Text Editing Tutorial

From Luma's Workshop
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page is in progress and may contain incomplete information or editor's notes.

This tutorial will teach you how to create and edit your own text for dialoge, galaxy names and more.
In Super Mario Galaxy 2 most of the text are usually stored in MSBT files while additionally message flow controls are stored in MSBF files.

Dialogues for each zone and galaxy are stored as MSBT files in an .arc archive, where both the .arc file and the msbt (and additionally MSBF) use the name of the respective zone/galaxy.
The game reads the arc files in: LocalizeData/XYLanguage/MessageData/

Other important text files:

  • SystemMessage.arc:
    • GalaxyName.msbt Contains the names for each galaxy
    • GalaxyNameShort.msbt Contains short names for the small speech bubbles on the worldmap
    • ScenarioName.msbt Contains mission names

Template

The following archives in MessageData directory contain almost emtpy templates

  • AnotherSpaceTest.arc Contains msbt file with only one text entry
  • AndoYoshiStage.arc Contains msbf and msbt file

Note: MSBT_MSBF-Editor can create files from scratch.

Using MSBconv

MSBconv is a drag and drop tool that converts msbt files to a readable xml file and vice versa. A GUI-enhanced version of MSBConv for direct editing of MSBT files in a editing window also exist, which makes quick editing possible but it has the small disadvantage that you don't get any of the useful functions like other text editors, for example Notepad++'s "Fold all" function (hold ALT and press 0).

Note: The usual widespread version of MSBconv does not support msbt files with Japanese text and special characters. However, the one on the tools and resources page supports all characters.

Converting And Editing

  • Open the .arc file with WiiExplorer and extract the msbt file
  • Drag and drop the file onto msbconv.exe to get a xml file in the same directory

You can now open the xml file with a text editor to make changes and/or create new messages.

Each message entry uses a message label with the internal name of the NPC followed by a 3 digit number which has to be the Message ID of the NPC used in the stage, followed by 8 settings for the message and the actual text string.

The structure of a message entry is as follows: 

 <message label="Entry Name">
   <trigger>Trigger Name</trigger>
   <unknown0>SoundID</unknown0>
   <unknown1>CameraID</unknown1>
   <unknown2>Dialog Type</unknown2>
   <unknown3>Window Type</unknown3>
   <unknown4>Event Camera ID</unknown4>
   <unknown5>Message Obj_arg no</unknown5>
   <unknown6>Unknown</unknown6>
   <unknown7>Unused</unknown7>
   <string>
     Actual text.
   </string>

Trigger Name:

  • talk: Displays message by pressing A in the near
  • shout: Displays message in a small speech bubble when in the near
  • auto: Same as talk, but starts automatically when in the near
  • auto_global: Same as talk, but starts automatically when NPC is loaded.

Sound ID:
Plays a sound based on the id. Look here for a list of sounds.

Camera ID:

Dialog Type:

Window Type:

  • 0: Speech Bubble
  • 3: Wooden Sign

Event Camera ID:

Message Obj_arg No:

Unknown:

Unused:
Can be used for notes.


Note: The string is always 6 spaces away from the actual string in exported XMLs. But you can enter the text without these spaces at the beginning. Msbconv recognizes this.

Converting Back

  • Drag the changed xml file to msbconv.exe to convert it back to msbt.
  • Open the .arc file with the WiiExplorer and replace the old msbt with your new one and save

Using Whitehole

Whitehole version 1.5.4 and onwards include a very useful, but slightly buggy, text editor that displays the text you are editing as it would look in the game.
This editor is highly recommended for dialogs.

Sadly it has slight bugs that can cause some things to not be saved. However, if you edit the texts in the following order, these errors will be avoided.

  • Start Whitehole and go to Tools -> MSBT Editor
    • A new window will appear.
  • Enter the directory of your arc file in Archive: and the directory of your msbt file in File: and click Open.

The text entries can be selected in the upper right corner. To create a new text entry, click on "Add Entry..." and enter the name of the text entry.

Text Editing

Add color

Coloring Text

To color text, place the cursor in front of the text you want to color, click Set Text Color, and select a color. Then place the cursor after the text to be colored and select None under Set Text Color to properly stop the color.

Adding text sizes

As with adding colors, simply place the cursor in front of the text you want to enlarge/reduce and select a size under Set Text Size. Then place the cursor behind the text you want to enlarge/reduce and select Normal again under Set Text Size.

Insert commands

Now you can insert other commands, especially the New Page command, which will wait for the player to press A in the game and should be inserted about every third line (for normal size text). If a page contains one line of large text, that page should contain only 2 lines.
Simply place the cursor where you want the command to be added and select a command from the Insert command tab.

Insert Icons

Icons seem to cause some errors in the editor when added in the previous steps, so icons should always be added at the end.
As usual, simply place the cursor and click Insert Icon to insert the icon at the cursor position.

Save

Click Save to save the message. A message should now appear telling you that the message has been saved. However, if the message does not appear, the message was not saved. In this case, try adding another emtpy entry and try saving again. If this succeeds, delete the empty entry and save again.
If you want to edit your messages in the MSBT_MSBF editor, make sure you disable yaz0 encoding in the Whitehole settings. MSBT_MSBF editor can only open uncompressed arc files.

Note: Whitehole versions later than 1.5.4 are known to contain many bugs that make editing almost impossible. If unsure, use 1.5.4.

Using MSBT_MSBF Editor

This tool has several useful options, such as message flow editing and support for adding Japanese "rubi".
The tool is a work in progress.

Open message

To open a message, either go to File -> Open and select either MSBT, MSBF or directly an Arc file, or drag and drop the file into the window. If you are opening an Arc file, you will need to select your MSBT on the ARC File Contents tab.

Text editing

Under the "MSBT_MSBF" tab, you can select the text entry in the "MSBT" window and use the tabs and editing tools on the right side of the window to edit it:

MSBT Text Settings
Here you can edit the settings for an entry, such as Sound ID, Dialog Type, etc.

MSBT Text Editing
Displays the main text with commands. On the lower side there are several commands.

List Editing
Here you can add/delete MSBT entries as well as entries for MSBF.


Warning: When adding an MSBT entry, the entry is added to the list in alphabetical order, which can mess it up if you want to work with message flows.

Saving

If you have opened a loose msbt/msbf file, it is enough to click File -> MSBT/MSBF Save. However, if you have opened it inside an arc file, you still need to click MSBT/MSBF Save first and then File -> ARC Save. Otherwise your changes will not be saved!


Super Mario Galaxy

In the first game, the text is usually stored in BMG and TBL files. For this tutorial the Tomato conversion tool is used. It supports both the original Wii release and the All-Stars rerelease.

All the text for the respective language can be found in XYLanguage/MessageData/Message.arc:

  • message.bmg contains all the text
  • messageid.tbl gives the texts their respective entry name and id (more investigation needed)
  • struct.tbl

Conversion And Editing

  • Open the .arc file with WiiExplorer and extract the message.bmg and/or message.tbl file
  • Open a command prompt and put one of the following:

To convert from .bmg to .xml use: 

Tomato -bmg2xml -bmg ''BMGInputFilePath'' -xml ''XMLOutputFilePath''

To convert from .tpl to .xml use: 

Tomato -bmg2xml -tpl ''TPLInputFilePath'' -xml ''XMLOutputFilePath''
  • To convert it back to bmg/tpl, open a command prompt and put one of the following:

To convert from .xml to .bmg use: 

Tomato -xml2bmg -xml ''XMLInputFile'' -bmg ''BMGOutputFile'' -le

To convert from .xml to .tpl use: 

Tomato -xml2bmg -xml ''XMLInputFile'' -tbl ''TBLOutputFile'' -le

The -le command outputs the file to Little Endian to use with the Wii version. Remove it to use Big Endian for the 3D All Stars version.

Retrieved from "https://www.lumasworkshop.com/w/index.php?title=Text_Editing_Tutorial&oldid=71"