Rpg Maker MZ Plugin: Multi Language

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WARNING: THIS PLUGIN NEEDS WINTERDREAM CORE, download it for free and add it to your project ABOVE MultiLanguage

What is this plugin?

This plugin allows you to create language packs for your game, you can translate dialogues, editor entries (actors, skills, items, enemies, ...) and system terms normally not translable with vanilla RPG Maker MZ (parameters, menus, combat sentence, options, ...)

How you can control the language? 

By default this plugin uses WD_Core to autodetect the user language and if you creted a matching language pack it will load it. If there is no matching language pack it will load the default language. The user can also select the language via menu option (if you enable it).

What does it translate?

This plugin translates:

• Scrolling Text
• Dialogue Box
• Name Box
• Actors
• Classes
• Skills
• Items
• Weapons
• Armors
• Enemies
• States
• System data
• Terms data
• Types data
• (Hardcoded) "Miss!" text in combat
• (Hardcoded)ON/OFF terms in options
• Change Actos Name command*
• Change Actor Nickname command*
• Change Actor Profile command*

*Those changes will be remembered in the current user savefile

But there are many Multilanguage tools, why this?

I can't say if this is better or not than others, here is the pro and cons!

Pro:

• Easy to use
• Auto detects language
• Creates ordered and essential JSON for translation
• If you spot a bug, I'm there to solve it!
• Translates hardcoded terms that aren't usually translable

Cons:

• This plugin alters destructively TextManager and commandXXX (the codes related to text) lines of Game Interpreter, this means that it won't be compatible with any plugin using those functions

Terms of use

Please refer to the Terms of Use. By using this plugin you accept WinterDream terms

Version, bugs and further development

VERSION 1.0:

• Initial release

Future release will have the following changes:

• Add more "Update JSON" commands to update without overwrite the database JSONs
• Make it less destructive by finding a way to keep the OG functions intact

Instructions:

STEP 0 - Installation: Really important!!! The plugin will crash without it! Unzip the "Unzip in data folder.zip" and place it in data!

You should have (your project)/data/WD_Translation/ with 10 json inside. Of course install the WD_Translation.js as usual in the plugin folder

STEP 1 - Setup the Default Language: The default language is your vanilla project, it uses all the Text Data that you set up in the RPG Maker editor as it is, without any changes.

The only extra option I added is the "Combat Miss", normally RPG Maker would use an hard coded string for it (for example "Miss" in english) that's not editable.

Now you can set it, just try to stay in a small range of letters to avoid text compression.

STEP 2 - Create the language packages: The second step is opening the "Other Language Translations" field in the Plugin Parameters and start translating. The first field is the target language and then you have all the various system terms, parameters and so on!

STEP 3 - Database JSON creation: Dynamic database like Items, Monsters or Maps will need to be handled via JSON. Doing this only before wrapping up your project is warmly recommended.

First of all you need to setup the WD_Translation folder in your project data folder, the download on Itch or Ko-Fi already provide a premade folder with blank JSONs. Then, inside the game, create a temporary event and use the command "Write a new translation JSON" once for every JSON you need to create (usually you need all of them unless your project skips certain mechanics, only "Map Names" isn't always useful, if you are not displaying the map informations just skip it). Now you have JSON files in the WD_Translation folder with all the languages you created so far (that's why it's IMPORTANT to 100% complete STEP 2 before STEP 3) and the relevant translation informations (for example items have the name and the description, all the rest of the data is skipped as it has nothing to do with multilanguage).

Use a program like Notepad++ or VScode to open them and manually translate the entries.

When the user changes the language the plugin will load those JSON (so leave every file there even if it's empty!), search for the correct language and edit the $data... file of RPG

Maker to the new language. If there is no matching language, the default RPG Maker file will be left in place (or reset if changed before)

STEP 4 - Text String JSON and translation: Creating a text translation can be long, but I tried to keep it as comfortable and easy as possible. First, tag EVERY text you want to translate with ||WDT...|| add an UNIQUE alphanumeric code in place of ...(example: ||WDTReid000||) 

You can do it for name box, standard dialogue, choices, scrolling text (tag only the first sentence of the scrolling text), change actor name, change actor nickname and change actor profile. (NOTE: For the change Actor name/nick/profile, the plugin will Remember the changes from this point onward). Now use the "Create Text Translation JSON" command and the plugin will copy the codes in TextString.json, tagging what kind of RMMZ command uses it and ordering it by map, event and event page! Use a program like Notepad++ or VScode to open it and translate