Translation

Introduction

Blood Omnicide support translation packs in the form of separate PK3 files. This article will explain how to edit them, creating your own localization pack.

Translation packs follows this rules:

• Translate texts, textures, sounds, everything

• Language can be chosen without quitting the game

• More translation packs should be created to allow support for more languages

Names

Standart naming for locale file is L-localename0.PK3, where localename is the language identificator.

Example: localname is "espanol" and pack name will be L-espanol0.PK3.

A number in the end is used to break up locale to separate PK3 files (or make update pack later), engine reads them in the order: L-espanol0.PK3, L-espanol1.PK3, L-espanol2.PK3 etc.

Text encoding

All text files should use Unicode (UTF-8) encoding with no BOM (Byte-Order-Mark). National encodings (ones Windows Notepad uses) are not suppored.

Tools to edit text files in UTF-8:

• Notepad++
• AkelPad

Contents of translation pack

• kain - base folder
  • locales
    • localename.nsx - heading locale script
    • localename.tga - а picture to be shown in the locale selection menu
    • locale/ - general locales folder
      • localename/ - base locale folder
      • fonts/ - font definition files and font faces (see QFONT files)
      • gfx/ - replacements for UI textures (kain/gfx).
      • models/ - replacements for model textures (kain/models).
      • speech/ - replacements for speech sounds (kain/sound/speech).
      • strings/ - all translation strings in the form of INI files (see NSX files)
        • characters.nsx - translation strings for character names
        • credits.nsx - translation strings for credits
        • gameover.nsx - translation strings for demo screen
        • demo.nsx - translation strings for game over screen
        • launcher.nsx - translation strings for game launcher. Should be ASCII (Ansi English) encoded, because currently launcher does not support UTF-8.
        • launcher.utf8 - a utf8-version of language translation. It is better to make utf8 first, then convert to ANSI.
        • installer.nsx - translation strings for game installer. Should be ANSI encoded, because currently installer does not support UTF-8.
        • installer.utf8 - a utf8-version of installer translation. It is better to make utf8 first, then convert to ANSI.
        • gamestats.nsx - translation strings for game stats
        • mapnames.nsx - translation strings for map names (keys are filenames under kain/maps, values are names)
        • menu.nsx - translation strings for menus
        • prestige.nsx - translation strings for prestige status
        • speech.nsx - translation strings for speech
      • video/- subtitles translation for FMV' (see DPSUBS files)
      • textures/ - replacements for map textures (kain/textures).
      • ui.ns2 - user interface function (contains a numbering and date functions)

How to make a translation

1. Download sample pack;
2. Unpack it so that you have access to all files
3. Rename it to your language
4. Find .TTF/.OTF fonts that matches your language and place them to the pack (replace default fonts);
5. Translate all the strings files (.nsx);
6. Translate cinematics subtitles (.dpsubs)
7. Translate ui.ns2;
8. Create translated worldmap tile
9. Create a picture to show in the locale selection menu;
10. Edit heading locale script (set author and version);
11. (Optional) Add replacement speech sound files files
12. (Optional) Add cinematics sound override files
13. Make a PK3 file;

Translating speech

How speech scripts works

Speeches are activated by a game scripts which calls a character:group:key name to be played. Characters are defined in <locale>/strings/characters.nsx file (also can be defined in any other .nsx file under <locale>/strings/ in the [character] group). Groups are speech groups, defined inside NSX files in the [speech_<groupname>] style. There are separate groups for kain monologues, scene speech, gossip etc. Keys are key name inside speech groups, a value given to that key sets a text for speech.

Character+Grops+Keys form a unique speech, which has a text (a value of key) and matching sound file. The sound file path is expected to be: <basepath>/key.ogg or / <speechbase>/key.wav. The basepath is a basepath for speech files which are set per-character in the [speech] group (defined in very top of speech.nsx). For example, basepath for speech of kain character is 'speech/kain/'.

Example:

[speech]
kain=speech/kain/

[speech_kain]
aver1=The gate of Avernus opened slowly before me, daring me to cross the threshold.<5.5>Who was I to reject such an invitation?<9>
aver2=Avernus consumed itself before my eyes. There seemed no easy path to gain entry to the hell laid out before me.<8.5>Perhaps there was a way inside from above the chaos that reigned there.<13>

This file defines two speeches:

• kain:kain:aver1 - points to speech/kain/aver1
• kain:kain:aver2 - points to speech/kain/aver2

The speech text

Speech text are subtitles text, which also should have timing marks to break speech in several parts to be played in sequence. It is important to break speech text into a parts as blood omen have some very large speech files, more than 50 seconds, which will take a half-screen for a text if shown all at once.

The timing mark are set as **<seconds>** tag, where seconds is a time, when text after timing mark will be displayed. The last <seconds> tag sets a length of whole speech, so if speech sound file get missing, speech are displayed anyway.

Example:

aver1=The gate of Avernus opened slowly before me, daring me to cross the threshold.<5.5>Who was I to reject such an invitation?<9>

This breaks aver1 speech into 2 parts:

• The gate of Avernus opened slowly before me, daring me to cross the threshold.
• Who was I to reject such an invitation? (starts at 5.5 seconds).

The whole length of speech is 9 seconds.

Different game versions

There are some special groups which are used to override the speech files based on current game version.

The [!PlayStation!] group sets the speech keys to override default speech, in playstation version of the game. It is proven that PlayStation version have some speech shortened and [!PlayStation!] groups lets it have adequate subtitles. The syntax of speech keys in [!PlayStation!] group is group_key=speech text.

Testing speech in game

Re-load locale

 menu_restart : console command to restart menu system and re-load the current locale.

When editing locale strings on-the-fly, use this command to force reload strings in order for changes to take effect.

Play particular speech

 speech <action> <character> <group> <key> [wait_after_played] [delay_before_played]  : console command helps to test any speech

Actions are:

• say - standart speech
• notice- heard 'in the player's head', used for someone's comments etc.
• overhead - npc talk (yellow text)

Examples:

speech say kain armor_desc 0
speech say kain kain aver1
speech say rogue gossip coor3

{important|when editing speech.nsx on the fly, call the menu_restart command in the game for tha changes to take effect}}

Testing a whole locale

 testlocale <localename> [vs localename]  : console command helps to test whole locale for missing or extra strings.

localename is the name of the locale to be tested. 'vs localename' additional arg can be supplied to test agains non-default locale (like testign ru-ru vs fr-fr).

Examples:

testlocale fr-fr
textlocale fr-fr vs ru-ru

Example of command output:

string missing: '[speech_guardian] dej2' (locale/default/strings/speech.nsx:435)
extra string: '[!PlayStation!] [speech_guardian_bane3]' (locale/ru-ru/strings/speech.nsx:561) - not defined in 'default' locale

Sample locale packs

Here is the list of reference locale packs that you can use as a base:

Blood Omnicide v0.1 NEW SPEECH LAYOUT

Base locale pack (includes all files and texture sources): download

Sample russian locale: download

Blood Omnicide Demo (Using old translation layout)

English: download

Russian: download

Espanol: download