Overview
Full disclaimer, the translation will be janky, as it will be a machine translation. However, the test will be mostly understandable, especially if you’ve already played the original Vesteria Saga. (in-game context helps)This guide is NOT an easy one-step solution; you’ll need to do some setup work.It is however, one possible workable workaround to translating JP text to EN.The guide will require downloading the Translator itself.You will also need a Google account. (Personal preferred preferred as you’ll need your credit card, however, you won’t be paying for anything; this is explained later)
WTF Am I Doing/How Does This Work
The premise is to translate any text on your screen to English.
We’re going to be using Seth Robinson’s Universal Game Translator (UGT) found here[www.codedojo.com].
I highly recommend reading this page as I’m summarizing his points.
Seth has already created a program that utilizes Google’s Cloud Vision API to translate text.
(This is one of Google’s AI tools/programs it made available to the public; albeit with some caveats)
In this case, Seth wanted to translate certain old JP games on emulator.
For this reason, we need to log into a Google account and create a Google Cloud account.
(attached to the Google account)
With the cloud account, we can create a project which will house our translation API.
After creating the project, we need to allow/add the Vision API and generate a Vision API key.
We need this API key in order to attach it to the UGT config file.
When you start the UGT program, it connects to Google using your API key, thus connecting to your clouded project.
According to Seth, this is how UGT works in a nutshell:
Caveats and Things to Know
Taken from Seth’s page, there are some things to know before downloading UGT:
Points to consider:
-When you create a project, you will be prompted to add a billing account
-As Seth states, Google will only charge you after the free trial ends and only if you exceed the free, monthly usage limits
-I’ve personally added my card to the project but don’t expect to pay for anything
-Because each screenshot will be sending Google data, I suggest only translating only active windows, never your whole screen
-UGT is configurable; you can change things like the font type, but this guide won’t cover this
Modifying UGT Hotkeys:
I found the default hotkeys for UGT a little obtuse.
In the UGT config file you can rebind the commands like the capture screen shortcut.
Personally, I’d change the capture screen shortcut to something like “c” or “v”.
How Well Does UGT Work with RPG Maker?
Vesteria Saga, rather RPG Maker only runs when the window is active.
UGT when capturing/translating a screen, creates a overlay which becomes the active screen.
This means that if I capture a screen shot while the JP text is scrolling, I can spend as much time as I need to read the translation overlay, as the Vesteria Saga window is PAUSED.
How to Setup Google Cloud
I’m assuming you’ve already logged into your Google Account.
From here, create your Cloud account and create your project.
For example:
Now we need to enable the following APIs:
Follow the instructions from Google[cloud.google.com]:
Now that the Vision API is enabled, we need to enable the translation and text to speech APIs.
The fastest way to find the API pages is to try to run UGT, let it error out, then find the pages in the error log file:
If everything is working, then you should be able to run UGT.
Example Translation Images
Collection of the jank images:
Final Thoughts
As you can see, the process is a little tedious for most people, but I think it’s worth it.
If you really enjoy playing JRPGs or want to just translate things on the fly, this is a pretty robust tool.
Keep in mind that as Google’s language processing algorithm improves, so will the translations, thus you don’t need to worry about updating/maintaining this program.
For someone who knows no Japanese, I’ve personally think it does about 60-80% accurate, word for word translations.
(Tested by translating Valkyria Chronicles 3 Hentai CGs in-game encyclopedia)
Granted, the grammar can be bad but if you’re a native English speaker and you really know the in-game context, it’s not half as bad.