Inserting / Editing text ( FE4 )

[Avi448]

I need help for editing FE4 text. I want to do a spanish translation but i don't know how to hack the ROM , any tip into this?

[Lamia]

what exactly do you want to translate? dialogue, items, etcetera?

I'm afraid that with FE4's obscurity of hacking interest there aren't many automated options in editing stuff; if you want to translate things into other languages, you'll need several different programs (a hex editor, tile editor, decompressor/compressor for the menu, nightmare) some extra notes and the like (which this and the compressor are in my FE4 stuff topic) and a fair bit of patience, especially if you want to translate the entire thing, including children talks and all that

if you don't have any previous hacking experience with FE4, or even especially if you don't have any for say FE7/8 which are more popular, I wouldn't recommend just jumping into it

Edited January 6, 2015 by Lamia

[Avi448]

If i translate the main history into the game, it would be enough. And i don't have previous experience hacking FE4, but if i don't do it i will never have it, right?.

Do you know some tool to edit the text? That would be enough for me to know

[Lamia]

If i translate the main history into the game, it would be enough. And i don't have previous experience hacking FE4, but if i don't do it i will never have it, right?.

Do you know some tool to edit the text? That would be enough for me to know

for starters you need a hex editor, many out there, but my preferred in comfort is XVI32

dialogue text, if you don't care about using a lot of space, you can use the FE4EasyText patch, and you'll also likely need the fe4hackdocs notes just in case

(both found in my resource topic)

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=39603#entry2368860

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=39603&page=2#entry3106371

make sure you patch an unedited ROM with a header if you use the patch

[Avi448]

I downloaded both a few days ago but i never knew where to begin , neither how to use it. I'll download the Hex Editor and see how i far into this, thanks!

[Sephie-chan]

I think there is even a .tbl file in the source .zip, which makes hacking the dialogue far more easier than the EasyText patch especially when you have the documentation where the dialogues are saved. Just open the Rom in a Hex-Editor that can read .tbl (I recommend SNES-Edit even if it's kinda special sometimes. Which it you can switch the .tbl easy). As for the menu you need it a different .tbl since it's saved in a different style. Look in this thread for the menu .tbl as well for a dumper which makes the hacking life much easier. I think in Lamia's Resoucre Thread you'll find a Nightmare module which helps you edit the skill names, etc. There is also a zip of binary tools which has a list of decompressed graphic in the same thread. With it you'll be able to find most of the graphics you need to translate.

Anywa you need to dig through the materia and have to learn how to hack the Snes-Game yourself. As a fellow FE4 translator I can say that you have to find someone how can expand and/or relocate table arrays so your text is fitting the space when your translation is longer than the english or japanese depending on your source (For example I'm translating it to german and german words are mostly longer (Ex.: I'm fast! = Ich bin schnell!) than the english translation so the dialogue need far more space than the english one).

The Rom contains also a word dictionary which has the most used words in it to save space. So instead of typing "Lewyin" for example which has 6 Bytes you can type just "FF28" (just an example the right Bytes may differ) in a dialogue.