Call of Duty: Black Ops - How to translate?

[Chronic]

I'm afraid so, yes. The offsets are hardcoded and there's just no way to tell the game "read at 0x2c, not 0x2e". So the only thing possible is to have shorter strings or of equal length, which the new version allows (because we can easily pad out the bytes not used by 0xff separators).
However, I have an idea how can we bypass that char limit. We need to find a language which has the longest possible strings. Then, we take a lang_code_post_gfx.ff file from that lang, extract strings from it, and inject all English or whatever strings in there. If all of that language's strings were longer than the English ones, maybe you will have enough space, but this is not really a solution as it depends on what language is the longest.

It also wouldn't be enough just to put in a lang_code_post_gfx.ff - you would also need to change the registry entry 'language' from ENG or whatever to that lang code and rename "localized_lang_x.iwd" files to the appropriate lang code, rename "en_outro.ff" to "lang_outro.ff" and all other .ff files too. Maybe that way you will be able to get a bit longer strings.

[qabRieL]

Here is the Spanish version of code_post_gfx.

[Chronic]

Right, it seems most strings are longer so maybe you should use that? Try editing the registry entry, renaming all .ff files to their Spanish lang codes etc and then try to inject some text; there shouldn't be any errors, but you are still limited to the length of the Spanish strings. I'm afraid there's no workaround except modifying the offsets the game has hardcoded somewhere...

[Jurko]

Sorry for my bad english.
I compare polish, english and spanish code_post_gfx.
Look on 24 bit. There is "Second size" of .ff file.
I don´t know how to calculate this value.
Only this values are diferent

[qabRieL]

Well, I believe that there is no character limit on spanish file.
Can you take a look at it?

[Jurko]

fatal error

[Chronic]

Ok, I've been fiddling around with the .ff's and there is a way to remove the fatal error!
However, string positions (some of them, not all!) seem to be hardcoded so you'll get text blanks somewhere, probably.
Here's a test version of the injector:
http://gljivolog.com/data/releases/test.rar

There can be bugs, so please wait until next week when I get full time to explore some other options I have in mind.

[Herdell]

Here the game crashes when I translate and use the file: "en_vorkuta.ff".
If I translate the file with same length, the game works.

[harpseal]

Thank you for your effort Chronic.You cannot do something for mw2.Because they have the same file.

[Chronic]

There will be a MW2 tool next week; the .ff structure is similar, but not identical, I just need to make some modifications.

@Herdell: Yes, I see this happens for all menu-related strings. There is a way around the fatal error, but it seems the string offsets (some of them) are hardcoded, at least for the code_post_gfx.ff. Try downloading from the link above, maybe that will work. If not, report back so I'll try one more thing.

[Herdell]

Unfortunately, the game still crashing with translated files. Even with the test tool the fatal error still.

[Chronic]

It seems that depends on how many you changed the original strings... I got fatal errors sometimes, but not at other times when changing only a couple of strings, which seems to be the result of the offset hardcoding. I'm sorry, but there is no direct cure to that. I'll try something else, but the hardcoded offsets are something that can't be changed that easily unless we find where they are located, and they're not in any .ff files.

[harpseal]

Thank you Chronicle for Mw2. I am content.I am delighted by your answer.

Sorry, I am not good in English.

[Gagarin]

mw2 have deflate encryption algorithm. Without key we cant do anything with fast files.

About cod4/cod5/cod7 fast files. Except main file size (first 4 bytes after zlib decompression) they have "second size" which I didn't know how to calculates (offset 0x18-0x1B). Author of .FFviewer didn't know too. So I didn't see the way to translate game (or fix some localization errors like in our russian version) normaly (without any bugs, unreadeble strings or something else)

[Chronic]

MW2 files are easily readable after inflation, already done it: the strings are in the same format as in BO so no problems.
Yes, the 'second size' is weird, but goes up the same as the normal size. For example, if 1 of your strings is by a char longer than the one in the original .ff, the size will increase by 1, but so will the 'second size'. Tried it out, no problems.
The 'second size' is not the problem; the hardcoded offsets for menu strings are.