Ambrosia Garden Archive
    • Translation Pug-In ?


      Might be a cool challenge

      Hello there. 🙂
      I'm french, and it's my first post in this forum, so please be kind. 😉

      Playing Nova, i was very happy, that's a little normal. But i thought... If they were other french player, or german, or spanish, or people from other country, who did'nt speak very well the english. So I told my father and he said I had to change the data string.
      But i don't want to kill my game, because i'm a really bad in removing or changing data (the only time i tried (in a non registered copy of "BOOM", it made the ennemy invincible).
      So I'm wondering if there are some way to make a Plug-In that change the language...
      If it can be done, I was hoping that someone could say me what to do, and help me to make my first Plug-In. But if someone want to make it alone, just do it 😛

      Thank you for your time and reading 😉

    • Sthyran, on Dec 31 2004, 11:08 AM, said:

      Hello there. 🙂
      I'm french, and it's my first post in this forum, so please be kind. 😉

      Playing Nova, i was very happy, that's a little normal. But i thought... If they were other french player, or german, or spanish, or people from other country, who did'nt speak very well the english. So I told my father and he said I had to change the data string.
      But i don't want to kill my game, because i'm a really bad in removing or changing data (the only time i tried (in a non registered copy of "BOOM", it made the ennemy invincible).
      So I'm wondering if there are some way to make a Plug-In that change the language...
      If it can be done, I was hoping that someone could say me what to do, and help me to make my first Plug-In. But if someone want to make it alone, just do it 😛

      Thank you for your time and reading 😉
      View Post

      If you mean a plugin that would contain all the text of Nova, but in French, this is a fairly simple thing to do. All you need to do is use the sample plugin and copy into it all the desc and STR resources from the DATA files. This would give you 99% of all the text. There are some other bits and pieces you would need to search through the Nova program files to get, but this can't hurt as long as you just copy them into your plugin, rather than trying to change them in the program file.

      Having done this, you just have to translate them into French. A professional translator would charge upwards of 100 euros per 1000 words. I haven't counted, but I would guess that there would be at least 10,000 in Nova. As a labour of love by a native French speaker who had a reasonable grasp of English, it would take a few weeks of evenings.

      If you mean, could someone write a plugin that would translate as you go along, this is impossible for two reasons.

      First, plugins can only change the data in Nova, they can't add extra algorithms such as translation.

      Second, meaningful computer translation is actually impossible. You can see this in action for yourself if you go onto one of the "translation" websites.

      For example, my first paragraph, machine-translated into French and then machine-translated back into English, comes out as follows on http://www.foreignwo...ls/transnow.htm

      "If you want to tell an enfichable which would contain all the text of Nova, but in French, it is a rather simple thing to be made. All that you must make is job the enfichable specimen and copy in it all the desc and the means STR of FILES OF DATA. It would give you 99 % of all the text. There are other pieces and pieces which you would need to search in the files of program of Nova to accept, but it cannot hurt as long as..."

      Of course, as you know what I'm talking about this isn't a big problem, but to try and follow a Nova storyline translated this way would drive you crazy.

      Hope this helps

    • Wasn't there a big thread about this some time ago?

    • Sooo... I'll let it alone... that's a little frustrating...

    • The bottom line is that if you found someone who could translate for you, it would be simple to put the translated text into a plug. But the translation can't be done automatically.

    • Personally I think that it's a good idea. So if anyone needs EV in ancient Egyptian I can make a somewhat grammatical version 😉

      Isn't someone else on the Dev board french? This does seem like a reasonable idea.

    • Zacha Pedro is, but his time is better spent wherever he feels it, I think guides are a better allocation of rescources than a translation, but then again, I speak english. Technically.

    • rmx256, on Dec 31 2004, 05:31 PM, said:

      Isn't someone else on the Dev board french? This does seem like a reasonable idea.
      View Post

      Je ne pense pas qu'il y en aie un seul... 😉

      Some time ago (read: before the release of WinNova) an user named Blood_Falcon tried to translate Nova in French, but I don't think he succeeded. His website is still in limbo. However, you may wish to contact him to continue his work from where he left. Anyway, I'm wishing you luck on this endeavor Sthyran.

      "Enfichable"?!! Which kind of crap this word is!

      P.S.: I'm rather busy right now learning mac programming, but I'll try to finish shďp as soon as I get much free time, (I was with my family for Xmas, right now I'm taken by the end-of-year celebrations, then I have to go back to Paris for monday for studies).

    • rmx256, on Dec 31 2004, 02:49 PM, said:

      Wasn't there a big thread about this some time ago?
      View Post

      I suppose you're talking about my multi-lingual/translated plugs topic

      Zacha Pedro, on Dec 31 2004, 10:12 PM, said:

      Je ne pense pas qu'il y en aie un seul... 😉

      Some time ago (read: before the release of WinNova) an user named Blood_Falcon tried to translate Nova in French, but I don't think he succeeded. His website is still in limbo. However, you may wish to contact him to continue his work from where he left. Anyway, I'm wishing you luck on this endeavor Sthyran.

      "Enfichable"?!! Which kind of crap this word is!

      P.S.: I'm rather busy right now learning mac programming, but I'll try to finish shďp as soon as I get much free time, (I was with my family for Xmas, right now I'm taken by the end-of-year celebrations, then I have to go back to Paris for monday for studies).
      View Post

      Here's the topic.

      Oh, and it's "qu'il y en ait un seul" 😉

    • I know a bit of french (not enough to translate) and know German almost fluently (as in, you other Germans would only occasionally cringe at a glaring error, and evryhting would be understandable). However, I seriuosly doubt I have the time and I tend to start projects like this and never finish them.

    • Welcome to the boards, Sthyran.

      It certainly is feasible, if you can put together a group of people dedicated enough to carry out the project. It's done for games and movies and books, though I can't recall any plug-ins that have done this.

      A perhaps easier task would be going from a male-oriented storyline to a female one, since only some chunks would have to be rewritten, with the rest just being filtered by a find and replace. It's been done for the default Nova scenario, but there isn't any reason why it can't be done for the EV and EVO conversions...

      (And now I quietly celebrate my 1,000th post...at least it took me less than six years to achieve.)

    • well... I had an idea of plug-in to make, just waiting to have more skill with them... but i forgot what it was. something with a weapon that was bad or fun mission i imagined... don't know right now... So for translation pulg in we should change all the dësc, mission offer text, mission completiotion text... and then what the male/female storyline change. Perhaps hardcore change something too, i don't know, i don't like to have my best pilot killed and can't continue to play it...

    • Firebird, on Jan 6 2005, 11:30 PM, said:

      (And now I quietly celebrate my 1,000th post...at least it took me less than six years to achieve.)
      View Post

      Wow, you're member number 10?! I didn't realise you were so ancient, and at the same time still here, until now.