How can I translate myself?

[Der Ketzer]

Is there a tutorial for dummies to translate languages in games? There are games that have not been translated here or anywhere else. And I don't want to wait for someone to do it. I would like to be able to do it myself.

Can someone help me and show me how to do this or does someone know where I can find the knowledge for this. But it has to be for dummies because I have no idea how to do it.

 

[Winterfire]

There is no universal solution, a game made in RPGM, Ren'Py and other common engines will most likely have tools written for it, whereas proprietary engines will require you to write said tools yourself.
If you know a language such as Japanese, join a group instead.

 

[Meaning Less]

Check the translation forum.

There are guides there on how to translate stuff, there are also translations requests in case you want to look for something to translate and so on.

 

[Jofur]

It depends a lot on the engine. Some games(if you are lucky) just have a file with all the localized text in it you can open in notepad or excel. Most engines like RPGM or the ones used by Japanese developers needs to be decrypted. For that you need to download a tool somewhere. For games made in Unity/UE it's basically up to how the developer made the localization stuff. It might even be hardcoded into the game.

If you are thinking of Renpy games, this seems like a good start:
https://attachments.f95zone.to/2021/12/1594138_RenPy_Translation_Tutorial-v2.0.pdf

You must be registered to see the links

Overall translating a "released" game is usually way harder than translating an uncompiled game with access to the development tools. If you aren't very tech savvy you could always try asking devs/translation groups if you can help them translate(ask them to send you the script in a text file or something).

 

[Der Ketzer]

Check the translation forum.

There are guides there on how to translate stuff, there are also translations requests in case you want to look for something to translate and so on.

Yes, I've thought of that too. The only problem is that Loli's also appear in some games. Sometimes more sometimes less. And since Rule 7 doesn't allow that, it's relatively useless to make a request. Which is also one of the reasons I want to do it myself.
Because I think I could miss one or the other story pearl. That's why I want to know what's written there.
And Japanese isn't necessarily something I've mastered now.

It depends a lot on the engine. Some games(if you are lucky) just have a file with all the localized text in it you can open in notepad or excel. Most engines like RPGM or the ones used by Japanese developers needs to be decrypted. For that you need to download a tool somewhere. For games made in Unity/UE it's basically up to how the developer made the localization stuff. It might even be hardcoded into the game.

If you are thinking of Renpy games, this seems like a good start:
https://attachments.f95zone.to/2021/12/1594138_RenPy_Translation_Tutorial-v2.0.pdf

You must be registered to see the links

Overall translating a "released" game is usually way harder than translating an uncompiled game with access to the development tools. If you aren't very tech savvy you could always try asking devs/translation groups if you can help them translate(ask them to send you the script in a text file or something).

Well, most of the games that I think could be something, which I don't know because I can't read them, run on this RPG Maker stuff and various components.
Isn't there an AI that can do that? ^^
So give the game to the AI, and then it translates everything and removes these stupid censorships. When the AI is finished I will get a finished game version with finished translation.

 

[Jofur]

Isn't there an AI that can do that? ^^
So give the game to the AI, and then it translates everything and removes these stupid censorships. When the AI is finished I will get a finished game version with finished translation.

There are tools that do it, usually referred to as "machine translation". But they are pretty wonky and is mainly used as a last resort kind of thing.

I'm afraid there just aren't that many AI specialists focusing on translating and de-censoring obscure Japanese loli-porn games.

 

[Der Ketzer]

There are tools that do it, usually referred to as "machine translation". But they are pretty wonky and is mainly used as a last resort kind of thing.

I'm afraid there just aren't that many AI specialists focusing on translating and de-censoring obscure Japanese loli-porn games.

Oh sorry, I must have expressed myself wrongly. So I'm not specifically looking for loli games. For me, the loli's are more of an accessory that I can't influence. But that doesn't mean the game is bad. I try to avoid it. But it's not always possible.
Except I don't play it. But then, I might miss story pearls. I think you have to decide what is better for you. But since they are drawn figures, you can probably get over it.

But to come back to Ki again.
I think it needs something like a general ki. The piece by piece is expanded to be able to do this with as many games as possible. Because basically a person does nothing else.
But to do that you need money and a programmer. I don't have either.
But possibly. one could develop such an AI via donations and put it online so that everyone has access to it.
What the Ki or an offshoot of it should be able to do is still undefined at the moment.

 

[Meaning Less]

Because basically a person does nothing else.
But to do that you need money and a programmer. I don't have either.

There is no such thing as magic, every game is different and anything automatic might break them in different ways.
Almost always a person is needed to fix mistakes caused by auto-translations, some level of knowledge is necessary because games are different, each dev has their own way of writing code so a lot can happen when running any script over an entire game.

Not everything can be fixed with money, google has invested a lot of money into their translation tools for decades and while machine translation has improved over the years it still struggles a lot with non-similar languages.

Sometimes it's the simple stuff that computers struggle the most, just think how easy it is for humans to circle traffic lights in a 2d image, a baby can do it. Meanwhile AI still relies on human training and huge databases to identify them but fails constantly.

tl;dr if you want to translate yourself reliably learn to code and or learn japanese.

 

[Der Ketzer]

There is no such thing as magic, every game is different and anything automatic might break them in different ways.
Almost always a person is needed to fix mistakes caused by auto-translations, some level of knowledge is necessary because games are different, each dev has their own way of writing code so a lot can happen when running any script over an entire game.

Not everything can be fixed with money, google has invested a lot of money into their translation tools for decades and while machine translation has improved over the years it still struggles a lot with non-similar languages.

Sometimes it's the simple stuff that computers struggle the most, just think how easy it is for humans to circle traffic lights in a 2d image, a baby can do it. Meanwhile AI still relies on human training and huge databases to identify them but fails constantly.

tl;dr if you want to translate yourself reliably learn to code and or learn japanese.

Or I get money to afford someone to do it.
That's more realistic than I'll ever learn to code or the Japanese language.

Well then, an AI will probably have to be developed that can think and act independently and develop. Unhindered by any limitations.
Creating life in virtual reality. Ufff....Then I need a quantum computer.