Ripping sprites for the switch

[Veranek]

You don't need a modified Switch in order to dump sprites, most of the time. You need access to a game backup of the file, and hactool. From there, you can use this tools and Toolbox, a model viewer for Switch files, to view models. Toolbox supports batch dumping of sprites. With a little programming, you can code something up the sorts all the dumped sprites into folders based on their name. Doing this manually would take years. For example, Animal Crossing New Horizons' assets number in the tens of thousands.

If this sounds simple, it's because I skipped a few steps. Legally obtaining a way to unpack a game backup using hactool requires a modified Switch. I will not explain or answer questions regarding that, following Petie's guidelines.

Here's an example of what can be achieved with a few hours of dumping and reorganizing the dumped textures. These are the furniture assets that are used when accessing storage from one's house in Animal Crossing New Horizons.



If I'm wrong or I am doing anything wrong by posting this, I apologize. I'm new here.

EDIT: hactool is made by SciresM, a reputable developer in the Switch community. It's open source and the code can be found here: https://github.com/SciresM/hactool . I don't know why Defender flags it, but VirusTotal shows that only two antivirus software flags it. I don't know why, but an issue has been open on GitHub. In order to use it, simply go to your Defender quarantine and allow the file.