The VG Resource

One of the reasons I joined the site was to figure out how to rip sprites myself, but sadly I haven't seen any threads regarding tools... so I figured I'd ask about it.

I know there's two ways to do it - to extract data from screen shots, and to extract it from the code itself. Screen shots isn't too difficult, just tedious and subject to layering ruining your day...

So what I'm looking for are what tools you use to extract data from the code itself. Do you guys have any recommendations as to what tools, programs, or techniques I should use?

It will always be a matter of "what game" - ripping from SNES is nowhere near the same as ripping from PS3. Additionally, ripping from Final Fantasy VII is nowhere near the same as ripping from Suikoden.

What game are you looking to rip, and we can help you look into it and teach you as we look

It really depends on what console you're ripping from.

Personally I rip sprites from the Genesis (Mega Drive) and Nintendo DS. For the Genesis I just use the screenshotting technique, disabling layers with Gens-GS (which, btw, also gives proper palettes).
For the NDS, I also do screenshotting with DeSmuME, although there are tools like Tahaxan and Tinke (Google them) that can rip sprites from certain games. However not all games can be ripped like this, which is why a lot of people just go with screenshotting.

I agree that using a tool to extract images would be much easier than disabling layers, taking a screenshot, and editing in GIMP/Photoshop. But to be honest, once you get used to it it can be quite fun, and when you finally get that sheet uploaded it feels a hell of a lot like a job well done

But hey... say what console you're looking to rip from, others might know of some tools that'll make the job easier.

Well, in this particular case, I'm looking at Golden Sun Dark Dawn for the NDS. Unfortunately, what I need is not able to be gotten via screenshots, so I'd need something capable of actually taking the images directly from the code.

Also... what's this about "disabling" layers?

(03-03-2012, 07:05 PM)RoleOfGSHC Wrote: [ -> ]Well, in this particular case, I'm looking at Golden Sun Dark Dawn for the NDS. Unfortunately, what I need is not able to be gotten via screenshots, so I'd need something capable of actually taking the images directly from the code.

Also... what's this about "disabling" layers?

Disabling layers is a very handy tool in sprite ripping.
It allows you to remove different layers of the background/sprites.
It's very cool because you don't have to erase the background manually every time you rip a new pose. Also, what can you not rip via screenshots in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn?

As ShadeDBZ said, disabling layers is invaluable to the screenshotting ripper. Just about anything in a game can be isolated and easily ripped with this feature, and long as you can get it to come into the screen.
For example, if you wanted to rip a tree, just make your character walk until you can see the entire tree, disable all layers except the one the tree is on, then screenshot and remove the background using something like GIMP's colour select feature. If the object is larger than the screen, you can take multiple screenshots and paste them together.

I'm also interested in what you want to rip. Anything you would want to get should be viewable in the game, and as such rippable with the screenshotting method.

I didn't know you could disable layers, if that's the case, then disabling the sprites to see the backgrounds they're on, which I had thought to need a code extraction... Huh...

So, if I were to use DeSuMe to rip, what would I use to disable layers on it? Or... can you even do that with it?

Edit: Oh, I know what I might need a full code extract for! I've been pulling my hair out trying to find the font Dark Dawn uses in speech and the encyclopedia, but to no avail, so being able to directly rip it would be very helpful in creating a fully functional font, so long as I can find someone who knows how to make those...

Just a short and sweet tutorial for DeSmuMe ripping!

Oh, wow! Thanks, that's really handy! You see, this is why I joined this site - to learn new things!

Just a few tips on those disabling options: the "Main" ones are for the touch screen, and the "Sub" ones are for the top screen. I've also noticed that (at least with Professor Layton) disabling Main/Sub GPU seems to disable everything on that screen.

Most of the time when you rip fonts, you just submit it as a sheet like everything else, and those who want to make it a font can do it on their own. However you can probably find a tool online that can make fonts out of images if you want to do it yourself.
About ripping the fonts, see if you can find them using Tinke. Maybe they'll be easy to find, maybe not, but it's worth a shot. You might even get them directly as a font file

(03-06-2012, 10:58 PM)RoleOfGSHC Wrote: [ -> ]Oh, wow! Thanks, that's really handy! You see, this is why I joined this site - to learn new things!

Anything else you would like to "learn"?

Believe it or not, the freeware font creation tools out there don't work unless you pay for them. They let you do all the work, but then tell you you can't save without actually buying the product, so... I'd need to find someone with the actual tools. =_=

What else to learn? Well, I know some people find hidden sprites within the code, so it'd be nice to see if there's any I can rip out of it... but I'd have to know how to do that in order to pull it off. It'd honestly be preferable, since my computer does not run DS emulators well at all...

Unused sprites? Yeah, you can only find those using tools such as ConsoleTool, Tinke, Oil of Vitriol, Tahaxan, etc. or tile programs like Tile Molester, YY-CHR and so on. It really depends on the game and system for which tools work.

I see, so if I wanna do it with different games, I'll need to try various programs to see which is compatible?

Well, since my current project is Dark Dawn related, do you know which of those is compatible with it, or if multiple, which you personally prefer?

Dark Dawn is a DS game, so I would personally try all of them since it's trial and error. I would try Oil of Vitriol first. To use this, you have to first unpack the .NDS ROM using DSLazy, then open the folder titled "NDS_UNPACK", and check to see if there are .NCLR, .NCER and .NANR files. Only then will OoV work with it. If the game doesn't use those files for the graphics, then next you will have to try either ConsoleTool or Tahaxan (I'd use Tahaxan but it's near-impossible to find an archive that has all the necessary files... RomHacking.net doesn't have all of it, so try ConsoleTool). These programs let you view the game data and even decompress certain file types. They only export single sprites (as far as I know, don't quote me on that as I haven't really used them myself), but it's a very useful tool for extracting graphics. If you want more help with that, there is a member here by the name of "redblueyellow" who is a wiz at that stuff (he has a thread in the main "Submissions" forum). I'd ask him to help you with this.