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A Revolution for Fan Translation–it is now possible to sub any visual novel without hacking (by jichi)

annotmesample  In the above screenshot I’ve set AnnotPlayer to show subtitles (called annotations) in a window underneath.

2  Let me explain this screenshot.

Explanations:
1) The top line where it says, “I’d heard that story, it’s amazing…”. That is a machine translation using Microsoft Bing. (supports eng, chinese, korean) I kept the machine translation on to show you it’s capable of it. Right Click then ‘Hide’ to hide it.

2) The second line where there is a icon (that icon is my avatar. u can turn this off.)  “Kiyotaka: this is unbelievable…” <— that’s my manual translation. It’s reading it off the Cloud.

3) (FOR EDITORS OR TLC) If you right click on the manual translation, it brings up a menu. Click ‘Edit’ and a window will pop up which lets you make the edit. Once the edits are committed, they are uploaded to the Cloud. This means everyone in the world has the latest edits at all times!

4) If you want to create your own translations… sign up for a new account at annot.me, login on annot player, then just TYPE your own as the game progresses.

  • So click to proceed to the next line of dialogue in the game,
  • Type your translation, press enter. Done.
  • Click on the game to proceed to the next line… type your translation, press enter… Done.
  • Rinse and Repeat. All changes are in real time and all changes are sent up to the cloud.

5) This service is especially conductive to crowd sourcing. It is also casual. It removes the weight of having to commit to becoming a translator and requiring you to carry the project from 0 to 100. (because free time is de-centralized, everyone has a bit but hardly any has it all) This is great news for moege, not so great an idea for the more sophisticated games with lots of plot twists (probably not advisable to crowd source Subahibi).

6) No text extraction, no text re-insertion, no hacking required. So long as you can hook ITH 3.0 to the eroge, you can fan translate it.

7) Get excited! This is a revolution for fan translation. (made possible by jichi)

annotme-fromjichi  This is an image jichi sent me. You can drag the annotations around. You can overlay them on top of the game window. I believe this works even if you are playing in full screen.

Official site [Annot.me] Google Code [annot-player] Hongfire Thread [ITH-based Galgame Translator] Fuwanovel Thread [revolution]

Note: program still buggy. Jichi updates on weekends but the core functionalities are all working (albeit requires a bit of patience & tampering, but it works).

PS: Also the old guards will judge this heavily. I know they will. Listen. if you don’t like it, then just don’t use it. Other people who don’t mind it will use it. And yes, they will translate even games you don’t approve of using methods you don’t respect. This is what people do. This is their liberty. Our job is to help people differentiate between crowd-sourced visual novels, and properly translated visual novels. Fuwanovel will make sure to show what the difference is so that people don’t play what they don’t want to play.

UPDATE 05/11/12:
posted an update on the new annot player
. It’s being completely rewritten in Python & Javascript. (used to be C++)


Tay

I'm the Fuwanovel community admin and a big fan of Visual Novels. The easiest way to get a hold of me is via a PM on the Fuwanovel Forums, by twitter (@ArchmageTay), or by email.

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Aaeru
11 years ago

I forgot to mention, once jichi fixes game profiles, subtitles will appear automatically for the user when they run the game. No need to do any configurations. So this is actually a very newbie-friendly solution.

Quote:
| “Do you think if it is possible to write a hack for D.C.III so that it syncs automatically”

Actually my old Annot Player using ITH2 could achieve this. I was translating 暁の護衛, and after launching “annot-player game.exe”, everything would be automatically set.
This was being done by hacking ITH2’s source code. However, game profile detection is now broken after upgraded to ITH3.
Currently, I am using ITH3’s standard APIs, whose functions are limited. I will have to study and hack ITH3’s source code to achieve game profile detection again. I will try to fix this in my summer vacation.
But at the moment, we will have to MANUALLY provide what GAME ENCODING is and which TEXT CHANNEL to listen to.

Regards,
jichi

logros (@logros13)
11 years ago

if anybody can modify and replace anybody else translation how are they going to stop trolls from replacing the translations with gibberish?

as you have described it it seems totally un-protected against malicious edit attacks.

Aaeru
Reply to  logros (@logros13)
11 years ago

Will probably have to ask Jichi on that one. You might actually have to be logged in as the original user’s account in order to edit your own translations.

So a translator should only give the login and password to those ppl who are editors or TLC (and it is tied to an email address anyway so only they can change the password). That’s one solution. There are a number of other solutions.

hippyNox
hippyNox
Reply to  Aaeru
11 years ago

This sounds amazing would like to try it out when all the bugs have smoothed out..sorry if this sounds like a dumb idea/solution but why don’t u include(force rather) translation tests to registered user so they can qualify to be official editors (eg. Like for ppl who offer themselves to be manga fan translators).Also if they do pass the test they could also help make other improvements and additional on standards for translations.my 2c for the day 🙂

meyu
Reply to  logros (@logros13)
11 years ago

I suppose that the translator could ‘lock’ his uploaded stuff and only allow a selected few to edit it. This would work much better if we could rate the translations or the translator so you know if that person gives good translations or not, would be like you choose the notes to be displayed from your favorites translators only.

Sakimichi
11 years ago

How about registering as a group and claim a game project, then people who are translating certain parts of that game is automatically added to the group and the main members can approve or disapprove changes

Zky
Zky
11 years ago

As a translator I would love to see this kind of program become real. This is exactly the program we need to fan translate in our busy lives. It is also what we need to bring the community together to make translating much more efficient.

Sakimichi
Reply to  Zky
11 years ago

It is real @Zky. It just need further improvements and developments 😀

APersonOnAComp
APersonOnAComp
Reply to  Zky
11 years ago

I totally agree here. I’m a fan translator with ten years of experience, but I had to step out of the scene years ago due to time constraints. This sort of program would really allow people like me that used to translate to still be able to do so every now and then to contribute like we used to without the time problems we face now that we have careers.

Anonymous
Anonymous
11 years ago

When I can properly save my translations, then I’ll use this. Really, if this could’ve been solved, it’d be great.

trackback
11 years ago

[…] les explications détaillés sur Visual Novel Aer (Anglais). Taggé comme: Visual Novel Aer Commentaires Commentaires (0) Trackbacks (0) […]

SaberXJ
SaberXJ
11 years ago

I wish you didn’t have to hook the program with ITH first…. I wanted to translate a ps2 game that can be played on an emulator…. any possible way of doing that? =/

Satsuki
11 years ago

I’m currently reading DC III with annot-player but the subtitles are somehow delay of not showing up…. does it mean “annot-player” requires internet to access its translation?? I’m having problems with it

Kun Jason Rhee
11 years ago

Huh… this is actually pretty cool, considering hacking takes so much time and repacking takes so much effort. Now, Japanese literate players like myself can probably provide translations for the newly released games within a week or two!

Translation itself is pretty annoying though, and you would also need translation checkers too >.>;; In this sense, I hope this feature provides a lot faster translation processing

trackback
11 years ago

[…] see A Revolution for Fan Translation–it is now possible to sub any visual novel without hacking (by ji…. And here is his […]

trackback
11 years ago

[…] out Togainu no Chi which has been fully translated. I’m chatting with Jichi on how to improve Annot Player so that it’s more user-friendly because it’s quite difficult to set up atm (although it mostly […]

trackback
11 years ago

[…] Originally Posted by ultimecea lolz… that girl aaeru trying to translate it??.. Well, this is her way of translating […]

pendelhaven
pendelhaven
11 years ago

I knew it was possible! I mentioned this back in vndb and my initial idea was hardly any different lol. Good old days.

pendelhaven
pendelhaven
11 years ago

and its also possible that VNs will also see the current light of the anime scene which is having lots of 3 or 4 fan sub groups. Personally I wish UTW subs would migrate in the VN scene.

trackback
11 years ago

[…] #) The revolution continues. (see original post) […]

trackback
11 years ago

[…] Hey I’ve actually been doing some fan translation in my own time (while working on the site). I’ve been translating Da Capo III Dash. It’s being done on Jichi’s annot player.  […]

SieghartXx
11 years ago

I wish someone works on koi-choco with that *o*