I want to share with you my Hi-Res Japanes font packs vor various Zelda games, in case anyone is interested.
So far packs are available for these games:
- Ocarina of Time (時のオカリナ)
- Majora's Mask (ムジュラの仮面)
- Wind Waker (風のタクト)
The intention of these packs is to only update the textures specific to the Japanese versions. The only exception I made for characters which are common to all game versions, namely all the button characters used in the text. The packs can of course be combined with other texture packs already available.
So far only the main font has been updated. My next step is to do also the labels but this might take a while.
I am also already working on Skyward Sword but I haven't found a text dump of the Japanese version yet so I'll probably have to do my own which will take a while.
Besides generated PNGs I also include Inkscape SVGs. They can be used to create custom versions in different resolutions or with other fonts. The steps to create PNGs from the SVGs are fairly easy. In Inkscape simply select the lowermost layer and hit Ctrl+A to select every object in it, then open the Export Bitmap menu, enter your desired resolution (no magnification is 90 DPI) and check the box for batch export and click Export. All PNGs will be generated with correct file names in the same folder as the SVG. The folder labeled 'src-p' contains SVGs with every text object converted to paths. These can be used to export the original game font version to different resolutions (for the N64 games I wouldn't suggest anything below 4x). In the folder labeled 'Src-t' you find the same SVGs only the text can still be edited, use these if you want to change to a different font, of course this might screw up the alignment of the glyphs, but Japanese glyphs are fortunately almost all of the same width.
Zelda Collection (N64 games)
I actually started with this pack since a lot of kanji are hard to decipher in the original resolution, at least for someone learning Japanese as me.
The complicated part was to actually dump all the kanji used in the N64 games. Fortunately I found Japanese text dumps of both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, they allowed me to generate a list of the kanji and insert them in order in early parts of the game to dump them all quickly.
Screenshots:
I'll post new screenshots soon, the old ones got deleted...
Done:
- text glyphs
- day screens (MM)
- boss labels (MM)
Todo:
- action labels
- start menu labels
- file menu labels
- ... something else I forgot maybe
Notes:
The latin script glyphs weren't aligned on the same baseline. The lowercase characters were raised a little to make room for the descenders, also the uppercase characters with descenders were raised. I remedied this by having all characters aligned between the original baselines and modified those characters with descenders by raising only the descenders a little. This look a little weird on the 'g' but I thought it was better than the characters being misaligned.
Wind Waker
For this game I used the same approach as for the N64 games which made it fairly easy to auto-generate the SVG with all the kanji. Of course by relying on a text dump I can't guarantee I hit all the kanji used in the game, but I'm fairly confident that the dump was complete.
Screenshots:
Done:
- text glyphs (except hylian)
- action labels
- file- and start-menu labels
- camera, telescope and compass labels
- place labels (10/12)
Todo:
- earth and wind temple label
- ... something else I forgot maybe
Won't do:
- title logo
- hylian script
Unfortunately the hylian script - although basically the same - differs in size from the us and european versions and I'm not skilled enough to make those look good, but I included the dumps in case anyone else wants to do it.
So far packs are available for these games:
- Ocarina of Time (時のオカリナ)
- Majora's Mask (ムジュラの仮面)
- Wind Waker (風のタクト)
The intention of these packs is to only update the textures specific to the Japanese versions. The only exception I made for characters which are common to all game versions, namely all the button characters used in the text. The packs can of course be combined with other texture packs already available.
So far only the main font has been updated. My next step is to do also the labels but this might take a while.
I am also already working on Skyward Sword but I haven't found a text dump of the Japanese version yet so I'll probably have to do my own which will take a while.
Besides generated PNGs I also include Inkscape SVGs. They can be used to create custom versions in different resolutions or with other fonts. The steps to create PNGs from the SVGs are fairly easy. In Inkscape simply select the lowermost layer and hit Ctrl+A to select every object in it, then open the Export Bitmap menu, enter your desired resolution (no magnification is 90 DPI) and check the box for batch export and click Export. All PNGs will be generated with correct file names in the same folder as the SVG. The folder labeled 'src-p' contains SVGs with every text object converted to paths. These can be used to export the original game font version to different resolutions (for the N64 games I wouldn't suggest anything below 4x). In the folder labeled 'Src-t' you find the same SVGs only the text can still be edited, use these if you want to change to a different font, of course this might screw up the alignment of the glyphs, but Japanese glyphs are fortunately almost all of the same width.
Zelda Collection (N64 games)
I actually started with this pack since a lot of kanji are hard to decipher in the original resolution, at least for someone learning Japanese as me.
The complicated part was to actually dump all the kanji used in the N64 games. Fortunately I found Japanese text dumps of both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, they allowed me to generate a list of the kanji and insert them in order in early parts of the game to dump them all quickly.
Screenshots:
I'll post new screenshots soon, the old ones got deleted...
Done:
- text glyphs
- day screens (MM)
- boss labels (MM)
Todo:
- action labels
- start menu labels
- file menu labels
- ... something else I forgot maybe
Notes:
The latin script glyphs weren't aligned on the same baseline. The lowercase characters were raised a little to make room for the descenders, also the uppercase characters with descenders were raised. I remedied this by having all characters aligned between the original baselines and modified those characters with descenders by raising only the descenders a little. This look a little weird on the 'g' but I thought it was better than the characters being misaligned.
Wind Waker
For this game I used the same approach as for the N64 games which made it fairly easy to auto-generate the SVG with all the kanji. Of course by relying on a text dump I can't guarantee I hit all the kanji used in the game, but I'm fairly confident that the dump was complete.
Screenshots:
Spoiler:
- text glyphs (except hylian)
- action labels
- file- and start-menu labels
- camera, telescope and compass labels
- place labels (10/12)
Todo:
- earth and wind temple label
- ... something else I forgot maybe
Won't do:
- title logo
- hylian script
Unfortunately the hylian script - although basically the same - differs in size from the us and european versions and I'm not skilled enough to make those look good, but I included the dumps in case anyone else wants to do it.