[Tutorial] Ripping from Capcom 3DS games (Ace Attorney, Monster Hunter and more!)

[Nooga]

Mad props to HeroArts on the discord for teaching me how to do this!

This is a tutorial on how to rip models from Capcom games on the 3DS that use the MT Framework engine (so most of Capcom's 3DS lineup). Of notable interest to myself in particular are the Ace Attorney titles, including The Great Ace Attorney/Dai Gyakuten Saiban, and Monster Hunter Stories, but like I said earlier, it'll work on most of Capcom's 3DS lineup. Note that this DOES NOT WORK on PC/Switch ports of the same titles, so this won't work on The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, only the original 3DS versions.

You need the following:
-3DS Max (free trial will do)
-Blender (Optional)
-Citra
-MT Framework 3DS Max plugin
-Kuriimu2
-ScarletConvert

Dumping your romfs and extracting the files

Spoiler

Open Citra and right click the game you want to dump, then click "dump romfs". This basically extracts the game data into a folder format so you can get at the files. Now open Kuriimu2, File>Open. Navigate to the "archive" folder of your romfs dump, then open one of the .arc files. In this example, it's Ryunosuke Naruhodo from Dai Gyakuten Saiban.


Click on the MT Frameworks ARC plugin then click continue. You might need to check "Show all plugins" to find it for some games.


It should look like this:



Right click a folder in the hierarchy (In this case, I'd click "chr000") and click "Extract", navigate to a folder of your choice. You'll have the source files of the models, textures and animations.

Converting the textures
This is really simple, just open the folder where Scarlet.exe is and drag the .tex files onto it one at a time. Refresh the folder where the tex files are and they'll be there in PNG format.

Import into 3DS Max

Spoiler

This assumes you have 3DS Max installed. Make sure that MT Framework.mzp is somewhere on your computer. Open 3DS Max, go to Scripting->Run Script and open MT Framework.mzp. It should look like this now:

Click on the first folder icon and navigate to the .mod file where Kuriimu extracted to and open it. It'll take a little while to import, so be patient. Once it's imported, it should look something like this:

If you only want the rigged model, you're good to go File->Export->Export and export as FBX. If you want animations, open the spoiler and read how to do so.

Spoiler

Turn your attention to the window you used to import the model into 3DS Max, and click on the second folder icon. Navigate to the .lmt file matching the model you're ripping and open it, then click "Load". Export that as FBX, click "Regenerate Skeleton" in the script menu, rinse and repeat, changing the index number (just above the "Load" button) each time.

Otherwise, let's move on to applying textures.

Finishing off in Blender
You can technically use 3DS Max for this, but I prefer Blender personally. Just import and apply textures as you normally would. Note that some textures are exported upside-down, so you'll need to flip them vertically in an image editor. Export as .dae and your model should be ready to submit!


Special considerations per-game

• Monster Hunter Stories: These ones have a tendency to have loose junk vertices that trip the model checker with a bad weighting error. To fix that, select all your meshes in Object Mode, go to edit mode, "A" to select everything, then go to Mesh -> Clean Up -> Delete Loose. That fixes the problem. Huge thanks to Scurest to helping me out with that one.
  
• Ace Attorney: These have seemingly duplicate meshes used for cel shading, with one being ever so slightly bigger than the other. Do NOT delete them when making rips! The smaller one is the actual model, the bigger one for the outlines. It helps to label which one is which as Ace Attorney models use a lot of meshes, for example for my Raiten Menimemo rip I would label his hat mesh as "Hat" and the hat outline mesh as "HatLine". For the cel outline textures, you just need to make it into a black, textureless material and turn on backface culling to get the outline effect working.
  

[HeroArts]

Oh yeah, if anyone is wondering which model is used in the tutorial (In 3DS Max), it's Athena Cykes from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice.

In the Kuriimu2 part, that's Ryuunosuke Naruhodou's .arc file from Dai Gyakuten Saiban: Naruhodou Ryuunosuke no Bouken (3DS). Please note that this will NOT work on the PC port released earlier this year.

If you want to set up materials in Blender for stylised characters from Capcom games like Phoenix Wright or Ryuunosuke Naruhodou, use the emission shader and always enable backface culling on outlines.

That should be about all I wanted to add. Hope you guys find this useful!

[BirdGuts]

I know this thread is over half a year old, but I just wanted to say: thank you so much! I'm still relatively new to model ripping and was looking all over for a tutorial I could use to rip models from the 5th and 6th Ace Attorney games, and after the first couple of failed attempts, I was fortunate enough to finally find this, which works very well.
I am having one little problem, though -- sometimes, exported textures for models don't display correctly when they're applied, even after flipping them. They also don't appear to have UV mapping which I think may contribute to it, but I don't know all of the ins and outs of modeling since, like I said, I'm very much a newbie, so maybe it's not that. If you know how I could possibly fix this, though, please do share. (I'm applying textures in Blender, BTW.)

Once again: thank you!

[Lifepowder]

Been trying absolutely everything to try to get this to work for Monster Hunter: Stories (3DS, of course) but still having trouble getting the textures to line up properly on the model. Unfortunately this thread is still the top result on search engines for the topic Any leads would be super helpful !! Might have to give up and wait for the PC release.

Thank you for you work Nooga !

[Lifepowder]

Been trying absolutely everything to try to get this to work for Monster Hunter: Stories (3DS, of course) but still having trouble getting the textures to line up properly on the model. Unfortunately this thread is still the top result on search engines for the topic :( Any leads would be super helpful !! Might have to give up and wait for the PC release.

Thank you for you work Nooga !

Sorry, I figured it out ! 


I forgot to vertically mirror the texture files. I swear I tried that before (months ago) but it works now, anyways. Maybe I was accidentally rotating them 180° instead, or importing them into Blender wrong.
I also thought the UV maps had been messed up during the .arc -> .mod or .mod -> .fbx process which is why I came here for help.

Also, I am not going to acknowledge KZ_3D's undisclosed advertisement but know that it costs 50€ and is not needed; the MT Framework plugin works much better.

Since I'm already here, ScarletConvert isn't necessary. Kuriimu2 can also convert .tex to .png. Open, drag and drop .tex, 'Export Image'.