Which font letters can be replaced and how to type them in FFTactext?

[messiahgov]

Hello all!

I'm trying to translate the PSX version to German and we have 7 special letters/umlauts: ö, Ö, ä, Ä, ü, Ü and ß in German (33 in total). My question is, because I found this nice thread here, which Japanese/Chinese characters can be replaced safely in the NTSC-U version? At all I need 7 unused letters/symbols for the German replacements.

And they need to be seen in the character naming window, of course (this one could be difficult, the existent ones are all needed). Plus how can I type/input them with FFTactex? As if I want to type one of those Japanese letters. Copying of Japanese is possible, of course direct inputs of German umlauts not. But I'm not sure which one is really used ingame and can be replaced, because some stuff like Names, important symbols etc. will not be changed in a translation. :/

I appreciate any help here, because I was so excited after I found all those great tools and now I'm getting a bit frustrated. Even after I have translated some stuff, ae for ä, ue for ü etc. is not the real thing. ^^

[messiahgov]

Okay I managed to insert all my wanted German special letters. And I can use them in FFTacText (with "Help > Allowed Symbols" I could manage that). I just use a Kanji symbol, replaced it and in-game I can see my edited letters. Perfect! But... even though I changed the width with FFTPatcher (old version) in the process to edit 7 Kanji symbols, the width stays at the original value (10, I need 6 and 4) and there is a big space after those letters.

I made some comparisons, but I have no clue which value has to be changed manually. Because it seems FFTPatcher doesn't change that value in the patching process. When I just change the width (no graphical edit) and patch a ISO, take out the FONT.BIN and compare them, there is no difference.

So I hope somebody could give me a hint. As it seems there is a way to change the width, because FFTPatcher has the editable value for that. I'm managed to get the special letters in and now that. ^^ I could start translating, but with those wrong widths it looks worse.

[Xifanie]

I could do it for you, it's mostly a matter of hex editing if FFTP can't do it... you might need to harass me a bit tough because I tend to procrastinate. I'd need to know which characters you're editing, and the new width of each one.

Also, AFAIK FONT.BIN is an unused file, the character data is located in BATTLE.BIN and WORLD.BIN respectively IIRC.

Have you tried .482? (I have no clue if this could fix your issue)

[messiahgov]

Thanks for the reply and I appreciate you're offer to help. =)

I just use the FONT.BIN for comparison in tiny hexer, but I'm not good enough to understand this ASM stuff or more than just the basics. But I can copy & paste hex stuff and I understand enough to get a bit of a clue. ^^ The thread mentioned above helped a lot, especially melonhead's post. I also got those Italian "WORLD.BIN" and "SCUS_942.21" and looked at those offsets and yes there are some changes, but they don't seem to be necessary right now (asm DTE routine to solve problems with displaying replaced symbols in some places).

Anyway, so far everything seem to be good, just the width is wrong. I used CDMage to handle the files with the right mode etc. I can type the special letters via copy & paste (Japanese symbol, which is the special German letter in-game etc.) in FFTactext. But just because I found this list in the help menu, was a big help. And I see them in-game as they should be, with wrong width.

I try to post the small list I made, I hope I can safely use them:

Original symbol / FFPatcher / German letter (which could be displayed wrong at your side) / old width / new width
用 / 1B2 / ö / 10 / 4
田 / 1B3 / Ö / 10 / 6
甲 / 1B4 / ä / 10 / 4
申 / 1B5 / Ä / 10 / 6
由 / 1B6 / ü / 10 / 4
白 / 1B7 / Ü / 10 / 6
皮 / 1B8 / ß / 10 / 4

I marked them here in the picture I found, if that helps more:
http://www.pixhost.org/show/4281/16861747_font_ger.png

The FFPatcher column, is the number which will be displayed inside FFPatcher > Font menu. I tried FFTPatcher 0.352, 0.466, 0.478 and 0.482, but just 0.352 seem to offer the Font edit option or have I missed anything important? The tool seem to be very self explaining. ^^

I could upload my German modified BATTLE.BIN, FONT.BIN and WORLD.BIN if that helps, but I'm not sure if this is legal. The only changes are those 7 symbols.

BTW, what is IIRC, not IRC as we all know, or? ^^

[Xifanie]

Oh, then that makes things easier.

The table width data is right before the character graphics data... however it doesn't appear to exist in FONT.BIN, but as I said I think the file isn't even used.

IIRC means: If I Recall Correctly. You can just google terms like that or directly search on urban dictionary, you'll get your answers.

BATTLE.BIN 0xFF0FC
WORLD.BIN 0x733E0

You sound smart enough to figure the rest out yourself. Good luck in your project.

[messiahgov]

Cool that was quick! I'm at work right now, but I looked into a WORLD.BIN and the offset from you and yes, it could be easy. I mean I see those "04"s, "06"s and "0A"s. I don't know which are the right ones, but I think it's just a matter of counting. It have to be in the section with all those "0A"s  I give it a try later at home. Thanks again!

EDIT: Oh damnit, you don't believe what I have found in the FFTPatcher... in the "Patch PSX ISO" window, I have missed the "Font Widths" checkbox... I think, I won't have to manually edit anything now in BATTLE.BIN, but in WORLD.BIN. ^^ Anyway, you was a great help!