persona-script-editor/README.md

Persona Script Editor

A GUI tool for translating the PS1 game Megami Ibunroku Persona (真・女神転生ペルソナ / Revelations: Persona).

Parses dialogue scripts directly from a BIN/CUE disc image, provides JSON export/import for translators, and writes translations back into the image.

Built with Rust + Tauri. Runs on Windows. Minimal RAM usage (~6MB for script data, not the full 667MB image).

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Quick Start

1. Place Persona_jap.tbl (or any .tbl file) next to the exe
2. Run persona-script-editor.exe
3. Open ISO → select the .bin disc image (Redump Rev 1, ~699MB)
4. Four files appear: E0, E1, E2, E3 — all game dialogue (~12000 strings total)
5. Click a file → scene list → click a scene → strings

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Translation Workflow

For the project lead

Open ISO → Export JSON → distribute to translators → Import JSON → Save ISO

For translators

You receive a JSON file. Open it in any text editor (VS Code, Notepad++, etc).
Fill in the translation field for each string:

{
  "index": 0,
  "original": "南条：やあ、[firstname]。[nl]今日もいい天気だな。[end]",
  "translation": "Nanjo: Hey, [firstname].[nl]Nice weather today.[end]"
}

Rules:

• Do not remove or modify control codes: [nl], [clear], [end], [firstname], [lastname], [choice=N]
• [nl] = line break (max ~20 characters per line)
• [clear] = clear text box (next "page")
• [end] = end of dialogue
• [choice=N] = choice menu
• Maximum 3 lines between [clear] tags (PSX text box limitation)

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Control Codes

Code	Meaning
[nl]	New line
[clear]	Clear text box
[end]	End dialogue
[wait=N]	Pause for N frames
[color=N]	Set text color
[firstname]	Player's first name
[lastname]	Player's last name
[nickname]	Player's nickname
[choice=N]	Choice menu (ID=N)

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Game File Structure

File	Contents	Strings
ADV/E0.BIN	Dialogue (main story)	3878
ADV/E1.BIN	Dialogue (side scenes)	2242
ADV/E2.BIN	Dialogue (side scenes)	4632
ADV/E3.BIN	Dialogue (ending)	1380
Total		~12000

All other files (MES, BGM, BVB, EBG, SE, B/*) contain graphics, audio, or map data. No translatable text.

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Technical Details

Disc Image Format

• MODE2/2352 (raw CD-ROM XA)
• Sector: 2352 bytes total, user data at offset 24, size 2048
• Game uses internal FSECT table (LBA 634) to locate files, not ISO9660 directory

Container Format (E0–E3)

[Pointer Table]  uint16_le[] × (N+1), terminated by 0x0000
[Sub-files]      aligned to 0x800 (2048) bytes

Each pointer value × 0x800 = byte offset of the sub-file within the container.

Event Script Sub-file Format

[Header]   8 bytes: hdr_size(u16) + marker 0x8010(u16) + data(4 bytes)
[Data]     Script bytecode + string pointer table + text blob

Key fields in the data section (offsets relative to data start):

• data[52] (uint16_le) = ett — start of text blob area
• data[96] (uint16_le) = table_ptr — start of string pointer table (0xFFFF = no strings)

String pointer entries follow the pattern: FF 55 00 00 [ptr_lo] [ptr_hi] 10 80

Text Encoding

• 0x01–0x7F — single-byte characters (kana in JP, can be remapped to Cyrillic/Latin via font)
• 0x80xx — two-byte characters (kanji, punctuation). Mapped via .tbl file
• 0xFF xx — control codes (see table above)
• 0xFF 0x01 — string terminator

TBL File

Plain text mapping of byte codes to Unicode characters. Format: XXYY=char per line.

Example:

80A5=。
80CB=：
80D0=？
80D1=！
80D5=、

The editor auto-loads any .tbl file found in the same directory as the executable.

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Memory Usage

The editor does not load the entire disc image into RAM. It reads sectors on demand via file seek. Only the parsed script containers (~6MB total) are kept in memory.

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Saving

When saving a translated ISO:

• If the rebuilt container fits in its original location → written in-place
• If the container grew (longer translations) → appended to end of image, FSECT table updated automatically

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Logs

Log file: %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.persona.script-editor\logs\Persona Script Editor.log

Logs are also output to:

• stdout (when launched from terminal)
• DevTools console (F12 inside the app window)

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Building from Source

cd persona-script-editor
npm install
npx tauri build

Requirements: Rust 1.70+, Node 18+, npm, Windows (MSVC toolchain).

Output:

• src-tauri/target/release/persona-script-editor.exe — portable exe
• src-tauri/target/release/bundle/nsis/Persona Script Editor_0.1.0_x64-setup.exe — installer

Important: Place any .tbl file (e.g. Persona_jap.tbl) in the same folder as the exe before running.

Note: Do not use cargo build --release directly — it builds only the Rust backend without the frontend.
Always use npx tauri build to get a working executable with the UI embedded.

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License

MIT