translations?

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

hello,
are there any translations of ultima 1? I would write a tool, that assists in translation, if I would know what is to do!
big thanks!

[Al_B]

If it helps, there appear to be at least partial fan-made translations into Spanish and Portuguese for Underworld I available from Ultima Aiera. I suspect you're probably looking for a German version but although at the back of my mind I thought one existed I can't find reference to anything other than the documentation being translated.

Writing an automatic tool would be tricky as a lot of the language used in both the Underworlds is not standard English. Translating manually would be the best way to do it, but if you haven't played the game you will spoil a lot of it for yourself.

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

this is right, I would apprechiate a german translation. but I can not translate it by myself, because my english is to bad. I had a look into the gamefiles, and I cann't find something other than compiled code. is this right? I thought, that here a tool would help in translation.
I had found that the german translation had no success.

[Al_B]

Most game strings are contained within the file strings.pak. It's Huffman compressed (format is described in section five of the UW formats document).

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

7zip cant handle it. and I dont know, how i could decode it with ghex and notepad++.

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

I will try to code a tool.
I dont know, if I should use c++ or java?

[Al_B]

Code already exists for reading from the files in C++ in both the UW adventures and abysmal projects - so that might get you started. If you're more comfortable with Java then it wouldn't take long to write a class that handles string reading.

Writing the results back may take a little more work as you'd have to either build a new Huffman tree or use the existing one in reverse. I'm not sure how it (or the font) handles accented characters so you may want to do some tests first.

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

thank you for your answer

if it is so easy to do it in java, that should be the choosen. I would really apprechiate if you could tell where the existing c++ code is stored?

I think, building a new tree is the best way.
the accentuation is not so importend and I have no idea how to extend the font.
... or what du others think?

[Al_B]

Underworld Adventures is here. The source code is in source/import/stringsloader.cpp

Abysmal is here. The source code is in src/game/uw/import/stringsloader.cpp

In both cases you'll need to download the source package and unzip it with 7-Zip if you're on Windows. You'll probably find the Underworld Adventures file a little easier to follow if you don't have much experience of C++. You'll also want to brush up on your Huffman Coding (from Wikipedia in German).

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

thank you. I have downloaded both and viewed. because there are many calls into other files, I dont understand much. also I don't know the api of c++. it will take a little to understand it. my knowledge about c++ is some years old, and I will read my old notes again. the ua file is really easyer. there is a bug on line 143 in the while-loop. the case is asked for 2 times the same case! what I understand off abysmal, there should be tested left and right, and not the left-case twice. thanks also for the huffman link, I already got this, and I will realy need it.
will keep trying to understand. =)

Edit: well, the ua project is discontinued, so the bug is not important. I also found another project, with an huffman implementation, I think. the project is located here:
http://uw2rev.sourceforge.net/
the file is named U_GameStrings.cpp and you will find it in the folder: U_GameStrings.

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

well, okay! If you tell that c++ is easyer, then I will choose it for the project.
I got lost in 2 c++ books. one very easy, and one hard to understand. but after all, I shoulden't had to read them, because java and c++ are very similar, for the most in the general things! isn't it? finally, I should not have too much to read about it.
as far I have seen so far, the handeling of strings could be something hard to understand?

well, something general needs to be choosen: the name of the project!? are there any suggestions? by this please remember, that uw1, uw2 and system shock will be supported finally by success. I think it could be something like "ttlg???".

also anyone is welcome to join the project! especially people who like to help coding the tool to support different languages!
and finally also to do the translations into their native language language!

[Edit:]

well, we have those three solutions. Al_B you told me that one is easyer to understand, than the other one. I have to compare those 3, but can you already tell, if those two produce the same solution? and also how correct is the UW formats doc is by his description? I will invite the authors of those three solutions, if they accept to contribute of their solutions, and if they are willing to share their experience.

finally I have the question, which compiler/IDE we could use? I would suggest: Visual Studio Express, because it needs to be free for use. and it also needs to support windows, because it is for gamers.

[Al_B]

I have no reason to believe that any of the algorithms are incorrect - the string decoding of UW / UW2 is a solved problem and the UW formats document is also correct as far as I know.

I suggested that if you're not used to heavily structured C++ that the UW Adventures implementation may be easier to understand as it's a reasonably clean implementation that doesn't rely on templates or the standard library. Yes, C++ and Java share some syntax but they're not similar enough that you can magically start programming in one if you only know the other.

Visual Studio is fine as a platform if you want to use it. It can be very easy to debug programs in it and the auto-completion can be handy while you develop. I wouldn't worry about getting other people on board for now - get a program working that can read and write string files first to prove the principles.

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

thank you for your replay!

it is good to know, that they are correct!

the programminglanguage is not the problem. the problem is, that I dont have a picture of the huffmann codec in my mind? also I dont know by which magical number the correct textitem is found while gaming? and finally if it works, if I would simply read the algo from the end to the beginning? however, I saw your first replay again. I would ask the makers of the spanish or the portuguise versions about these questions, or how they did their translations. but there are no mailaddresses in thouse patches?

by visual studio I were talking about the free version. for that I have to search harder for the documentation however, because there are some questions left.

I have named the project ttlg4D and registered at sourceforge.net here:

http://ttlg4d.sourceforge.net/

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

well, I will now have the time, to begin coding. first I will code the given file (stringsloader.cpp) of uwadv, in the reverse order from the end to the beginning; to get a stringssaver.cpp. I dont know if that would work right, but this will be a beginning.

I will use ms visual studio express 2010 and hope that this will be enougth.

I heard, that uwadv contains a file that can be used, to test the file produced by the stringsloader.cpp. any idea, what file is there be meant?

I also have to search for german explenations of the huffmancodec, because the ones that were given to me, dont meat my understandment? so I already have the question, where from does uw know which piece of string is to choose. or spoken in other words, what is the index?

edit: I have copied the includes to a new project directory and made a new project of it. now I get the error that the SDL.h is missing. is this file realy neaded? ?)

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

well okay. I heard that sdl.h isn't needed.

I will try to understand uwadv and write a stringssaver.cpp.

the other question is: what are thouse files of the portuguese and spanish translations? is this grafic of the panorama of the characters, really used? is that the needed format of the files? that work would better meet my abilities i think. I will read thouse fileformat rules about this.

EDIT:

I had read the doc-files, and found out that there is a strpak.cpp, that en-, and decodes the strings.pak. I will try to use this file for my translation application.
otherwise spoken, the translation could start here! one only need to decode the strings.pak into a textfile, by using strpak, like described inside the README.tools.txt file, in the docs folder. after done this, the translated text, could be encoded by strpak.cpp back again, into a valid translation.
if I could do the translation, I would do it, but I understand too less of the english spoken in the game. it would be very funny, to translate the grafics, if there would be a german strings.pak. so I would really appreciate a translation.
further more, I read throught the uw-formats.txt, and it is needed for modification of the grafic-files and the modification of the shown texts inside of them, that I have to find out, what programms exists, that show and modify thouse grafics? ...and evetually how far could the gimp take me here? so if anyone knows a tool for one of the pictures, please give us the related link to download it?

[Al_B]

I may be misremembering but I think that the animations are in Deluxe Paint format. I wouldn't worry about them until you have the rest of the text sorted - it sounds like you may have other challenges with the translations.

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

that picture-format could be. may be I have read something like that in the uw-formats.txt. I thought that there may be fileviewers specialy for uw and ss. I will try to use gimp for this, it needs to be for free. what other problems do you mean? if thouse strpak.cpp could truely de- and encode, there might be only the pictures left.
I read yesterday a lot of the uw-formats.txt and after that I realized that I have to read the sources at the same time. the way the formats are described is new to me...
when I yesterday tried to install uwadv under xp, I ran into the problem, that the installation of the additional needed packages were described not complete. I don't know, how I have to edit the glutwin32.mak to work with vs c++ express together. also there is a platform sdk needed, but the link to it is broken. okay, okay, I will look at the origin to get help for that problem, but if I would try to separate the string codes from the rest of the uwadv code, that would be the work I should do; and that would not be a big problem I think?

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

I will give it up right hee now.
I tryed to build uwadv with visual studio 2010 express, but the projectfile won't open. again, I tried to install uwadv-binaryes for windows, but the version of uw1 + 2, on one cd, does not work with uwadv-installer. this means also, because this version only install's some less files of uw1, that I finally wouldn't know, how a translated strings-file could be substituted inside the version I own.

[twisty]

Not sure if the following tool will be of any use to you:

<a href="http://uwediting.freehostia.com/download.html"><img alt="Ultima Underworld Conversation Tools" src="http://uwediting.freehostia.com/img/cnvide_med.jpg" /></a>

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

thank you, I will have a look at it.

currently I have two problems.

a) I cannot compile uwadv, because vs2010 express, don't supports it full.

b) my version of uw1 and uw2 comes on one cd, and installs only some files on hd, not all.

[Al_B]

You shouldn't need to compile anything to use the tools that twisty linked to. As for the CD version of the Underworlds, that sounds like the original UW1 + UW2 compilation CD. From memory you can just copy the UW and UW2 folders to your hard drive and change the file attributes so they're not read-only. After copying them, it's best to launch the game within dosbox - run install and then optionally uwsound to set up your sound card before launching the game.

[Cyberpunkgothic1]

okay AlB, I have read now your first replay again and that you found it tricky.
I think I will only write a tool, that assists translating into german. also I will play uw1 in english first.
this tool needs a better name. any suggestions?

[ironixdark1]

I won't do the job. I am not good at english and all languages.

[twisty]

Thanks for following up ironixdark1 but unfortunately your response arrives 2031 days (5 years, 6 months, 3 weeks, 2 days) late. As a consequence, the original business proposal was declared to be infeasible and the company has since folded.