worked. I'll try to mess around with it a bit this weekend, but let me know if you find anything or if you need anything from me!
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fontNew.zip
Font file included with the game.
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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by goldenband » Sat Dec 26, 2015 6:44 pm

I can't figure out the format of the font information, but by copying the first part of the file (minus the header) to a text file and changing the encoding to Shift-JIS, I can see what I think is the approximate vocabulary of the file:

"),-0123456789:;=@H_ 、.:?!ー()「」=#*12345GHINOTぁあいうえぉおかがきぎくけげこごさしじすずせぜそぞただちっつづてでとどなにのはばひびふぶへべほぼぽまみむめもゃやゆょよらりるれろわをんアイウエオカガキクケゲコゴサザシジスセソタダチッテトドナニヌネノハバビフブプホボマミムメモャラリルレロワン安意衣遺一隠影永園縁遠奥黄屋音下化何火花画会界絵開階外楽額缶間関岩危機帰気記犠議客究居許恐響近金銀掘窟経計穴研見鍵元玄現古庫口行合骨今左妻斎在材錆散使士始思死視資字持時辞失室質写者取手酒銃出所書召床上乗場燭色食寝真神人図水牲生製青静石赤跡線前膳倉捜装足体台大誰探弾断暖段地中帳調通釘鉄当踏動堂洞道銅特読二日入年配博発抜板版扉皮必瓶不夫婦敷斧舞部風物文壁本味命滅面網木戻矢勇用要落理裏料緑呂炉路廊牢録

So it looks like they included just enough Latin characters to spell NOTHING. :D If all these characters are contained within the fontNew.bin file, they must be at a relatively low number of BPP (bits per pixel), maybe just black/white. But I'm simply not skilled enough to tell whether compression is involved.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Sat Dec 26, 2015 7:41 pm

goldenband wrote:I can't figure out the format of the font information, but by copying the first part of the file (minus the header) to a text file and changing the encoding to Shift-JIS, I can see what I think is the approximate vocabulary of the file:

"),-0123456789:;=@H_ 、.:?!ー()「」=#*12345GHINOTぁあいうえぉおかがきぎくけげこごさしじすずせぜそぞただちっつづてでとどなにのはばひびふぶへべほぼぽまみむめもゃやゆょよらりるれろわをんアイウエオカガキクケゲコゴサザシジスセソタダチッテトドナニヌネノハバビフブプホボマミムメモャラリルレロワン安意衣遺一隠影永園縁遠奥黄屋音下化何火花画会界絵開階外楽額缶間関岩危機帰気記犠議客究居許恐響近金銀掘窟経計穴研見鍵元玄現古庫口行合骨今左妻斎在材錆散使士始思死視資字持時辞失室質写者取手酒銃出所書召床上乗場燭色食寝真神人図水牲生製青静石赤跡線前膳倉捜装足体台大誰探弾断暖段地中帳調通釘鉄当踏動堂洞道銅特読二日入年配博発抜板版扉皮必瓶不夫婦敷斧舞部風物文壁本味命滅面網木戻矢勇用要落理裏料緑呂炉路廊牢録

So it looks like they included just enough Latin characters to spell NOTHING. :D If all these characters are contained within the fontNew.bin file, they must be at a relatively low number of BPP (bits per pixel), maybe just black/white. But I'm simply not skilled enough to tell whether compression is involved.
Yeah, the file is surprisingly small. Sadly I don't know much about fonts so I've been reading up on them trying to figure this out. I'll look around in the disc files to see if they might be somewhere else as well, but this seems to be it.

I attached the font file from Blue Forest Monogatari since that appears to have working latin characters. I didn't see too much similarity myself, but maybe they can be fused together. I found the section of launchme where it loads the font file, so I'm going to see if I can just remove the load call and force it to use the native 3do kanji font if I add that to the iso. I would have included the Kanji font as well, but it's ~0.5mbs which is over the forum's posting limit.

In other news, I successfully swapped the background audio! I didn't realize the audio format was just a standard mac format, so Ableton rendered a horror track I wrote directly to one the 3DO can play. So if I continue doing a let's play of this game on YouTube, I won't be hit by a copyright strike again! Originally I was swapping sounds between Dr. Hauzer and Alone in the Dark and accidentally changed the clock ticking to an angry old man shouting about pirates. That was interesting.
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Sans serif font from Blue Forest Monogatari
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goldenband
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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by goldenband » Mon Dec 28, 2015 6:26 am

From my end, the problem is that I simply don't know how the 3DO handles fonts: is there something at the BIOS level that renders them with anti-aliasing and so forth, or is it just tile-based graphics like what we see on 8- and 16-bit systems? Do developers have the option of either approach, or is one of them required? It could well be that the fonts used in Doctor Hauzer weren't prepared using the 3DO devkit materials.

And what's built into the console -- do all 3DO consoles include a Latin character set on board, or is it only the Japanese ones that have a (kanji) font built in?

Very pleased to hear that you were able to swap out the audio, that's great! Someday another valuable translation project would be to replace the dubbed Japanese audio in the 3DO version of Blue Chicago Blues with the original English-language audio from the very rare American laserdisc version. I think it's up on YouTube now. There's also a Windows release with the English audio, IIRC. That would still leave menus to do but at least the cinematics would be in the correct language.

Versus

Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by Versus » Mon Dec 28, 2015 7:31 am

Try to use small bithacker app to view the font. Maybe it helps.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Tue Dec 29, 2015 8:02 am

Learned that NOTHING appears since that's what the save menu shows when there's an empty save slot :P. I'm able to copy/paste the letters of "NOTHING" from the font file and make them appear as subtitles. The half-width of the lone H is better though since more can fit on the screen.
Versus wrote:Try to use small bithacker app to view the font. Maybe it helps.
Downloaded a bit hacker and giving it a run. Nothing immediately obvious characters, but I'll search through it a bit more.
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2015.12.28_19.22.08 - .png
NOTHING!
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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Wed Dec 30, 2015 6:10 am

More good news! Had a long discussion with friends on how this font file might be structured. We guessed that the characters were probably in a pixel on/off grid, like a 32x32 pixel square grid where a 1 would be a white pixel and a 0 would be black. We decided to find the very last kanji on the list of allowed characters, add that to the first line of the script, then try editing from the bottom up. Changing the very last hex values to FF resulted in the picture below. We see the 罠 kanji, but with the bottom half solid!

More trail and error reveals that the kanji characters appear to be on a 14x14 pixel grid. 98 instances of F0 bytes results in the vertical lines image attached. 98 instances of F0 = 196 hex values = 14 x 14 pixels. Changing the hex value between 0 and F toggles the gray levels. After that there's two extra bytes that don't seem to do anything, then it starts modifying the next kanji. Maybe those two bytes can be used to tell it if it's a full or half width character or maybe it's just padding. There's two bytes extra at the end of the file, so I'm assuming padding.

Right now, we can make full with latin characters with a little art. If I can figure out how to make the half width ones though, we should have a much better time trying to fit characters on the screen!
Attachments
2015.12.29_19.49.19 - .png
Setting all pixels to F0 to make lines appear
2015.12.29_19.49.19 - .png (24.42 KiB) Viewed 36990 times
2015.12.29_18.55.23 - .png
Changing the bottom bits to FF
2015.12.29_18.55.23 - .png (24.09 KiB) Viewed 36990 times

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by goldenband » Wed Dec 30, 2015 5:48 pm

Great news! And great to hear that the font is a straightforward bitmap. Variable-width fonts can be tricky to implement, but if you're able to pull one off that'd be fantastic. :) If not, we can live with clunky but readable fixed-width text.

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Re: Recompiling Dr. Hauzer for Translation

Post by ArcaneAria » Mon Feb 08, 2016 5:55 am

After a bit of slacking, I picked this back up last week and successfully hacked in an English font set! Not to mention they're half-width characters! Admittedly they're not the best looking characters, but I hand drew them in a hex editor. Also I only drew capital letters, but I could probably do lowercase. I only have a 7x14 pixel grid (not including spacing so more like 5x12) to work with though.

I've been subtitling my let's play of this game, so I've already got the first half of the game translated. Started cutting and pasting my subtitles into the script file and made good progress. There's about 325 lines in the game, with a lot being really simple phrases like "You got the key." so it shouldn't take very long. The main issue is that we can have about 28 characters in a line that looks alright, but you can push that to a max of 35. If you do this, there will be a left margin but the characters will run to the far right of the screen. 28 is the goal for looking nice.

If anyone wants the nitty gritty of the font file hex editing, let me know and I can make a post about it. I've been keeping notes about everything but this post is already pretty long :lol: .

So now that things are shaping up, I'm curious on the best way to post this. Am I allowed to post a patched ISO of the game here or is that against the site rules? I saw a thread with patched roms here: http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewtopi ... =22&t=2681 so I think it'd be allowed? Would be nice to have people playtest it to see if anything goes wrong! I don't actually have a working 3DO anymore, so someone who could burn a copy and test it would be nice. Progress!
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2016.02.07_20.40.19 - .png
2016.02.07_20.40.19 - .png (69.05 KiB) Viewed 36592 times
2016.02.07_20.40.16 - .png
2016.02.07_20.40.16 - .png (73.4 KiB) Viewed 36592 times
2016.02.07_20.40.13 - .png
2016.02.07_20.40.13 - .png (72.42 KiB) Viewed 36592 times

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