The VG Resource - [Tutorial] Ripping Guide for Animal Crossing New Horizons

New Guide (can also extract data from update files):
Files that you need for this Guide:
Switch Hactool - https://github.com/SciresM/hactool/releases
An Animal Crossing New Horizons .nsp (Google for that)
Optional: An Animal Crossing New Horizons update .nsp (Google for that)
prod.keys (Google for that) - Don't post yours here as it is illegal to share them.
Switch Toolbox - https://github.com/KillzXGaming/Switch-T...TAL_LATEST

For the base game + update file:
1. Unzip the Switch Hactool and put your prod.keys in the same folder
2. Open cmd and navigate to your folder. Then run these two commands to extract the .nca files from the .nsp files:
hactool.exe -t pfs0 --pfs0dir=base_nca your_base.nsp and hactool.exe -t pfs0 --pfs0dir=update_nca your_update.nsp
( Of course, you have to replace your_base.nsp and your_update.nsp with the path to your two .nsp files )
3. Then open the "update_nca" folder and open the .tik file with a hex editor of your choice. Copy the title key which is located at 0x180.
4. Now execute this command: hactool.exe -k prod.keys --basenca="base_nca/your_base.nca" --titlekey=your_titlekey --romfsdir --exefsdir="exefs" "update_nca/your_update.nca"
( Replace "your_titlekey" with the title key that you just copied, also replace "your_base.nca" with the name of your biggest base game nca file and lastly replace "your_update.nca" with the name of your biggest update nca file )
5. Wait until the extraction process is finished, then you can open the switch toolbox and use it to view and export most of the game files.

For the base game only:
1. Unzip the Switch Hactool and put your prod.keys in the same folder
2. Open cmd and navigate to your folder. Then run this command to extract the .nca files from the .nsp file:
hactool.exe -t pfs0 --pfs0dir=base_nca your_base.nsp
( Of course, you have to replace your_base.nsp with the path to your .nsp file )
3. Now execute this command: hactool.exe base_nca/your_base.nca -k prod.keys --romfsdir --exefsdir="exefs"
( Replace "your_base.nca" with the name of the biggest base game nca file )
4. Wait until the extraction process is finished, then you can open the switch toolbox and use it to view and export most of the game files.

Please note that Hactool will always show: "[WARN] prod.keys does not exist.", you can just ignore that.

How to use Switch Toolbox

Importing and previewing files into Switch Toolbox

Exporting Models

Exporting Textures

Exporting Animations

How to convert sound files

Converting .bars files to .bwav files

Converting .bwav files

Troubleshooting

Old Guide

4 folders were extracted but there is nothing inside them. im not able to open then in the toolbox. any ideas?

i also tried pressing 1, then extracting all the files instead of just the nca files, but that didnt work either.

edit: i should say the nsc builder extracted 4 nca files, but im not sure how to preview them with the toolbox

(04-16-2020, 05:04 PM)keyblade_crafter Wrote: [ -> ]4 folders were extracted but there is nothing inside them. im not able to open then in the toolbox. any ideas?

i also tried pressing 1, then extracting all the files instead of just the nca files, but that didnt work either.

edit: i should say the nsc builder extracted 4 nca files, but im not sure how to preview them with the toolbox

Most likely there is something wrong with your keys, since the program extracts the .nca files even with broken keys, but cannot decrypt them.

i was able to find a title.keys and that allowed me to view the models. do you know if there is a way to export just the bfres files from the model folder?

(04-16-2020, 05:40 PM)keyblade_crafter Wrote: [ -> ]i was able to find a title.keys and that allowed me to view the models. do you know if there is a way to export just the bfres files from the model folder?

You have to open the file in the switch toolbox and do a right click on output.bfres and press export.
But I don't know if there is a way to do this for all files at the same time.

Cool tutorial ! mannaged to extract successfuly many things.
Now parsing them, opening with ToolBox, it works great.

Something that has been bothering me tho, the complete image is about 6 Gb, and only 2.8 Gb extracted.
Did I do something wrong ? Is it possible that some data is hidden elsewhere ?

EDIT : my bad, I wasn't looking at every extracted folder. I have +7Gb extracted

Hi, this is my first time ripping stuff, so I'm not too great at this.

I keep getting this error:
"Response 404. Old Files weren't removed."

Do you know how I can fix it?

That's exactly the problem I'm having, Servine.

You can ignore this 404, this worked for me. Just drag your NSP file on the command line, press Enter and follow the rest of the tutorial Smile

(04-18-2020, 11:42 AM)kouglov Wrote: [ -> ]You can ignore this 404, this worked for me. Just drag your NSP file on the command line, press Enter and follow the rest of the tutorial

Oh, okay. Thanks! I might have been having issues because the XCI file got an error right before completing extraction.

(04-15-2020, 11:28 AM)Username123 Wrote: [ -> ]Files that you need for this Guide:
NSC Builder - https://github.com/julesontheroad/NSC_BUILDER/releases
An Animal Crossing New Horizons .xci or .nsp (Google for that)
Keys.txt (Google for prod.keys and rename it)
Switch Toolbox - https://github.com/KillzXGaming/Switch-T...TAL_LATEST

1. Unzip the NSC Builder and copy your keys.txt in the folder "ztools".
2. Open NSCB.bat and press "6" to enter the advanced mode. If it says "Getting NUTDB json" wait until it is finished.
Then press "2" and select your .xci or .nsp. After selecting your file press "1" and then "4" to start the extraction process (this will take a while).
3. After it successfully finished, you can close the window and open the folder "NSCB_exctrated". The unpacked game files should now be there.
4. Now you can open the switch toolbox and use it to view and export most of the game files.

And yes, you can theoretically perform this process with any other switch game, but unfortunately I couldn't manage to extract data from game updates. So let me know if you can do it.

So far, I couldn't extract files from the updates nca file too.I think it is the one containing characters models, wich could explain why they pushed it day one.

(04-18-2020, 12:02 PM)kouglov Wrote: [ -> ]
(04-15-2020, 11:28 AM)Username123 Wrote: [ -> ]Files that you need for this Guide:
NSC Builder - https://github.com/julesontheroad/NSC_BUILDER/releases
An Animal Crossing New Horizons .xci or .nsp (Google for that)
Keys.txt (Google for prod.keys and rename it)
Switch Toolbox - https://github.com/KillzXGaming/Switch-T...TAL_LATEST

1. Unzip the NSC Builder and copy your keys.txt in the folder "ztools".
2. Open NSCB.bat and press "6" to enter the advanced mode. If it says "Getting NUTDB json" wait until it is finished.
Then press "2" and select your .xci or .nsp. After selecting your file press "1" and then "4" to start the extraction process (this will take a while).
3. After it successfully finished, you can close the window and open the folder "NSCB_exctrated". The unpacked game files should now be there.
4. Now you can open the switch toolbox and use it to view and export most of the game files.

And yes, you can theoretically perform this process with any other switch game, but unfortunately I couldn't manage to extract data from game updates. So let me know if you can do it.

So far, I couldn't extract files from the updates nca file too.I think it is the one containing characters models, wich could explain why they pushed it day one.

Wait, so the base file doesn't contain the villager models? Damn.

(04-18-2020, 12:14 PM)sectoid Wrote: [ -> ]
(04-18-2020, 12:02 PM)kouglov Wrote: [ -> ]
(04-15-2020, 11:28 AM)Username123 Wrote: [ -> ]Files that you need for this Guide:
NSC Builder - https://github.com/julesontheroad/NSC_BUILDER/releases
An Animal Crossing New Horizons .xci or .nsp (Google for that)
Keys.txt (Google for prod.keys and rename it)
Switch Toolbox - https://github.com/KillzXGaming/Switch-T...TAL_LATEST

1. Unzip the NSC Builder and copy your keys.txt in the folder "ztools".
2. Open NSCB.bat and press "6" to enter the advanced mode. If it says "Getting NUTDB json" wait until it is finished.
Then press "2" and select your .xci or .nsp. After selecting your file press "1" and then "4" to start the extraction process (this will take a while).
3. After it successfully finished, you can close the window and open the folder "NSCB_exctrated". The unpacked game files should now be there.
4. Now you can open the switch toolbox and use it to view and export most of the game files.

And yes, you can theoretically perform this process with any other switch game, but unfortunately I couldn't manage to extract data from game updates. So let me know if you can do it.

So far, I couldn't extract files from the updates nca file too.I think it is the one containing characters models, wich could explain why they pushed it day one.

Wait, so the base file doesn't contain the villager models? Damn.

I think not. I've explored everything of the 7Gb, and there is no model or texture of villagers or NPC in sight.

Edit : for an unknown reason, not all content of model folder was extracted. See my last post on this.

Okay, strangely, not all content of model folder was extracted with the method using NSC Builder.
So I did a re-run with this : https://github.com/simontime/SwitchExplorer/releases
and the content of the model folder jumped from 10k to 30k.
Been able to find quickly some NPC model.
I don't know if they're all here, but they may be.

(04-18-2020, 12:47 PM)kouglov Wrote: [ -> ]Okay, strangely, not all content of model folder was extracted with the method using NSC Builder.
So I did a re-run with this : https://github.com/simontime/SwitchExplorer/releases
and the content of the model folder jumped from 10k to 30k.
Been able to find quickly some NPC model.
I don't know if they're all here, but they may be.

@kouglov Strange, for me the NSC Builder worked perfectly and extracted all 37,549 elements in the model folder.