SegaGaga Translation News: Viva Gaga in 2007 !

[Christuserloeser]

James Howell has updated his blog with news on the SegaGaga Translation Project:

Quick entry. Time to open this up for the new year. I've got my fingers crossed that we can release a patch for Segagaga before summer hits, but I won't promise anything.

Technical, material, and personal considerations stalled our work over the holidays, and we're picking up where we dropped our bit back in early December. We have lately given our attention to the movie files on the Segagaga disc. These contain the animated sequences available for viewing on Youtube, as well as other segments such as the Mogetan commercials.

Mogetan is a saurian handpuppet who is supposed to be a kid, curious about Sega and videogames. He asks questions to a female puppet named (in lieu of an actual name) Miss, voiced by Kikuko Inoue, the same woman who plays Alisa.

These files are encoded in .sfd format on the Dreamcast disc. We're ripping the files from our backup of the disc, converting them to AVI format, adding subtitles, and converting them back into .sfd format movies. These movie files will form part of the patch that our audience will apply to their backup copies.

I'm not sure how the subtitles will look on the screen, since the videos are stored at a smaller aspect ratio than they appear on a player's television. The videos are stored at a 4:3 ratio, and they play at a 5:3 ratio. I have .wmv versions of three of the opening movies uploaded onto my personal site, and they are versions of the movies stretched to a 5:3 aspect ratio. The Dreamcast presumably applies some sort of filter to the compressed images that make the jaggy sprites seem smoother, so hopefully the same standard will be applied to the subtitles.

Here are the videos, followed by some notes. I have chosen only those videos that play at the start of the game, in order to prevent spoiling anyone who's keeping himself fresh for the game.

(1) Company Policy

This video plays right after the Sega and Hitmaker logos run across the screen at startup. I had to block the kanji at the top of the screen in order to make the English text readable. Thankfully, this is the only video that has distracting text over the space where a subtitle will go, so this does not need to happen again.

This is also one of the few instances where I've put the translation at the top of the screen-technically making it a supertitle-in order to prevent blocking the majority of the original material's activity.

(2) Presidential Decision

This video plays right when the player starts the game. I had to hunt around the internet in order to learn the specific script language used in .SSA subtitle formats in order to change the text color. I have decided to use alternating yellow and white letters for now.

Since the text-only portions of the game assign specific colors to specific speakers, I will try to assign those colors to each character's subtitles in the final version.

(3) Tour of the Main Office

During this scene, the screen quickly cuts to a black background with Japanese writing. In the effort to make our localization as thorough as we can, I have cut those frames from the animation and replaced them with English frames.

That's all for now. This blog ought to see more regular updates now that we're on the move again.

Source: Thanks go out to Sultan of Saturn at DCEmulation.com

[Elven6]

How would this translation work? Would we have to buy the game or is it a save that works?

[JKKDARK]

How would this translation work? Would we have to buy the game or is it a save that works?

mm I think we need to backup our GD. Then later we need to add the patch file? Luckily, I have this game

[Christuserloeser]

Yup, you'd need to download the patch and apply it to your backup. For legal reasons this can't be discussed any further here.

[drunkensailor]

what happened to this project???

[Christuserloeser]

Still WIP with a demo coming soon:

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?publ...03&bId=8360155

Touching base --
This'll be a quick (and overdue) blog.

Segagaga localization is still underway. I think we've got the material together for a demo patch that would make up to the end of the first RPG segment playable. I'm still waiting to hear back on our progress with the programming end of things, though, so I can't promise when that will be available.

(Notice that I didn't write "if that will be available." All signs still point to forward progress.)

The actual translation work will be slowed, however, due to other priorities that demand a whole lot of time. I've just started grad school, and I'm still waiting to get internet access at my place... which is a must for this project.

To illustrate my point: I'm presently sitting in the passenger seat of my car, which is parked in the university lot at 4am because I can only access the internet wirelessly on my laptop through the school's connection.

I hope to have more concrete word about the status of the programming end of things soon, and I'll let everyone know what's up when I know myself.

Be well!
Posted at Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:50:05 PDT