08-11-2015, 08:18 PM
"Hard-ripping" refers to ripping by the method of taking screenshots of the game playing in an emulator and removing the background (either with background layers disabled or, if that isn't possible, manually erasing the background). Even with programs like AnimGet that can automatically take screenshots it can be a tedious process, especially if the sprites have many frames. "Direct-ripping" probably refers to ripping directly from the game's files.
Hard-ripping is often the easiest (or sometimes the only feasible) option for ripping from consoles, particularly older systems like SNES and Genesis, if tile rippers are insufficient or the effort of ripping tiles directly outweighs that of hard-ripping. Nowadays modern systems like the Wii U and 3DS (and even the Wii and DS) have explorable file systems with actual files you can extract and convert, so it's not as abundant, but when ripping from old systems hard-ripping is still a popular and viable method.
Hard-ripping is often the easiest (or sometimes the only feasible) option for ripping from consoles, particularly older systems like SNES and Genesis, if tile rippers are insufficient or the effort of ripping tiles directly outweighs that of hard-ripping. Nowadays modern systems like the Wii U and 3DS (and even the Wii and DS) have explorable file systems with actual files you can extract and convert, so it's not as abundant, but when ripping from old systems hard-ripping is still a popular and viable method.