(Visual Novel) Scripts

[hasteroth]

|: atlas sucks too ... i haven't found a good way to translate novels either

Neither have I.

I use a combination of Systran, and Atlas.

And that works well?

No

[Qyot27]

As far as actually extracting the script files themselves from the game's to do a bona-fide translation, it can be very hit-and-miss.

However, the WESTSIDE CD collections often have the tools to do it - you need to use their GameUtilityDB2 app to find the right extractor, though (usually the right one has something like BMP*PNG*WAV or some such in its description) - you then go into the right CD and find the extraction tool itself. And in all cases these have to be run in Japanese locale. The tools are mainly targeted at extracting the Event CGs, sound files, and any movies (OP/ED/etc.) that are included, but in many of those cases they're all-around resource extractors that net you the system engine files and the actual in-game text/dialogue. They're also generally the better option over something like Susie because if the images have transparencies, you can usually save to a PNG with alpha layer that preserves it - whereas Susie would make the background black or whatever other color it uses for that stuff.

The thing I would recommend as far as AppLocale goes is to get the patch that kills that annoying warning screen, and the .reg file which adds the 'Locale Japanese' option to your right-click menu so that you can automatically run the tools in the right locale without going through the trouble of opening up the AppLocale wizard. That .reg entry even works when launching stuff from your Programs menu, which is quite handy.