#i am still slightly dreading having to redo the Best Card bit's still shot but give me some coffee and it shouldn't be an issue 😤

[kaiowut99]

Project Updates

In which I mention some back-end issues that've slowed down some GX-sub finalizing and more while thinking out loud

(tl;dr recreating a bunch of stuff due to an SSD failure, but not starting from zero)

Heya!

So, aside from life being a bit busy, my laptop's SSD gave out on me a few weeks back--came back from the office after leaving it on Sleep Mode and it refused to boot into Windows, joy--and despite my best Google efforts and seeking out some professional help, I've essentially lost everything I'd had on that drive, as I hadn't backed up most of it in a good while (and stupidly didn't have OneDrive or something enabled...). I bought a new SSD and reinstalled Windows on it, so we're good to go overall--especially now that I've enabled OneDrive for running backups--but aside from the personal files that I lost (photos, music I hadn't backed up but is on my phone, work/college stuff I'd saved for reference and budgeting stuff, and videos and things I'd carried over from my last drive), this means I also lost most of my more recent raw work with my finalized GX subs, as well as the Sony Vegas project files I'd been steadily working on "dub-uncut" GX episodes with, and sub files I'd saved for the DM uncut episodes that I'd meant to get around to creating MKVs with and some 5D's or ARC-V stuff (the latter being some prepwork I'd set up when I was preparing to give it a go before Crunchyroll announced their subs lol).

(Going to be more thinking-out-loud below, bear with me)

Now, things aren't as bad as they were when I was first worried about the losses--my released GX work (hardsubs, DVDrips, sub scripts, and MKV softsubs thus far) have been up on a MEGA account, which I've posted on NAC, as well as my second hard drive (and since I'd kept the newer sub styles within the script files, I have those again), as have been the 5D's "dub-uncut" episodes I worked on and released (along with the Duel Links lines that've helped those); the Astral_Union GX DVD rips I work from have been on a third external drive that I'd been copying over gradually as I progressed with finalizing my subs, with the Season 1 DVDRips I prepared for timing lines backed up on my second; I was able to recover most (1-167) of my raw GX sub files from way back since I'd shared them from my Mediafire account with a Janime/NAC user I'd interact often with who wanted to translate them into German, while I recovered 168-180 from tmjem20010 on NAC who'd retimed them for the Astral_Union DVD rips; I'd had the script files for GX OP1 up on my Google Drive, with 99% and Wake Up Your Heart's from the Seven Stars arc I think on my external; the videos from 99% V2 in Season 2 that I'd edited with the English names/nameless/etc had been backed up on my external; I'd uploaded the textless WUYH video I'd sub the credits onto to my MEGA; 90% of my YGO videos were on my second drive and external; and I just finished giving my finalized episodes thus far a second third ... sixth (maybe) finalizing polish, so even with what I lost, I hopefully have no further reason to go back to them, lol.

As for what I lost overall:

My running sub files for 99% and WUYH's Season 2 OP/EN credits that I'd then encode onto the respective videos--but having recovered the S1 versions, I'm currently working to recreate these, and it'll just be a bit more on the annoying side to do for WUYH especially, but... eh, what can you do at this point 🤷🏽‍♂️ I also did lose my Photoshop file with the edit I did to translate Chronos's Interim Principal placard, which is a bit ill-timed since I hoped to reuse the exact styling for it in episode 84--hopefully with some editing I can just slap on the edit there and make it look spiffy, lol.

My running GX title screen and Preview subs--which I'd use to translate the episode title cards and "Preview"/episode title texts in the next-episode previews. Should only be a matter of applying the Title Screen style in my style catalog and positioning per the completed title cards and previews I've done from my newest releases, so once I do a basic recreation, I'll take it episode by episode.

My most recent raw sub files for finalized 1-83, but as I have the released scripts saved, and having re-finalized them again recently, this is mostly a non-issue. The only thing that'll be annoying is having to recreate ATK/DEF counter subs if I were to have to revisit due to missing an inconsistency in some lines (as I release the scripts without the ATK/DEF counter subs), but hopefully at this point there's no need.

My sub files for the "Just After This!" preview segments after the preview leading to the Best Card showcase--shouldn't be too hard to redo since I think I just used Arial, rotated the text, and recolored lol.

My sub file for the Best Card showcase itself, as well as the running Vegas project file I had going to create a blank showcase bit that I'd then encode the translated card descriptions onto for each episode. I'll have to redo the still shot I'd been using to mask the card of the day onto (I could use a still from a bit I'd already done before, but those have been reencoded and have some video noise in them as a result, so they're not the best to work with from the onset), and then redo the subs themselves...

My retimed/touched-up sub files gifted to me by Jake759 on NAC (who'd helped with the textless title cards, which I'd also thankfully had backed up) as I was close to finishing Season 4 which I'd based my finalized subs on to save some time--I did send him a DM on NAC hoping to get a reupload as the download link expired, but I don't think he's as active nowadays, so I'll likely just work with tmjem20010's retimed subs. (An issue will come by 168, since only my raw sub files have the ATK/DEF subs on the counters, so I'll have to redo those.)

My older fixes/edits applied during my finalizing run thus far with episodes 1-83, including two fixes I'd held onto for use in 105 during flashbacks to Judai vs Ed II and the Mizuchi duel, as well as the newer Season 2 DVDRips I'd prepared for timing that would include the translation edits for the released hardsubs (Season 1's backed up on my second drive); luckily, given that re-finalizing [x6] run recently, I shouldn't be needing any of these anymore (I'd held onto them "just in case," but I was probably able to just delete them anyway lol), and I had posted about the edits here, so I should be able to grab those images if needed. I can grab those two fixes from the released DVDRips too

DM-Related: The sub files I used for the DM uncut-dub episodes I posted here, which I'd planned to make MKVs with, as well as the OP/EN subs for Voice and Energizing Shower--I did ultimately make an MKV for episode 1 which includes the sub file that I edited for release, but it should have those styles, so it shouldn't be too hard to work with in Aegisub.

Other GX-Related: Had slowly been prepping "dub-uncut" edits for episode 98 that was nearly ready and I was about to start quality-checking (had also been prepping one for 61), but lost those Vegas project files, as well as some support files from yugidmx5 and a new edit I made for Mark de Groot's 99% English cover to a proper rip of the TV-size version--definitely still want to "dub-uncut" episodes 98-100 tho, along with some others.

5D's-Related: -Biggest one is all of my 5D's comparisons that I'd had it in mind to finally reupload onto a site; as my last domain on Bluehost expired, I don't have those backups anymore, nor do I have the raw text files I'd worked from... Luckily, one of my previous sites is still accessible through Wayback Machine, so hopefully wouldn't be too hard to nab those. -A lot of the prepwork I did with the "dub-uncut" edits that I'd held onto for potential future use, mainly voice-isolated dub lines and the Vegas project files for dub-uncut 21-25 and 27-29 (26's I luckily DM'd to someone on NAC who was curious lol), as well as some stuff yugidmx5 helped me with [he's mostly cleared those off his MEGA account, so I'll need to DM him about those]; some of those isolated lines are on my second drive, and now that I have Ultimate Vocal Remover finally working, maybe I'll be able to make more of those happen for fun--and also might have my eye on trying to buster-mode out something new sometime 🤔 -Some saved 5D's sub files I'd edited, including TnKP's for 1-79 and the others Horoko did there, from a while back, but those are backed up on my external, so it shouldn't be too bad to dabble with those.

ARC-V-Related: -The prepwork I'd done for potentially subbing ARC-V, like my translated BelieveXBelieve and One Step, but the final versions are at least backed up on YouTube or Videa [if private], and I have the original scripts I worked from thanks to Jake759 that I may repurpose (I actually want to try subbing the cast specials on the DVDs sometime soon for fun, too). Luckily, I'd had the textless title card video backed up on Google Drive because holy hell, that was a lot to edit. -Vegas project files for a "dub-uncut" episode 10 (video of half of which is up here); may potentially recreate. -Some comparisons I worked on for a couple of episodes, which I did ultimately post here for the most part, lighter work effort than the 5D's ones. -Otherwise not too much lost since my ARC-V material was almost exclusively on my second drive.

Miscellaneous: -Need to re-download most of the OST soundtracks and other YGO stuff, some fonts I used in my subs or editing in Photoshop, some programs, and some other more minor stuff. -At least had an older backup of my Song Translations that I'll have to build up a bit from what I've posted here, but may have a bit to redo or retranslate... -Lost my Notes textfile in which I'd been cataloguing some project rambles/ideas and potential fixes/edits I'd be working on, with other things. -Lost my project files for my 5D's!DBZKai edits for episodes 1-5, though I did mean to reboot that with DBKai Recut as a base; may try to revisit sometime for fun, since I did like mixing 5D's' OST into DBKai.

So, yeah... Long story short, I'm not starting totally from zero in trying to get myself back on track in terms of that GX work, at least. While waiting to hear back on my drive's potential data recovery, I also started some work on 84-86 by preparing their OPs and preview videos to have that ready. As mentioned, I'm currently recreating my 99% subs per finalized!83, then I'll likely recreate WUYH's, along with the title card and preview sub files, then tackle the Best Card bit. Adds a bit of time to when I'd hoped to have 84 done and then take that light breather, but I guess I got the breather anyway lol (did get some Breath of the Wild in at least!). I'll probably give myself a day off from work sometime soon to try and get a lot of that out of the way all at once, but stay tuned; hopefully I'll be finalizing episode 84 proper within the next week or two.