29 replies to this topic

[Anthus]

As it says on the tin, I'm looking for an emulator I can use to easily rip tiles from SNES games. I have ZSNES, and Snes9X already. ZSNES lets you turn off layers, which is really nice for ripping, but it doesn't seem to have a way to take screenshots, so I have to put it in windowed mode, at the actual resolution, and use a screencap to get it. Needless to say, this is not efficient, and also adds a lot of extra colors. Snes9X lets you take screenshots, but you cannot turn off layers.

 

Any recommendations?

[Orithan]

ZSNES can take screenshots. Go under Misc and then go into Misc keys. There should be a field to input a hotkey for taking screenshots (labelled as "Snapshot")

[Anthus]

ZSNES can take screenshots. Go under Misc and then go into Misc keys. There should be a field to input a hotkey for taking screenshots (labelled as "Snapshot")

Can't believe I missed that. Thanks! ^^

[Geoffrey]

Snes9x can also do all those things.

[Saffith]

Also in ZSNES, press F1. That brings up a menu that lets you not only take screenshots, but increment the game one frame at a time so you can, say, get every frame of an animation in order.

[Timelord]

You may not be aware, but you can rip NES/SNES ROM data directly in ZQuest.

In the tile editor, use the 'grab' feature. Select the ROM file. This will display all of the ROM data, includinhg tiles, and a large amount of other binary data.

This might be useful to some of you.

[Anthus]

Also in ZSNES, press F1. That brings up a menu that lets you not only take screenshots, but increment the game one frame at a time so you can, say, get every frame of an animation in order.

 

And that answers my next question, which was "now how am I going to get these water frames tho?"

 

You may not be aware, but you can rip NES/SNES ROM data directly in ZQuest.

In the tile editor, use the 'grab' feature. Select the ROM file. This will display all of the ROM data, includinhg tiles, and a large amount of other binary data.

This might be useful to some of you.

 

This is something I'm going to try out. I never knew this was an option, but I can see some potential limitations here. Still cool nonetheless. EDIT: Tried this out, and it is pretty neat to see a visual representation of the data stored in the ROM file. A lot of the tiles and animations are stored in ways not conducive for use in ZQuest right away, but they can still be brought into ZQ as is, then exported as an image, and aligned correctly in an external program.

 

Thanks for the quick responses guys. I've only ever ripped tiles directly from GBA games, which is super simple cause VBA lets you literally look at map data, and export a screenshot of it. Good to know this is pretty much as easy.

[Gleeok]

Screenshots are a terrible way to rip game assets. By far the worst (and slowest) method.

I wrote a little c++ code a while back that you stick into an emulator (I have tested this on PPSSPP and DeSmuME so far) that automatically saves all graphics resources (into a folder given unique filenames via hashing pixel data) directly from the ROM or image as it is being used by the emulator (in the same or similar format as it is packed into the ROM by the game developers, so it is usable without modification). Fonts, etc., are also saved. Theoretically works on Psx, ps2, ps3, GC, SNES, Wii, GBC, Xbox, XBone, Ps4, etc.. Beat that.

If I weren't so lazy I would submit patches, but I find modifying and compiling emulators to be painful.

Another alternative is to use an OpenGL debugger; start a new instance of your game or emulator; then break whenever you want to inspect or dump any loaded textures.


[edit] For example, I just loaded an Etrian Odyssey 2 ROM, then quit at the title screen and it dumped about 20 images that were used for the intro.

Original game art, used to overlay against the background scene:

[Lüt]

I've used ZSNES with layering and frame advance whenever necessary.

 

The thing about screenshots is that they give you design context for what otherwise might be an organizational nightmare, and however slow they may be to assemble compared to some kind of tilesheet dump, at least you have a clear point of reference from which to begin arranging your rips in a logical manner, and that can save far more time than trying to figure out how to use raw dumps.

 

I mean, when's the last time you tried to design a freeform dungeon using ZQ's default NES dungeon wall combo arrangement? I think some people's idea of resource arrangement is only meant to keep others from using their stock by laying it out in the most irrational way possible just short of it being true randomized chaos.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that SNES games often use 8x8 tile arrangements, rather than 16x16. LttP in particular is a pain in that regard. It looks 16x16 at first glance, but the more you try to rip, the more you realize how 8x8 it actually is - not the least annoying of which comes in the excessively misaligned dungeon walls. And if you get a truly disorganized 8x8 dump, you're probably best off just replaying the entire game and screenshotting it all the way.

 

What are you trying to rip anyway? Because if it's LttP dungeons, I'm already way ahead of you. There hasn't been a single correct rip of those graphics in all the ZC tilesheets and tilesets I've looked at, so I was forced to do my own out of frustration if nothing else, and that's not even to mention the color loss in those resources - the misalignments were enough.

 

If you're going with Gunple though... yeah I actually just came across those maps late last month. They were just so utterly LttP that I was thinking of ripping a few of the dungeons, the wood one in particular. A lot of those walls are 48 pixels tall though, so that would be a thing to work around if you were planning on using ZC's standard door combo sets.

[Anthus]

If you're going with Gunple though... yeah I actually just came across those maps late last month. They were just so utterly LttP that I was thinking of ripping a few of the dungeons, the wood one in particular. A lot of those walls are 48 pixels tall though, so that would be a thing to work around if you were planning on using ZC's standard door combo sets.

 

Yeah, it's this game. I've ripped a few things already, and yeah, the dungeon walls are a bit odd. Kind of like how they are in LttP. They like to use an extra 8-pixel row of mini tiles here and there for tops of floors, and bottoms of borders. I like all the wall sets I've seen so far, and in spite of the game being a bit empty, the art direction was pretty nice. It reminds me a lot of Mother 3 actually. I'm not sure I'll if I'll be doing a 1:1 rip, since they'd be kind of hard to use, not unlike the LttP mountains in Orion's set.

 

I really only need the emulator for animated things like grass, flowers, and water (which will be the most time consuming). All the other tiles are static, and can be grabbed from a map from VG Maps. The layers in the emulator might also be useful for cropping out large objects like houses, or dungeon entrances too. I'm not ripping all the tiles, just enough for what I need. I will likely submit these to the database as well, cause hey, we could always use more wall sets, right? And these are almost perfect for ZC, imo. I have seen very few games use walls exactly like Zelda, in particular, LttP.

 

 

These were ripped directly from a map of the game. Further editing will be done in ZC directly, since I'm pretty comfortable using the tile editor for removing background pixels, and flipping tiles and whatnot. If you've never heard of this game, you'd be right to think these came from a LttP fangame.

 

I mean, just look at those steps, and torches! So the guys who made this game "had little communication with the programming team" so I wonder if they literally just cracked LttP, and used the engine. It's too close to be just a copy.

[Lüt]

It probably was a fan game. I've seen a few other SNES games get accused of being LttP clones, or at least low-level rip-offs, but it was only this one that ever convinced me of such claims.

 

Heads up though, if its tiles are truly arranged like LttP, you're going to want to pay attention to differences along every direction of the walls. One of things that almost every LttP dungeon set for ZC does completely wrong is use the rotation method to do its walls. Every corner set is unique, both outward and inward angles, and while opposing sets of walls can be flipped, they most definitely can not be rotated

[Anthus]

It probably was a fan game. I've seen a few other SNES games get accused of being LttP clones, or at least low-level rip-offs, but it was only this one that ever convinced me of such claims.

 

Heads up though, if its tiles are truly arranged like LttP, you're going to want to pay attention to differences along every direction of the walls. One of things that almost every LttP dungeon set for ZC does completely wrong is use the rotation method to do its walls. Every corner set is unique, both outward and inward angles, and while opposing sets of walls can be flipped, they most definitely can not be rotated

 

I've just learned that the hard way . It's pretty easy to fix though, and I only noticed it on two corners. But yes, it messes up the shading. Interestingly enough, these walls are pretty diverse. You have your normal 32x32 blocks, but you can also arrange walls to be either 48, or 64 pixels high. A 8x8 barrier on a layer can make it seemless. It's technically not 100% accurate perspective, but if I've learned anything from these, and LttP, and even ALBW to an extent (since it offers a true 3D view of these wall styles), it is impossible to have truly perfect perspective here, in every case.

 

Edit: Here's what I got so far. Just a heads up, the palettes have not been optimized for ZC yet, and I am pretty sure these are still 24-bit images. They're rippable, but the palettes will be a mess, currently.

 

 

 

The caves will need some work, and a few tiles fabricated to make them really work for ZC. I'm considering doing away with the multiple levels for some of these, since I probably won't be using them much anyway.

[Lüt]

They're looking pretty workable already.

One tip for the colors: if you enable interpolated fading, you can also enable the "Fade CSet 5" quest rule. The fades are primarily used for item cellars and passageways in dungeons, but apply to side warps between DMaps with different palettes as well. But what this accomplishes is expanding the functional level palette by using CSet 5 for the constant colors between different level palettes. For example, all the torches in every dungeon use the same shades of gray and yellow, so by putting those in CSet 5, you leave room for more individual level colors in every level palette, and you can also fade them alongside those level colors.

 

Because by now, I'd imagine you've figured out that, like LttP, you're going to have to 8-bit all those tiles to import them accurately.

[Anthus]

They're looking pretty workable already.

One tip for the colors: if you enable interpolated fading, you can also enable the "Fade CSet 5" quest rule. The fades are primarily used for item cellars and passageways in dungeons, but apply to side warps between DMaps with different palettes as well. But what this accomplishes is expanding the functional level palette by using CSet 5 for the constant colors between different level palettes. For example, all the torches in every dungeon use the same shades of gray and yellow, so by putting those in CSet 5, you leave room for more individual level colors in every level palette, and you can also fade them alongside those level colors.

 

Because by now, I'd imagine you've figured out that, like LttP, you're going to have to 8-bit all those tiles to import them accurately.

 

I don't think I'll have to 8-bit them. At least, I really don't want to have to  . These would have to use a bare minimum of two c-sets each (one for the walls, and one for everything else) and the third c-set will be used for other area-specific objects. The color depth will be reduced to 8bpp (256 colors) and the pertinent colors will be arranged into ZC friendly c-sets.. hopefully. The cave area only uses 12 unique colors for everything there. That can easily be made into two c-sets with a few overlapping colors, and about ~8 extra slots for other colors between the two. The very first one uses 26 colors, which can still fit within two c-sets. The one with the roots, however, does use 40 unique colors, so it will make full use of all three c-sets. The roots will be their own layer, as will the borders. The interpolated fading idea is good though, I've never used it much though, myself tbh.

 

To clarify, the images I've posted are not from ZC. They are from GG, and are exactly as the graphics appeared in Gunple, and are not entirely ready for ZC on a tile by tile basis. They are also full color, currently. They will be edited further to "unlayer" the ones where applicable.

 

edit: I ended up making them 8-bit. I had intended to rip these for others to use, but the time it would take to mask off tiles, and manipulate palettes, it might not be worth it since people might not be able to fit them in with other sets easily, unless they want to edit/ recolor tiles in those sets for this palette structure or are already using 8-bit color. These will be ripped in 8-bit, as is, but I'll continue to test stuff out. I'd like to not 8-bit it, but I may still submit them, with that caveat.

 

(I also have next to zero image editing experience. I've never touched PhotoShop, and I've.. *gulp* used MSPaint notoriously throughout the years. I'm using GG, and Paint.net more these days, but yeah. I am trying to learn more about this stuff, not just for ZC, but just because .)

 

edit 2: It's not as bad as I thought. It still only uses two c-sets, and looks alright in ZQ. Still need to hack together some locked, closed, and bombed doors though.

 

[Timelord]

ZQUest can also 'grab' from quest files, and technically, any binary file; although most will be nonsensical white noise made into a visual representation. (It can be a fun way to hide easter eggs.)

This is how ZGP was intended to be used.