Translating Mikoto.exe to English

The English language version of Mikoto available in this post [link] is only partially translated.

Some dialogs still contain Japanese text which is displayed as Mojibake.



In this post we will endeavour to translate some of these dialogs to English.

Building a Simple C program in ZinjaI

Zinjai [link] is a C and C++ integrated development environment or IDE.

An IDE contains a text editor to write code, a compiler to compile code, a linker to build compiled code into an executable file and a debugger to pause a program during execution to allow a programmer to examine the program’s state.



It is a Spanish language program but there is a version mostly translated into English.

Note that there is a newer version (20140620) available but it seems to have a bug that does not allow the user interface to be set to English. Update 25 Jun 2014: This bug has been fixed.

Zinjai was created for teaching programming so is good for beginners to use.

One useful feature is that you do not have to create a project to test simple C or C++ code. Just type it in and run it.

Zinjai uses the MingW GNU compilers and tools to compile and build programs. You need to know this if you download other code libraries to use with your programs.

In my post about MQO viewers [link], I posted a site where you can download the C source code for GLMetaseq.

Download sample_GL.zip from that site [link], near the bottom of the page.

We will build the sample_GL program in Zinjai so we can view a Metasequoia *.mqo file.

Learning fragMOTION part 3

To view an animation in fragMOTION, click on the Animations tab, click on the animation name (in this case “Animation”) and then click the play button or click and drag the Frame slider.



Rather than creating a new animation by posing the model at various frames (keyframing) , I’m am going to try an import one from a BioVision *.bvh file the same as I did with Mikoto [link].

If successful then maybe it’s possible to save the animation to MilkShape 3d *.ms3d and import it into a TRLE *.wad file with Daro Anim Maker or a *.TR4 file with Fexanim.

Mojibake

The instructions for the Japanese programs I download often appear as gibberish (lots of question marks or other unusual symbols) when I open them in a text editor on my PC.

This happens because the text has been decoded using a different character encoding than was used to write the text.

The Japanese call this Mojibake.

Animating with Mikoto – part 5

For my character I will use the Lara Croft model from a Tomb Raider Level Editor (TRLE) *.wad file.

The post http://sappersblog.blogspot.com/ tells where to obtain TRLE or *.wad files if you don’t have them.

Open the *.wad file in version 1.4 of my EditWad program.

Information about EditWad can be found at http://www.tombraiderforums.com/.
EditWad can also be downloaded from http://www.trsearch.org/Tools/25/.

EditWad has a console window and a GUI window. The console window only displays information.



All interaction is with the GUI window.

Click on the slider and drag it to the far right until the number on the top right blue button is “7”.



Click the blue button with the “7” on it to bring up the save dialog and save the *.mqo file.

Close EditWad as it is no longer needed.

Open the file you saved in Metasequoia.

Note that meshes are exported from EditWad at 1:1 scale and meshes in TRLE *.wad files are big.

You may need to change the Distance setting in Field of view by clicking View>Set View.

Animating with Mikoto – part 1

Mikoto is an abandoned Japanese program for animating models created in Metasequoia, a Japanese 3D modelling program.

Metasequoia files have the extension .mqo.

Some other programs that can be used for animating *.mqo models are:

• Keynote which is a plugin for use with a registered version of Metasequoia.

For a translated version of this and other plugins and also some tips, go to the Sword of Moonlight forum.

I don’t have a registered version of Metasequoia so cannot use Keynote.

• ToyStudio which is a Japanese animating program.

The program looks good but I cannot find a translated version to use.


So that leaves Mikoto.

I obtained an English translation of Mikoto from this thread but the hyperlink is now dead so you can download the translated version here, MIKOTO_EN.rar.

UPDATE:  The models from the thread at sai.detstwo.com can be downloaded from these links.

• http://www.mediafire.com/download/nvb7lfuan9t7ar7/VIRTUAL_HANDS.zip
• http://www.mediafire.com/download/70lszwra4lkg3z5/VIRTUAL_DUMMY.zip

The Japanese version can be downloaded here.

A French translation can be found in this forum [link].

In this series of articles I will explain how I created the following animation.




next

Create or edit tut1.raw with GIMP

The file tut1.raw and other *.raw files that have the same name as the wad files contain the sky texture for a level.

Like uklogo.raw which contains the game’s logo, these can be created or edited in GIMP.

Editing uklogo.raw is discussed in another post so I will only discuss the settings that need to change for the raw sky images.

In GIMP go to File>Open and navigate to the raw sky image.

Before clicking the Open button in the Open File dialog, expand the Select File Type dropdown and select Raw image data.

Do not mistakenly select raw image which is for raw images from digital cameras.

Create or edit uklogo.raw with GIMP

You can use the freeware image editing program GIMP to create or edit uklogo.raw for your custom Tomb Raider Level Editor (TRLE) game. Uklogo.raw is the graphic that appears above the menu when the game starts and is usually the game’s title.

Introduction to File Formats

A computer file can be considered as a sequence of zeroes and ones. Each one or zero is known as a bit. Representing a file in ones and zeroes is known as binary format.

1000000100000000000000000000000000010111000001100000000000000000

It is convenient to organise the bits into groups of eight. Each group of eight bits is known as a byte. This file is eight bytes long.

10000001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00010111 00000110 00000000 00000000