#sprite ripping

[noxiatoxia]

hi!! i hope you don't mind the ask ^^ i was wondering about how you got started with sprite ripping, specifically through tinke, because im trying to learn myself so i can rip as much as i can from the d.gray-man ds game and well..... it's definitely quite the process and im really unfamiliar with these things ;;^_^ i actually found your blog while searching for information which is why i thought to send an ask :0

Hey! I'm pretty flattered you thought to ask me!

So, I'm gonna go through several games, because it highly depends on the game and what you see. That way you have a lot of examples to work with.

Let's start with Death Note: Successor to L as that is the game I'm most know for ripping the sprites from. It is also a bit unstraight forward, which helps some things in explaining.

Upon opening the .nds file in Tinke, this is what we see.

Locate the "data" folder, click the +.

See this data.bin? Despite its icon, we do not want to unpack it.

Instead, we want to Open as > compress

You'll get a popup window called "Select Offset". Don't do anything; just click "Accept".

After a second of waiting, suddenly we have this huge list of new .bins! So where do we find the images?

Scroll until you find the LAST [IPAL] .bin. Everything under it will be the game's sprites.

So, everything under "data_15108.bin [IPAL]" in this case. So...where are the images?

Under it is data_15109.bin. And under that, data_15110.bin. Open as > compress them both.

Based on icon, we can see we have a palette file and a tile file. First, we have to open the palette file as a palette.

Now, let's see what happens if we open the tile file now... (as a tile, of course)

Well...that doesn't look right. For reference, this is the sprite in question:

So, why does it look like that?

What if we manually adjusted the width? You can hold down the up or down arrow to see it change in real time.

But setting it to 128.... (half)

Looks about the right size, just...cut off. We'd have to adjust the height, too.

Or, we can try opening it as a map instead and see if that helps. So let's try opening this file as map instead.

Ah! Did all the work for us! But...where's the other half of the sprite? And why are the colors weird?

Let's Open as > compress the .bin below...

...Well, there's the other half. So, you'll have to stitch them together. Ok, what about the colors?

This is where the palette comes in. Tinke will use the colors of the last palette you viewed. Thankfully, we know this is Light's palette since the palette file precedes all his sprites. But why is it showing up wonky?

See these bold colors up top? This is our issue. We need only one of these bold colors that is clearly not supposed to be a color in Light's sprite. Why? Because that will be the color of the sprite's background (which we can edit out later.)

See this start byte button? Keep clicking up, you will see the squares slowly move backwards (idk how to describe it, just hold down the up button and see for yourself). Do it until only the last bold color remains. Cyan, here.

Now, let's go reopen the image as map.

Perfect! You can even click that "Transparency" button to turn the bold color transparent.

Now, all you have to do is click "Export"

Here's the output:

Of course, the same will have to be done with the sprite below it, and then you'll have to stitch them together in any editing software or art software (MS paint, firealpaca are both free) and there you go! the sprite :)

Now, not all games are like this. So let's look at another.

Let's do Pokemon Black 2 (this is the JP version but as far as I know, both games have the same file paths)

Already, this looks WAY different. No Data folder. Just an "a" folder, with a million sub folders. How are we ever gonna find what we want?

Well, there's 2 answers. One is Google. I googled "Pokemon Black 2 sprite files locations" and got this answer:

So a > 0 > 0 > 4...

But what if Google doesn't have an answer?

Well...Sorry to say, at that point, it's a game of trial and error. You're going to have check everything yourself (that's what I had to do with the Death Note game).

But back to Pokemon. So, I open as > compress....

A little different here, too. But If I had to guess, 4_19.RLCN is our palette, and 4_20.bin (after we open as compress) will be our image.

Right I am. But opening the image as map, it still looks weird. I'll mess with the width - that usually works.

Just a few clicks of the down arrow and we got Bulbasaur.

However, this palette doesn't look like Bulbasaur at all. There's no green or anything...maybe the actual palette it at the bottom there?

So it is! You can tell just by looking at the colors that this is meant to be for Bulbasaur. The greens, blues, and reds for the mouth. Now, the question is how to get the right palette on it...

Unlike Light's palette from earlier, this one is much smaller, so we can tell the palette size is actually 16/16, not 256/1

Just switch it over.

I did 40 for the offset again, as this seems to be a regular number used for palette offsets.

And wouldn't you know it!!

Okay, I've hit image limit so i'll stop here. But I hope this helps. Some games are encrypted or use file types not recognized by Tinke, so if you're having additional troubles you can message me again :) otherwise I hope this helps. When in doubt just try opening everything and anything lol.

[krmljam]

more bugs more drinking

[tempkiriri]

I'm trying to rip literally everything from Tiger & Bunny: Hero's Day. Nothing is working for me rn, I am not smart but very badly want to learn, just need to find a teacher. Hopefully the VG Resource discord has a nice one show up. I plan to put them on Spriter's resource when I have them. In the meantime I'll try playing Barnaby's route just to see what new characters there are (if any in his route).

[binx-art]

Did more sprite editing and… ended up slipping dave in here. Couldn’t help myself

[aibafiles]

metaphor prologue

[fangirlhours]

Komaeda’s Sloppy Nut Treat

(Inspired by this post)

[megamozartx]

*throws this sprite edit at you*

Don't think too hard about it I know it looks janky, okay!!

[squeakadeeks]

LITTLE GUY O'CLOCK

whew!! I've had this idea for a soot sprite cosplay for Litcherally so long, i thought it was never going to happen but lo and behold! here he be!! !!! I was trying to avoid fur projects to give the Dust Situation in my abode a rest but that...did not happen 🤨

This costume is another primarily suede affair, with only a few accent fabrics other than the faux fur. 90% of fabrics were from big z....again. The things of note on this guy are the chubby stars which are all painted novelty stress balls! also the big soot sprite, Augustus, is actually a fur covered beach ball.

I've always gotten a kick out of this design and thought the soot sprites were just endlessly charming, so i'm pretty happy with this project!

[combatcocktail]

you mean a lot to me

[dicenete]

I just wanted to draw the 8 princes of Rhodolite side by side, trying to think about their height differences and different body types. I suppose these might be my headcanons? I'm sure there are lot of things you learn about them in their routes and such so if those things are not present it is because I haven't played their routes.

I'm still bit peeved that Licht's sprite looks like a stick when he is the head of the army of Rhodolite. So I will not stop giving him some mass. I made Luke bit more burly, (How about making him a BEAR?👀👀) because I have gotten the idea that he is a warrior too and not just lanky and tall. I wanted to respect their sprites so I didn't go too wild.

IkePri Tag Team:

@scummy-writes @goustmilk @solacedeer @m-mmiy @mxrmaid-poet

@pawnkyyy @ludivineikewolf @violettduchess

[quasiimodo]

women of disney 38. fantasia 2000 (1999)

[noxiatoxia]

hi! im so sorry for the random message out of nowhere, but i saw you're responsible for a lot of sprite uploads on spriters resource for the death note L game - thank you so much for them!! <3 i know that was a few years ago now, but i was wondering if you have or know how to get some of the other sprites from the spiraling trap game, namely the ones where L is eating random snacks. i can't seem to find clean rips of those anywhere so i was hoping you had a clue for me :') no worries if not though! thank you so much for your time regardless, i really appreciate it. hope you have a nice day!!

Hi!! Firstly, thank you for the kind words :D

Secondly, back when I did rip the second DN game's sprites, I did try to also rip L the Spiraling Trap, however I was unsuccessful.

The reason for which is because, unlike Death Note: Successor to L, L - the ProLogue to Death Note: Spiraling Trap is encrypted :<

I use Tinke to view DS game files, and the second DN game's file was unencrypted. All I had to do was open the image files as tile in Tinke, mess with the offset and width settings, and then import the correct color palette from the palette files. Tinke can automatically detect which files are images, palettes, text, etc.

The problem with L's game - and a number of other DS games - is that all of these files are encrypted as .bin files, which are generic container files. They're not unique to the DS in any way. Because they are generic container files, figuring out how to open a specific game's .bin files is a biiiig game of trial and error. I'm sure if you knew hexcoding you may have a leg up on me (as I do not know hexcoding, just enough to glitch out Pokemon Yellow and use a gameshark). But as it stands, I have no clue how to break into those .bin files... I have to assume this is why nobody has been able to rip the sprites.

Now, there ARE other ways to do this. If you download a rom to the L game and play it in DeSmuMe, you can rip the sprites by playing the game and following this tutorial here! I haven't done this yet because 1) it has it's own tricks to it and is still a bit of a trial and error situation (read the whole page), and 2) it requires you to actually play the game so the sprites actually appear on the screen. You need to get the sprite you want to show up before you can actually rip it. This means that sprites that, say, only appear during a final scene or something requires you to play the whole game. And I simply do not have the time for that. Maybe one day.

I hope this is at least of some help. If you have further questions or need help just send another ask or DM me, I'm always open for stuff like this!

[fandom-smoothie]

None of them are normal. None, I tell you

[futuristichedge]

How I look when you send me out of your garden. If you even care

[boilercity]

Collection of various Annie sprites

[gelarshiesprofruitboarder]

these work better in the video i made but uploading vids on here is hell so