[project] Sakura no Kisetsu Ren'py remake project

[adamstan]

Another progress report. It seems that I get to work on this project around the actual Season of Sakura

Whatever, today I finished all four confession scenes in Chapter 12.

So now we're at 90%

Now all that remains are actual endings. ~1500 lines left to go.

 

[adamstan]

Today I did Reiko's and Kiyomi's H-scenes, which brings us to 92%.

[adamstan]

Today I did Mio's h-scene. I think it's one of the better sex scenes in this VN (together with Ruri's), but translating h-scenes is nightmare in general. I feel sorry for whoever will have to edit that

Thankfully, scenes in this game are short, and just one per heroine.

Edited March 19, 2021 by adamstan

[adamstan]

Today I did two scenes - Shouko's which is perhaps the lamest one in the game, and Ruri's, which is the best one (as well as whole Ruri's route). 96% done.

[adamstan]

And Aki's H-scene is done. 97%

Now what is left is Seia's and Meimi's h-scenes, and short epilogues that accompany final CGs, right before credits.

I don't like Seia's h-scene too much - it's perhaps at 7th place out of 8 - with the last place belonging to Shouko

It feels like this scene exists only to satisfy readers with nun fetish I mean, the scene itself isn't that much different from all the others, and it even features some nice interactions, but the whole "fucking girl wearing nun robes in abandoned church" setting turns me off.

Edited March 24, 2021 by adamstan

[adamstan]

Big news!

Today I reached the end of the script, and that means, that first retranslation phase is completed .

Now I'd like to check first few chapters once more, and then hand it over to the editor. @Plk_Lesiak - would you like to try editing it?

In the meantime I'll try to insert Japanese text into Renpy thus making JP Renpy version. And then, when English text is completed, I'll add it.

Also, I'll try once more to make upscaled/smoothed set of images, but this time I'll do this manually, just recoloring them pixel by pixel - in order to retain original's pixel art feeling. Those automatically smoothed images I showed earlier aren't good enough. And sometimes they're outright ugly.

Edited March 26, 2021 by adamstan

[adamstan]

4 hours ago, adamstan said:

Also, I'll try once more to make upscaled/smoothed set of images, but this time I'll do this manually, just recoloring them pixel by pixel - in order to retain original's pixel art feeling.

Demonstration using one of the first backgrounds (Shuuji's living room)

Here's original 16 color image:

Here's version I did before, using automatic smoothing:

And here's latest version, reworked manually to convert it into 256 colors using "pencil" tool in GIMP:

It's quite tedious work, and I don't know if I will have enough willpower to go through all images - since each image takes few hours, and there are few hundreds of them

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by adamstan

[adamstan]

And that's how it looks ingame:

(Abovementioned background, reworked Hidemi's sprite and original text)

[adamstan]

Another experiment - using original textbox / border. That way text won't obscure images, and well - it brings more nostalgic mood

What do you think?

[Darbury]

37 minutes ago, adamstan said:

Another experiment - using original textbox / border. That way text won't obscure images, and well - it brings more nostalgic mood

What do you think?

This version, 100% — plus, like, 3% percent I had sitting around in my jacket pocket.

It solves so many problems for you. It minimizes the impact of the dithered backgrounds while also giving them visual context. It keeps character sprites from sliding to the far, far edges of the canvas (or behind their own dialogue portraits). And it just looks rad.

Restyle that Ren'py bottom nav with an 8-bit pixel font and you got yourself a winner.

[adamstan]

2 hours ago, Darbury said:

Restyle that Ren'py bottom nav with an 8-bit pixel font and you got yourself a winner.

Like this?

[Darbury]

On 3/28/2021 at 10:32 AM, adamstan said:

Like this?

Yup, something in that direction could definitely work.  And since you won't have to worry about contrast against arbitrary backgrounds, you can remove the outline and just go with a dark color for the nav text. (Unstroked text will almost always be more legible at small point sizes.)

[adamstan]

Inserting original text into Renpy script (which was initially built around JAST's translated version)

Also, I decided to leave some dithering in gradients (like the walls etc) in edited graphic assets:

In other words - I'm increasing color palette from 16 to 256 colors (so it's like transition from EGA to VGA ) but I actually don't like the look of super-smooth gradients combined with this "drawn" art style. I think that's what hurt graphics in late '90s PC VNs, like KEY's One ~Kagayaku Kisetsu e~. If they used some dithering to give the image some more texture, IMO it would have looked better.

[adamstan]

Sadly I got interrupted by life again... But I'll try to get back to it as soon as possible.

[adamstan]

Today I resumed my TLC work, pushing progress counter from 7 to 10%

[adamstan]

Today I reached 23% mark on TLC. I think that from now on, as I go on, I should be able to gradually go faster, because it was the beginning chapters that were the biggest mess.

Edited April 30, 2021 by adamstan

[adamstan]

So, as expected, now I'm progressing much faster with a TLC - even though I can't do it everyday, I already reached 42% (finished 7th chapter)

Edited May 13, 2021 by adamstan

[adamstan]

So, after quite a long break, today I finally had another proofreading/TLC session, and so I reached 60% mark, going over most of the 8th chapter.

[adamstan]

Today I went over the rest of the chapter 8 and whole chapter 9, so now it's 73% done.

 

But I have to confess, that every time I read a translation discussion on VN-related forums, I lose a bit of confidence...

[Infernoplex]

3 hours ago, adamstan said:

But I have to confess, that every time I read a translation discussion on VN-related forums, I lose a bit of confidence...

This is only natural. Just don't think about it too much. I struggle with it myself sometimes, but I don't let that discourage me.

Edited June 14, 2021 by Infernoplex
Typo

[adamstan]

21 hours ago, Infernoplex said:

This is only natural. Just don't think about it too much. I struggle with it myself sometimes, but I don't let that discourage me.

Thanks for the words of encouragement

And as for progress report - today I checked chapters 10 & 11, so that means 85% done.

[adamstan]

Aaand.......... the first proofreading phase is over Now off to the editing with it. I hope that @Plk_Lesiak makes something readable out of it

And in the meantime I will continue coding Japanese version and editing images for "256 color mode"

Edited June 17, 2021 by adamstan

[adamstan]

I'm still experimenting with various ways of image processing to create "256 color" versions of in-game assets. Unfortunately the method I proposed in March isn't suitable for all images that can be found in this VN, so I had to think about something else. And I tried the method that involves applying various amounts of blur to different layers, re-sharpening them using GIMP's tools, mixing and blending them to taste, and in final step converting image to 256 color mode. I think I still prefer original, but it looks promising - and since it will be switchable, there should be no problem

For comparison - original 16 color assets:

And the same scene in the "256 color mode" using processed images:

At the very least, I think it looks better than Memorial Edition

Edited June 18, 2021 by adamstan

[adamstan]

Sometimes this method of blurring and resharpening gives quite nice results - it's amazing, how much those algorithms can guess. Just look how nicely that moon in the upper-right corner turned out - original 16 color:

And edited 256 one:

Also, while working on the images, I added flame to the bonfire in the evening school festival background:

[adamstan]

Not much news from me, but the project is not dead - @Plk_Lesiak is gradually proceeding with proofreading and editing

But today I stumbled upon interesting thing on vndb - which further confirms my theory about common pool of assets shared between various TIARE/JAST games. Just look at this screenshot from Muchimuchi Sexy Parfait Onee-sama You which was released on Windows only (no PC98 version).

And compare with this: