SQ1 AGI (accented letters - fan trad)

[Thpwg]

Hello everyone!

I'm trying to translate the AGI version into French Space Quest I with WinAGI.

I have two questions regarding ScummVM:

1) Is it possible to have a better visual for the French accents? I modified the *.ini file to add language=fr, but it remains an English keyboard.

With ScummVM:
https://www.zupimages.net/viewer.php?id=22/14/edfy.png

With DOSBox:
http://www.image-heberg.fr/files/164923 ... 762191.png

2) If I want to launch the game to do my tests with the GOG ScummVM Launcher, the game launches without any problem. But if I try directly with ScummVM it doesn't work! The version is not recognized and I have an error message. It's strange because it's ScummVM in both cases? An idea ?

With GOG ScummVM Launcher:
http://www.image-heberg.fr/files/164923 ... 096075.png

*For information, the GOG version use ScummVM 2.0.0 So I installed the old version 2.0.0 and it also works. However, it does not work with 2.5.1 version.

Even if my English is not good, maybe you can tell me, and I will try to say it in another way.
Thank you.

[eriktorbjorn]

If I understand correctly, most of the time ScummVM will use a hard-coded font - defined in engines/agi/font.cpp, where each character is 8x8 pixels. The "è" character in that one looks like this:

Code: Select all

###.....
........
.####...
##..##..
######..
##......
.####...
........

My guess, from your screenshot, is that the French version changed this to something like

Code: Select all

..##....
...##...
........
.####...
##..##..
######..
##......
.####...

Note that this moves the whole character one pixel down. That would certainly fit with the way they had to deform the "g" in your screenshot.

If your game has a file called hgc_font, you should be able to use the "Use Hercules hires font" setting in ScummVM. Perhaps that makes it look better? I haven't checked whether or not it has the accented characters, or how they look.

[eriktorbjorn]

I just checked, and it seems the Hercules font does not, unfortunately, have any accented characters. Just the standard ASCII set, and a handful of special characters.

[Thpwg]

Note that this moves the whole character one pixel down. That would certainly fit with the way they had to deform the "g" in your screenshot.

If your game has a file called hgc_font, you should be able to use the "Use Hercules hires font" setting in ScummVM. Perhaps that makes it look better? I haven't checked whether or not it has the accented characters, or how they look.

Hi eriktorbjorn,
It's not a "g" it's a "ç". It's true that it looks like a g

How can I test other fonts in ScummVM? I can't find the option, or setting? Can you take a screenshot for me. There may be a font that would suit me... I would have to test to find out.

[criezy]

Hi eriktorbjorn,
It's not a "g" it's a "ç". It's true that it looks like a g

I think he was speaking of the "g" in "les deux gars d'Andromèdes" in your DosBox screenshot, and how in the French one the top part of the "g" looks squeezed compared to in the English one.

Also please use the attachments option when you want to include images in a post rather than link to external content. This ensure that the image will be preserved with the post in the future. We have too many posts with broken links because they were linking to external images in the past.

[eriktorbjorn]

Hi eriktorbjorn,
It's not a "g" it's a "ç". It's true that it looks like a g

I think he was speaking of the "g" in "les deux gars d'Andromèdes" in your DosBox screenshot, and how in the French one the top part of the "g" looks squeezed compared to in the English one.

I was indeed talking about the "g" in "gars". Comparing the two glyphs (english on the left, french on the right), I'd guess the difference is:

Code: Select all

........    ........
........    ........
.###.##.    ........
##..##..    -###-##-
##..##..    ##--##--
.#####..    -#####--
....##..    ----##--
#####...    #####---

Since every glyph in the french font appears to have been moved down one pixel to make room for accents, the "g" no longer goes below the baseline, and has to be squashed to not appear taller than the other lower-case letters. I think.

How can I test other fonts in ScummVM? I can't find the option, or setting? Can you take a screenshot for me. There may be a font that would suit me... I would have to test to find out.

I was talking about an option in ScummVM's per-game settings. But since the hi-res Hercules font doesn't appear to have accented characters, that's probably not of any use here.

To change ScummVM's built-in font, you'd have to edit and recompile ScummVM of course. But looking closer at the code, it appears that you can provide your own fonts with the game. The comment in the code says:

Code: Select all

// This code loads a ScummVM-specific user-supplied binary font file
// It's assumed that it's a plain binary file, that contains 256 characters. 8 bytes per character.
// 8x8 pixels per character. File size 2048 bytes.
//
// Currently used for:
//  Atari ST - "agi-font-atarist.bin" -> should be the Atari ST 8x8 system font
//  Amiga    - "agi-font-amiga.bin"   -> should be the Amiga 8x8 Topaz font
//  DOS      - "agi-font-dos.bin"

I don't know if there are any tools available for creating such a font file though.

[Thpwg]

I understand now! It's very kind of you to give me so many details. I would like to make you a proposal.

1) Is it possible to modify the "HGC_FONT" font?
2) If I create an accented font. Could you insert this font into Scummvm, please?

[doomlazer]

ZvikaZ has information about this on their GitHub page here.

It describes how you can use custom fonts on a per-game basis by including a font file named 'agi-font-dos.bin' in your AGI game folder (which eriktorbjorn also mentions above). Many different fonts can be downloaded from this project and used as a starter template. The fonts are easily edited with the Fontraption font editor run through DOSBox.

See ZvikaZ's GitHub for more detailed information.