PSX serial experiments lain english subtitles or translation

[rygD]

I was wondering if anyone knew of any projects to make this "game" accessible to English speakers.  

There was one I know of, but they gave up, I guess: http://psx.lain.pl/

Here is a pic from the anime to compensate for my short post.

 

[comradekingu]

Picture doesnt work. See if there any similar other projects that have figured out the game-technical bit and consult those people.

 

[rygD]

Thanks.  Stupid picture.  Maybe I will get another one.  Or not.  Depends on if I remember.

Sad thing is I don't even want it dubbed, I just want subtitles, which I think would be easier if I am only playing on an emulator.  I think the project I linked had all/most of the transcripts, and as long as there is some way to identify what goes with what I can use that until I figure out how to get it all self-contained.

 

[levi]

Are the published transcripts used against FMV or against cut scenes? If the former, you don't have to worry so much about file space, just how to edit the video, but if the latter and you're replacing Japanese text with English you've got all the general problems people have when doing this for 16-bit titles.

 

[rygD]

Are the published transcripts used against FMV or against cut scenes? If the former, you don't have to worry so much about file space, just how to edit the video, but if the latter and you're replacing Japanese text with English you've got all the general problems people have when doing this for 16-bit titles.

I'm not sure I really follow what you are asking.  Are you asking if it is FMV or just text?  It would be closer to FMV, but it is more like a series of cutscenes and other media.  Lemme just give some links.

This should give you an idea of how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ISY_2zcQTys?feature=oembed

 

[levi]

Okay, not speaking more than a couple words of Japanese, that confused the hell out of me, but I see why you found my question confusing. No idea what's going on with all those icons at the start, but I assume the audio track is assisting you. That's the main thing that'd need to be re-recorded. I assume all the text over the video is from the video author.


Hopefully that should be relatively straightforward to do if you have the voice talent. I'd assume long samples like that won't be embedded in the executable like in-engine animations and subtitles for cut-scenes would be, and the other bits look like pre-recorded FMV which likewise will probably be stored under some sort of filesystem on the disc.

 

[rygD]

Okay, not speaking more than a couple words of Japanese, that confused the hell out of me, but I see why you found my question confusing. No idea what's going on with all those icons at the start, but I assume the audio track is assisting you. That's the main thing that'd need to be re-recorded.

I think the audio files are just recordings of monologue and dialogue that you use to piece everything together.  I would prefer having subtitles than rerecorded audio.

I assume all the text over the video is from the video author.

Yes, the second video is from people who were working on translating the game, but they stopped at some point and said they weren't going to continue.

I'd assume long samples like that won't be embedded in the executable like in-engine animations and subtitles for cut-scenes would be, and the other bits look like pre-recorded FMV which likewise will probably be stored under some sort of filesystem on the disc.

 I think the third video is reassembled from other stuff.  I am not sure how this works in the game (if they can be reassembled and played as one, as shown in that clip, or if you have to play each piece by itself, then manually go to the next one).  Essentially the game is just a series of media files that you use to figure out what is going on.  The story in the anime was revealed in a similar way, where you had seemingly unrelated stuff happening that made more sense as you were given more information.  Since I was not able to figure out much about this game, as best I can tell the gaming elements are what I said, you observe the files and try to use the info to figure out the whole story.  

'It was...made to be a "network simulator" in which the player would navigate to explore Lain's story. The creators themselves did not call it a game, but "Psycho-Stretch-Ware", and it has been described as being a kind of graphic novel: the gameplay is limited to unlocking pieces of information, and then reading/viewing/listening to them, with little or no puzzle needed to unlock. Lain distances itself even more from classical games by the random order in which information is collected. The aim of the authors was to let the player get the feeling that there are myriads of informations that he would have to sort through, and that he would have to do with less than what exists to understand. As with the anime, the creative team's main goal was to let the player "feel" Lain, and "to understand her problems, and to love her".'

 

[levi]

Subtitles for that audio would actually be harder from a coding point of view (but there's much less new art to master, so that's clearly easier).  You'd need to disassemble the game code and hack in a new layer of graphics to make the subtitles.  I dare say it'd be easier to actually hack the subtitles into the emulator, such that it could watch the game code accessing the audio snippets and overlay the subtites in a timely fashion while the game plays out, but either way it's not easy.

 

[rygD]

This may be why the people who were working on it decided not to continue.  If I do this it will have to be at some point in the not too near future.  I need to do some more research, and I may need to find someone who can help with additional translation.

I think I will probably go the emulator route unless I find that it will be easier to add them in the game.  I do prefer using the original hardware when I can, so I will have to take another look at it when I know a little more about what will be required for each method, and then make the decision.  I may even go with your original suggestion of creating new audio, but the problem I see with that is losing the original feel and tone.  If I do something like that I may as well just piece everything together outside of the game and just make it into a video, but I lose half of the experience that way.  Would it be easier to learn Japanese?

I really appreciate your input.

 

[notaz]

The PSX GPU normally can't overlay anything on top of FMVs as it can't draw in 24bpp mode, it just displays data that's copied from MDEC (video decoder). The video material would have to be decoded to some video editor friendly format, subtitles placed and then reencoded back to PSX format.

Some workarounds are possible though, as the data from video decoder is copied to main RAM first, the CPU can modify it before sending to GPU. You can't do wonders with 33MHz CPU though, but depending on how much of it is used by the game, it might be possible.

MDEC can also decode to 15bits, in that case the GPU could draw stuff on top of video, but that 15bpp mode is rarely used by games for FMVs. I think Ghost In the Shell might be doing something like this (haven't checked though).

In both later cases you'd need to find some free RAM and VRAM for font data and some extra code, which may or may not be a problem, depending on how the game is using those resources.

Edit: looked at the third video and it seems to be already overlaying the spinning cube thing, so it should be 15bpp and GPU way could probably be used. There is an emulator called Xebra which can display full VRAM contents, you can check if there is free space for fonts with that.

 

[levi]

I don't see the FMVs as being a big problem, since as you say you can just rip them, edit them, transcode them to fit and drop them back in, and I'd guess with this gen of game FMVs are in the minority.  The audio that's overlaid as you navigate what look like conversation trees looks trickier, and those bits near the start of the first video with the girl and the icons - I guess that could all be staged FMV (think DVD menus) but I can't tell from a mere youtube video.  If not, adding subtitles to that? Sheesh!

 

[rygD]

The audio that's overlaid as you navigate what look like conversation trees looks trickier

Do you mean the music and sound effects where you select what to play, or do you mean the stuff that comes up after you pick the file?

start of the first video with the girl and the icons

That is lain.   They are all lain, except for the 2 girls who call out to her while running up in the second video...on second though, they may also be lain, and just look different.

It turns out that the guide for this game contains file listings, and that there may be a translation of it.  I am not sure if this will help, but it can't hurt.  

 

[Klumpen]

I've seen this series a few months ago and never knew there was some "game",

but it seems to be even worse than the Neon Genesis Evangelion games.

 

[rygD]

Maybe.  As I said, this game doesn't try to be a game as much as a way to tell another story.