Translation

The Translation panel translates Japanese (and other) names to English so your model works cleanly in English tooling, Unity and VRChat. In 5.2.3.0 it has its own dedicated panel and a pluggable, multi-service backend.

How it works

Translation always happens in two phases:

1. Internal dictionary first. Cats' bundled dictionary is applied to every name. This is offline, instant, and never rate-limited.
2. Online service fills the gaps. Anything the dictionary can't resolve is sent to the online service you choose. Results are cached, so repeat names never hit the network again.

This means the internal dictionary is always used, the service dropdown only decides which online service handles the leftovers.

Choosing a service

The Translation Service dropdown offers:

Service	Needs	Notes
Internal Dictionary Only	nothing	Offline. No network calls at all; untranslated text is left as-is.
Google Translate (default)	nothing	Free endpoint, no key. Can be rate-limited/temporarily blocked. Matches the old default behaviour.
DeepL	API key	Free or Pro DeepL key. High quality, native batch translation.
LibreTranslate	URL (+ optional key)	Public server or your own self-hosted instance.
MyMemory	nothing (email optional)	Free; adding an email raises the daily quota.

When you pick a service that needs credentials, the relevant field(s) appear in the panel:

• DeepL → DeepL API Key
• LibreTranslate → LibreTranslate URL and optional API Key
• MyMemory → optional email

🔒 Your service choice and credentials are stored in Cats' global settings (not inside the .blend file), so API keys never travel with your models.

💡 If an online service is unavailable (no key, offline, or rate-limited), translation degrades gracefully to whatever the internal dictionary could do, rather than failing.

Translate buttons

• Translate All translates everything below in one click
• Shape Keys
• Objects
• Bones
• Materials

Options

• Skip Dictionary for Shape Keys (online only) legacy behaviour: ignore the internal dictionary for shape keys and translate them entirely with the selected online service. Only needed if you rely on the exact shape-key names from Cats 0.9.0 and earlier.
• Skip Locked Shape Keys locked shape keys are left untranslated (useful to protect intentionally named keys).

Best practices

DO:

• ✅ Translate early right after import / Fix MMD Model
• ✅ Translate before setting up visemes or eye tracking
• ✅ Let the cache do its job on repeated runs

DON'T:

• ❌ Translate again after setting up visemes/eye tracking (it can break references)
• ❌ Translate the same model repeatedly (can cause duplicated words)

When to translate

Before: visemes, eye tracking, custom shape keys, merging with other models. After: importing a model, running Fix MMD Model.

Resetting the cache

The online-translation cache can be cleared from the Settings panel (Reset Google Dictionary). This is handy if a bad translation got cached or you switch services and want fresh results.

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Related Pages:

• Quick Access - Import your model first
• Converters - Fix MMD Model translates as part of its process
• Settings - Reset the translation cache
• Visemes / Eye Tracking - Do these after translating

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Last Updated: July 28, 2026 | Plugin Version: 5.2.3.0 | Blender: 5.1 & 5.2 (5.2 LTS recommended)