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FW-EDITOR? .pak archives contain .csb files? Help a beginner translate a VN.


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So I'd like to translate my first visual novel and I've been trying to learn a bit about the process, but I've found myself quite stuck.
VNDB says the engine is FW-EDITOR, it's a Front Wing game from 2003. 
I've got GARbro to open and extract .pak archive files that outputs .csb files. The .csb files are a bit garbled, but the script is in plain text within them, along with a bunch of direction stuff that calls for music and scenes.

The problems I'm attempting to solve now are 1. How to repack the .pak file such that the game will read them. When I tried creating the archive with everything extracted from GARbro, the game gave me an error about missing a .cst file. and 2. If there is some editor that would make looking at the .csb file a little easier?

Thanks for any help!

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4 hours ago, Entai2965 said:

Just posting some information. Ignore me.
- Frontwing: https://vndb.org/p336
- FW-Editor: https://vndb.org/r?f=fwFW_dEDITOR-

To add to this, Yukiuta has unofficial translations (Korean and Chinese) that I would like to track down to see if they help. The Chinese one is more recent, but is a patch for a Vista edition that I'm unsure if it uses the same engine or formats. The Korean version I'm not sure which version it patches. Majo no Ocha Kai has an official translation that I'm finding difficult to find much info about, but seems to be based on the dreamcast version of that game, which doesn't seem to use the same engine, so I'm not sure if it'll be much use even if I did track it down.
All the others listed with that engine are untranslated and I didn't come up with any that have been attempted to be translated.

Edited by camashau
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Some information about the engine:
-The game will read from directory with the same name if you delete the .pak archive (I deleted Story.pak)

image-3.png

-The byte before the string (1F in this case) determines its length.

image-2.png

 You can just update it after modifying the string.
-P/s: 0A is line-breaker.

image-4.png


image-5.png

Edited by leticiel_
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Thanks for the help, I've very much found myself out of my technical depths. I'm not even sure how to get a hex editor to show the proper script. What I've tried all just leads to the game crashing because it can't find a .cst file after I've edited the .csb files in any way. I don't think I'm editing the file in the proper way.

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9 hours ago, camashau said:

Thanks for the help, I've very much found myself out of my technical depths. I'm not even sure how to get a hex editor to show the proper script. What I've tried all just leads to the game crashing because it can't find a .cst file after I've edited the .csb files in any way. I don't think I'm editing the file in the proper way.

which game is it?

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Just as an anecdotal aside, I went down this rabbit hole a while ago with another unrelated title (Green Green), just playing around out of interest. I found myself very confused, despite some basic coding knowledge. I did find pre-existing (if not user-friendly) tools and got them working with the help of a knowledgeable person, but it didn't take long for me to run into technical issues even after managing to replace Japanese with English script (error message related to voice line popping up whenever the unvoiced protagonist's name is changed, but only him).

If you've got the skills to translate, you get stuck on this side of things, and you're committed, it might be better to translate a sample, stick it in a video as a subtitle or something to show you can do it, and then ask around for volunteers for the technical side. You may also some across other issues like graphics that may need translating and reinserting.

Good luck on the project! (Especially if it happens to be Sweet Legacy)

Edited by NookGaming
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2 hours ago, NookGaming said:

You may also some across other issues like graphics that may need translating and reinserting.

I actually did already try that part and it works just fine, the images can be extracted, edited and they'll still work in the new directory as above. Currently at least it's mostly that I really don't understand the encoding issues, it does seem like if I can get past this it'll be translatable. I've actually just been writing out my own script translation, figuring I could handle the technical side later.
 

 

8 hours ago, leticiel_ said:

which game is it?

Futago Ecchi

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Posted (edited)

ErrorFE.png

Here's the error:
A Fatal Error has Occurred.
Please contact the developer.
The program will close.

Error details:
system\start.cst
call:
An error occurred while loading file story\com_0_00
The file 'story\com_0_00.cst' cannot be found

This of course doesn't happen when loading the game without having edited the story file, which has the script in it.
This happens once the story file that has been edited is actually used. In this case as the first one, you go through the start game process and give MC a name before it crashes.
com_0_00.csb is the first story/script file. .cst files don't seem to exist when I extract either the story or system .pak
So I suppose it's something created when the game loads up the story file?

I should also mention I have simply tried replacing kana with other kana and I get this same error, in case it was something to do with that length byte. Which also means it might be something I'm doing while editing or opening the file and saving it. I've just opened it in N++ so I can't say I really know what I'm doing there.

Edited by camashau
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14 hours ago, leticiel_ said:

Quick and dirty parser for csb files. Try it Link

Got it working, thank you so much!
I'm really glad you were able to help me out here and I look forward to completing this project now!
That parser is really helpful and I like how easy it makes all this. I think after I finish this one I'll definitely look into the other FrontWing games from the era that use the same system.

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Posted (edited)
15 hours ago, Sisulizer said:

Full-width display 🫠

Yeah that's not something I had thought about or planned ahead for. I've got 4 lines with 20 spaces each per message. I hadn't set up my script for that, but I've figured a good way to handle it at least.

Edited by camashau
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