Rupee Shards

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Created By Desbreko

Rumba rumba rumba rumba rumba

Work on the Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei subs has been going smoothly. They're still early in production, but I got the OP and ED done after two agonizing days of karaoke timing. I'm glad to have the most tedious and boring part of the process out of the way at the start, though.

Yesterday I started working on the typesetting, which, while there's a crap-ton of it, is at least more fun than timing. Timing is, really, quite boring except when the dialogue happens to be so good that it can even make me laugh as I'm timing it. (This is one reason I would never be able to stand subbing a show I didn't like a lot.) Typesetting has actually become my favorite part of the subbing process, it can just take a while to make it look good. Here's a little preview of the opening screen:

[Click to View Full Size]
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Ooh, pretty colors.

And here's what I put into Aegisub to do that, not counting the regular options for that style (with the blackslashes replaced with vertical bars because apparently Worlds fail at displaying blackslashes):

{|1c&H000000&|3c&H000000&|bord5|pos(551,36)}The Zetsubou Sensei
{|pos(551,36)}The Zetsubou {|1c&H1E74D6&}Sensei
{|1c&H000000&|3c&H000000&|bord5|pos(646,78)}Drawing Song
{|pos(646,78)}{|1c&H23C3E4&}Dr{|1c&H2E8A08&}aw{|1c&HDFD113&}ing {|1c&H950D12&}So{|1c&H851273&}ng
{|q2|fs26|1c&H000000&|3c&H000000&|bord4.5|pos(378,446)}Lyrics by|NHisamoto Natsu
{|q2|fs26|1c&H2C4AA0&|3c&HA5B6DA&|bord1.5|pos(378,446)}Lyrics by|NHisamoto Natsu
{|q2|fs26|1c&H000000&|3c&H000000&|bord4.5|pos(662,446)}Lyrics by|NHisamoto Natsu
{|q2|fs26|1c&H198255&|3c&HA7CEBC&|bord1.5|pos(662,446)}Lyrics by|NHisamoto Natsu

Aegisub is nice because it has a great interface for typesetting like this, but it still takes a bit to match fonts and colors and pretty everything up nicely. For example, because you only get one border per line, each piece of text there is actually two lines overlayed on top of one another to create a double black and white border.

One more, of the title screen:

[Click to View Full Size]
External Image
Damn, that is a sweet drop shadow.

And, again, what I put into Aegisub for that:

{|q2|b1|bord0|fs28|1c&H000000&|3c&H000000&|1a&HAA&|3a&HAA&|fad(230,221)|pos(33,96)}[{|fs22}Goku{|fs28}] {|fs30|bord2|fsp4}Sayona{|fsp1.5}ra|N{|r|1c&H000000&|3c&H000000&|1a&HAA&|3a&HAA&}
Zetsubou Sensei
{|q2|b1|bord0|fs28|fad(230,221)|pos(39,87)}[{|fs22}Goku{|fs28}] {|1c&HE4E4F0&|fs30|bord2|fsp4}Sayona{|fsp1.5}ra|N{|r}Zetsubou Sensei

Like the black borders in the first shot, the shadow is its own line set behind the text and it required a ton of override tags to change its color and transparency values.

Though there's a lot of it, thankfully most of the typesetting in Zetsubou Sensei is fairly easy. Really, any text that's stationary is pretty easy. It's when you start needing to make text move or change size/rotation at irregular speeds or patterns that things get tricky.

Honey Trap

The Des decided to do encoding this time. (And more fansubbing.) I saw a torrent for an ISO image of the Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei ep1 DVD and figured I'd grab it to see if I could turn it into a decent h.264/AAC raw. So, for the last few days, I've been looking up lots of info on DVD ripping and encoding.

Most of the time I spent was on figuring out how to properly turn telecined frames like this into progressive frames like this. Also, there was a lot of telecining on the characters' lip flaps that the IVTC (Inverse Telecine) filter didn't match correctly, probably because of it being such a small area and only happening for single frames at a time. So I got to go through and watch everything really closely to find all of those frame and set manual overrides for them in the filter; I kind of wonder if there's a better way to do it, but I haven't found any info about it yet.

I also learned how to encode variable frame rate video, since the IVTC process brings the frame rate down from 29.97 fps to 23.98 fps (i.e. one out of every five frames is deleted). That's usually fine, since the video was originally 23.98 fps anyway and the frames you're decimating are just duplicates—except in some smooth motion scenes where there are no duplicate frames. In those cases, decimating the frames results in some slight jerkiness. So what the variable frame rate does is leave those sections at 29.97 fps to retain the smoothness of the motion. Learning how to do this was actually a lot simpler than I thought it would be.

But I'm sure most of you don't care about the technicalities of encoding, right? Here, have a picture of Nozomu with a pumpkin on his head.

The crazy amount of text, and thus the amount of typesetting that would be required, in Zetsubou Sensei intimidates me more than a little but I still asked Dagger if she wanted to translate to produce subs. She basically went, "lol okay," (I <3 Dagger) so, yeah, we're subbing it now. At this point, I honestly have no idea when it'll be done, given that Dagger is currently busy with midterms and there being the aforementioned crazy amount of typesetting to do. So far the OP has been subbed, and I'll start working on the ED soon while waiting for moar translated script.

YOU are SHOCK

The Des decided to do fansubbing again. As I've mentioned to some people already, about a week and a half ago I poked Dagger about translating the Lucky Star OVA. I got the first part of the script a week ago and today we released the finished sub; not a bad turnaround time for a forty-two minute episode with nearly seven hundred lines of dialogue and a bunch of signs to typeset, I think. I'm a little disappointed that EnA beat us to release by mere hours (especially since I think our release is better >_>), but whatever. Like the previous Aria episode we subbed, I wanted to do it primarily for ourselves so I'm not too concerned.

As for the OVA itself, it's obviously awesome—it's Lucky Star, after all—but it's also got several points of greater awesome. First, Kagami being forced into Hatsune Miku cosplay, which I have dubbed Kagamiku. This is too moe for words. Second, the whole MMORPG chapter. We never got to see the MMO that Konata plays in the series but they animated the in-game scenes this time. And, finally, Lucky Channel—in live-action. I would say more but I don't want to spoil its awesome.

My Aria the Animation box set arrived a few days ago and I've fallen in love with the series all over again. I've only watched the first DVD (ep1-4) so far, since I was busy with subbing and all the new fall anime starting, but every moment of every episode is pure bliss.

Speaking of the fall season anime, I've been and will continue to post thoughts in Shinmaru's Fall '08 Anime Season thread over on OtakuBoards rather than here, so check that out of you want to see what I'm watching. Though I need to make another post and update my list again.

Kinsoku Jikou Desu

Holy crap, I've been on OtakuBoards for seven years. Now that I think about it, ~~no one else from when I joined still visits the site regularly, other than James.~~ only a handful of people from when I joined still post regularly... Though now I'm responsible for a large part of the site so I have an excuse like James. Yeah, I'm going to go with that.

Speaking of OB, I just uploaded a bunch more avatars to the gallery for people to use. A new member pointed out a while ago that we didn't have any Haruhi Suzumiya avatars, which was a bit surprising. Somehow I missed the series when making avatars and no one else had submitted anyway. I couldn't let that stand.

My plan to skim through the episodes in search of good screen shots to use for avatars turned into me watching the entire series again over the course of a couple days. This was the third time I've watched Haruhi, and I'm not sure if it's because I watched it in broadcast order again (the second time was in chronological order) or because of a longer period of time between screenings, but I found it a lot more entertaining than the second time. Actually, it's probably a combination of both, but whatever. I had fun and saved 226 screen shots, 49 of which turned into avatars.

ef - a tale of memories also got some more love from me in the form of 19 avatars. I can't wait for a tale of melodies to start next season.

I've been meaning to write another Hatsune Miku post for a while now but haven't gotten around to it. There are plenty of good songs I've found since the last post.

Moar people need to come to the Anime Club chats. It's fun with just me and Michi (and Shin next week!) but, seriously, Minami-ke is awesome and deserves more attention. I think it's the best comedy/slice of life series I've seen since it aired.

Saving the best for last, it's Sabrina's birthday today! Everyone send her gifts.

Zelda A Link to the Past - Lv8 Ganon's Tower - Part 2 of 2

This is it! The last one! It wasn't quite one video per day (did anyone seriously expect me to keep that up?) but I am happy that I managed to finish this project in a timely manner. Now, if only I could get paid for doing this...

The climb up Ganon's Tower from 2F is definitely the hardest part of the game other than Ganon himself. Even when you know the best strategies for getting through each room, actually pulling everything off correctly is extremely difficult.

I had a couple close calls with the red Goriyas at the start where I was surprised I didn't get hit by their fireballs. And then the Beamos rooms... Those are just evil. I practiced those a lot and I still had to resort to using Bombos in the last one. It's just ridiculous.

The Lanmolas are actually a lot harder with that fireball turret thrown in. The timing on the fireballs match up way too well with the dirt clods from the Lanmolas and makes it really hard to find openings where you can hit them without a fireball nailing you right afterwards.

Wizrobes continue to be a joke.

The spike room with the two masked beetles and two fireball turrets is annoying. Again, the fireballs always seem to come at the worst possible times in there. I stepped on the spikes to get the key because I just didn't care.

Moldorm is really easy the second time because you can kill it without letting it speed up. The platform is also bigger, making it easier to dodge. I'm not sure how this one was supposed to be harder than the original fight in the Mountain Tower.

Agahnim also continues to be a joke, especially after having beaten Trinexx earlier. The two clones do make it significantly harder to beat him without getting hit but, unless you're already on the verge of death, he does so little damage that you're unlikely to die.

The majority of the run's re-records were spent on part 2 here, mainly in the Beamos rooms. In fact, five or so of the twenty-one total were spent just attemping to find a good way to clear the last Beamos room until I got fed up and decided to use Bombos. The Lanmolas also gave me some trouble but not too much.

And thus Desbreko did pwn A Link to the Past once more.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Zelda A Link to the Past - Lv8 Ganon's Tower - Part 2 of 2

Part 2 of 2 of my Level 8: Ganon's Tower walkthrough for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Played in real time on Snes9x v1.43+ with re-records used to optimize video length.

Equipment checklist: 20 Hearts, Golden Sword, Silver Arrows, 1/2 Magic

- The Golden Sword and Silver Arrows can be obtained by buying a super bomb at the bomb shop north of the Swamp Palace and using it to blow open the cracked wall in the Pyramid. Inside is a fairy pond where you can upgrade your sword and bow.
- The 1/2 Magic upgrade can be obtained by jumping down the well next to the smithy's shop in Kakariko Village and sprinkling some magic powder on the statue within.

[00:13] Goriyas
The Mirror Shield can block the red Goriyas' fireballs, which makes killing them in narrow spaces much easier.

[01:46] Beamos
The Mirror Shield cannot, however, block Beamos' lasers so be careful around them.

[02:12] Ice and conveyor belts
Go through the center of this room, don't try to run around the outside on the conveyor belts.

[02:35] Miniboss: Lanmolas
The good news is that the Lanmolas only take two slashes from the Golden Sword to kill. The bad news is, there's now a fireball turret in the room, which makes things a lot harder than you might think. Remember that the dirt clods fly out diagonally until there's only one Lanmola left, at which point they fly out in all eight directions.

[04:57] Miniboss: Moldorm
There's no difference to this fight the second time around except that the platform is a different shape. Two spin attacks from the Golden Sword will kill the Moldorm without ever letting it speed up.

[05:38] Boss: Agahnim
Agahnim is back and this time he has two clones with him. You can tell them apart by their faded color so position yourself to hit the fireballs back at the real Agahnim. You won't have to worry about lightning attacks this time but the real Agahnim will still occasionally throw a blue fireball ring. Hit it with your sword as usual to split it and then hope your shield blocks it. Spin attacks can be useful for reflecting fireballs from multiple angles.

I also have another no damage video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llk3M2asSjE