ripping from kirby super star ultra

[Sylvs_basement]

hello!

i'm interested in trying to rip things from Kirby super star ultra (mainly the stage select from milky way wishes)

and also maybe the great cave offensive's bottom screen map too, 

but I'm mainly interested in ripping the stage select 

cuz its annoying me that its not there 

sooo yea, help would be appreciated 

- from me or some thing

[Sylvs_basement]

uh, is anyone here?

[Barack Obama]

What do you need help with? Hints for methods or tools? Splitting the work? Assembling? Sheeting?

[Sylvs_basement]

What do you need help with? Hints for methods or tools? Splitting the work? Assembling? Sheeting?

i know fairly well how to sheet the sprites (i mean im not going to get any awards for it but it gets the job done)

altho telling me the methods/tools would be help full (mainly cuz trying to find the specific tools that works for a specific game can be annoying)

and i might need some help putting the puzzle pieces that is the tile set together into the map 

(mainly cuz they are just a bunch of nondescript dots with some glow on what the DS calls black)

[Barack Obama]

This thread discusses methods and tools for DS games:
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-20160...#pid448555

I can help with assembling the tileset.

[Sylvs_basement]

This thread discusses methods and tools for DS games:
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-20160...#pid448555

I can help with assembling the tileset.

huh so are u supposed to be able to screen shot the tile viewer in DeSuME cuz it cant find the button

[Sylvs_basement]

This thread discusses methods and tools for DS games:
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-20160...#pid448555

I can help with assembling the tileset.

also console tool cant read most of the data,

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alsooooo how do "dslazy" work

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ok i exported the rom using "DSlazy" uh what do i do with all the files that windows doesnt know what they are

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cuz the only files it knows is the ones with all the audio in it

[Barack Obama]

More tools are mentioned here:
https://wiki.vg-resource.com/Nintendo_DS

As far as I remember, DSlazy is an unpacker and the files probably need another tool to be viewed or decrypted. Perhaps you need to use the different tools in a specific order. I would use all tools and after you gain new files, I would use the other tools on these too.

Edit:
Tutorial for DeSmuME, Tahaxan and NDSHeader
https://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/ai/spriterip/

Edit2:
Link list for Nintendo DS ripping tools and explanations what they do - DSDecmp, NinUnpack, NSBTXExtractor, Oil of Vitriol v0.2d
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-7715-...41300.html

Edit3:
You can also write a PM to redblueyellow, a senior DS ripper who ripped A LOT of DS games and ask (politely) for advise:
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-25321.html

[Sylvs_basement]

More tools are mentioned here:
https://wiki.vg-resource.com/Nintendo_DS

As far as I remember, DSlazy is an unpacker and the files probably need another tool to be viewed or decrypted. Perhaps you need to use the different tools in a specific order. I would use all tools and after you gain new files, I would use the other tools on these too.

Edit:
Tutorial for DeSmuME, Tahaxan and NDSHeader
https://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/ai/spriterip/

Edit2:
Link list for Nintendo DS ripping tools and explanations what they do - DSDecmp, NinUnpack, NSBTXExtractor, Oil of Vitriol v0.2d
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-7715-...41300.html

Edit3:
You can also write a PM to redblueyellow, a senior DS ripper who ripped A LOT of DS games and ask (politely) for advise:
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-25321.html

ok so when i try to open any of the files (that windows labels as just.file (of witch is most of the files))

in Oil of Vitriol v0.2d it gives me an error and a hex code

---

More tools are mentioned here:
https://wiki.vg-resource.com/Nintendo_DS

As far as I remember, DSlazy is an unpacker and the files probably need another tool to be viewed or decrypted. Perhaps you need to use the different tools in a specific order. I would use all tools and after you gain new files, I would use the other tools on these too.

Edit:
Tutorial for DeSmuME, Tahaxan and NDSHeader
https://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/ai/spriterip/

Edit2:
Link list for Nintendo DS ripping tools and explanations what they do - DSDecmp, NinUnpack, NSBTXExtractor, Oil of Vitriol v0.2d
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-7715-...41300.html

Edit3:
You can also write a PM to redblueyellow, a senior DS ripper who ripped A LOT of DS games and ask (politely) for advise:
https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-25321.html

ok so when i try to open any of the files (that windows labels as just.file (of witch is most of the files))

in Oil of Vitriol v0.2d it gives me an error and a hex code

also i contacted the "rednlueyellow" guy idk when i'll get a response cuz the guy seems to come here at random

[Sylvs_basement]

uh anybody?

[Sylvs_basement]

me still haven't been able to rip anything

[Barack Obama]

More stuff, I also downloaded the ROM and every tool and will try around later.

DSBuff:
https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1214/

dsdecmp, v.4.0, the link in Barubary's post is dead:
https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/789/

There are many ways to explode a DS ROM into the files that make it up, if indeed you even want to do that method of asset ripping but more on that in a moment.

The four main tools from where I sit.

1) ndstool. A command line tool but with a batch file (or if you want a frontend like DSlazy or DSBuff) http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/utilit...29352.html
Should be available for non windows platforms in various forms but I am not sure of the current state of affairs here.

2) crystaltile2. http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/utilit...23649.html
Open the ROM, click the little DS icon on the right and it will bring up a file list. Somewhere in one of those menus will be an option to split ROM, individual files can be pulled with a right click and if CT2 knows the formats right click might also give the option to decode the format is crystaltile2 knows it, it might also offer to decompress a file if it detects compression (be warned there are some false positives that it will give)

3) Tinke https://code.google.com/p/tinke/ EDIT: current v.0.9.2 https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/817/
Similar in function to crystaltile2 really, however very much worth having as well.

4) NDSTS (or similar tools like NDSHV I guess) http://www.no-intro.org/tools.htm
A simple tool but will allow you to extract files and import them in place if they are the same size (if you are doing a hack to distribute and you can get it sorted in place with NDSTS or equivalent then definitely do that rather than full ndstool rebuild or something), as well as tell you info that some of those other tools just mentioned might not have in as nice a form (CT2 will tell you where the overlays go though).

Ripping the files into something you can stick on a sprite sheet then. Three main methods, though one is just a weak version of another.

1) Decoding the file formats.
Nintendo did provide formats for developers to use, here is an older document covering some of the popular ones made slightly into the DS lifetime (there are earlier formats that most will compare to these) http://www.romhacking.net/documents/469/
Various tools will decode these.
Other times devs used common formats like PNG, BMP, possibly some JPG in there somewhere, TGA and very occasionally something seen more in games (though not to the extent of other consoles). You can load said things up in GIMP or whatever as well as anybody else.

Beyond that though this is why ROM hacking is what it is. First not all files in a ROM represent the final form in various ways, at the simplest you have archive formats which you may have to further unpack. There are many of these formats including ones I do not know if the devs themselves ever had fully documented.
With that you get to learn the GBA/DS graphics hardware ( http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/video.htm ), I know you did not say GBA but it is so very similar if you ignore the DS 3d stuff then some of the old GBA documents are quite useful to read and the GBA is maybe slightly simpler in some aspects.
Oh yeah the DS has an actual 3d graphics engine/hardware setup. My usual example to bring up here is new super mario brothers. Very few 2d sprites in that and most of that is textures.

The other aspect of not the final form includes things like sprite animations, palette animations and an awful lot of stuff that 3d goes with -- a 3d texture is seldom the thing you see on screen, even on something as basic as the DS.

2) Emulator ripping. 3) would be masking around game footage which you probably got from an emulator anyway.
Graphics will end up in the hardware at some point and emulators will often have tile viewers, obj viewers, bg aka background viewers and more built in. Get the thing loaded up in the game (you are free to help this with cheats, savestates, ROM hacks -- force the end boss to come first or otherwise aid something along the way) and load the viewer. I imagine this is the way a lot of sprite sheets are made, you might even recognise the shade of green or pink used in the background.
desmume and no$gba dev version (which is freely available these days) both have serious functionality here.

Anyway my pie is done so I will leave that there.

Edit. forgot to mention tile editors. Crystaltile2's is probably the best there is, though I will not fault people at all for keeping others around. http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/646/ is not a tile editor but it is probably even more workable than CT2. I also keep a copy of http://home.arcor.de/minako.aino/TilEd2002/ around. Between the three, and tinke for some of the 3d stuff, that is all I keep for GBA and DS hacking purposes. If you really get into the older consoles you might wish to grab one of the ones popular there, if only so you can follow along with existing guides more easily.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/ripping-grap...st-5684108

[Sylvs_basement]

me don't know what do with all the files cuz idk what any of them are cuz windows just thinks they are all the same (.file)

[Barack Obama]

I don't know anything about in-depth DS ripping either.
I only know how to use a DS emulator, how to deactivate layers and screenshot them, but I see others doing these fabulous rips and also a crapload of tools.

Right at this moment I'm doing rips for Super Metroid, so I don't have too much time to experiment, but as I said, I will try around later.

What I can recommend to you, a person who has never ripped from DS before, download all tools related to DS ripping possible, read tutorials about them and if you're not having success with Kirby, try other games to check how they're responding to them. This is the only way you can rule out that you did something wrong.
After all, to gain the neccessary experience, you really need to make yourself comfortable with using these tools, if you're not going to use an emulator.

And now that I think about it, maybe an emulator is enough for a bloody beginner? Stage select and a map screen doesn't sound so complicated:

Desmume 0.9.13 emulator for Nintendo DS
https://desmume.org/

Download the emu, unpack the archive with Winrar or 7-Zip. Start it up and load the ROM.

1- The window is tiny, enlarge it


2- Activate Background Pause or else you will hear annoying and stuttering music each time you tab out


3- Go here and the map viewer will show you every bg on the screen

Examples

[Sylvs_basement]

me have been messing with that emulator and the map/OEM viewer, me just don't know how get it off of it cuz there's no screen shoting the map/OEM viewer (natively anyway)

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altho me didint know they updated, tbh tho me forgot where me even got the emulator so thats not surprising

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altho with this new one me am mildy disappointed that the cut seens are no longer viewable in the map viewer

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so me going mess with that stuff on the 2015 version

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(mainly cuz the main screen's sprites dont flash black or green in the older version)