Tales of Hearts Sprite Rips!

Sunny · Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 9756

Thanks! All right, so there's my progress.

I got NO$GBA to work but I am unable to load a save file. Is loading a save file possible for DS games or no? I know you said that I can't use the Save Slot but I'm not sure what that means. Anyways, I have the save file and I'm wondering if I have to rename it or not. Another thing I want to add is that the colors are bit off on this emulator. Do I need to change the "DS Backup Media" settings?

I also got DeSmuME to work along with it's save file. However, it is insanely slower than NO$GBA AND I can't remove the background. Well...I tried but it makes the entire screen black so I'm wondering what the **** is the point. I can also view the Tiles, Pallettes, OAM, and the Map but it doesn't do anything because it doesn't show what I'm looking for. On the other hand it shows complete icons or sprites on the touch screen (IE: shortcuts, icons, and character's heads).

Any tips? Because ripping mid-battle is impossible. Not only do I need to kill off 2 of my party members but I also need to get rid of all the enemies except one. And then I need to turn off the background unless I want to spend insane time manually extracting it. Finally, the screen zooms out if I'm not close enough to the enemy so I won't get the proper proportion of the sprites that we all want.

>.<

Any tips?
_________________
Support XSEED | Listen to Falcom music | Do life the right way

This world is cruel. And also very beautiful.

LGameTales · Joined: 28 Jan 2009 Posts: 986 Location: California

Sunny · Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 9756

LGameTales · Joined: 28 Jan 2009 Posts: 986 Location: California

Sunny · Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 9756

The site you gave me is currently down. Or at least...when I try to access it, it just gives me an error. That's odd...I was able to access it just hour ago. Should I pay the 2.50 via PayPal? Anyways I'll take your last suggestion into account.

Though I was actually looking for a way to remove the BG during gameplay or look at the sprites, tiles, etc without playing and then just extract them (preferred method). Ironically I've never ripped anything using that method.

Oh and thanks for your prompt replies! : )
_________________
Support XSEED | Listen to Falcom music | Do life the right way

This world is cruel. And also very beautiful.

LGameTales · Joined: 28 Jan 2009 Posts: 986 Location: California

Sunny · Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 9756

Downloaded again. Still no "Auto" option under DS Backup Media.
_________________
Support XSEED | Listen to Falcom music | Do life the right way

This world is cruel. And also very beautiful.

LGameTales · Joined: 28 Jan 2009 Posts: 986 Location: California

Sunny · Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 9756

Thanks a bunch. Now it works. o.O

Well anyways I'm still waiting on RyuHiroshi's advice tomorrow to see if it gets me farther.
_________________
Support XSEED | Listen to Falcom music | Do life the right way

This world is cruel. And also very beautiful.

LGameTales · Joined: 28 Jan 2009 Posts: 986 Location: California

Sunny · Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 9756

Thanks again for all the help dude.

All right Tales General Fanart people. Here's the end result of day one after figuring out all the BS I had to go through.

Before you say anything:
- Yes her sword is meant to be "fragmented" and have transparent holes. I'm 100% sure because:
1) The "holes" in her sword came from the background
2) Her official art shows...holes.
3) Keyword: Holes.

- This is not 100% accurate rip. I may have accidently removed some bits of Innes, her sword, OR did not remove any bits that should've removed.

- But I did everything I could to make the best rip possible out of this one frame. So in other words, this may indeed be a 100% successful rip.

- Yes I'm going to do more which is why I went through the whole trouble of trying. I'm starting with Innes.

- ToDR Stahn is still on hold. xD I'm actually doing his animation right now. The reason I didn't upload the sheets yet is because I'm doing certain frames while doing the animation. In other words- the sheets are not yet complete. ; )

Anyways I have some questions myself for those who snap and rip ToH sprites: what about slash effects? Do they get in the way or are they also extractable? Because I haven't tried that yet.
_________________
Support XSEED | Listen to Falcom music | Do life the right way

This world is cruel. And also very beautiful.

RyuHiroshi · Joined: 16 Dec 2007 Posts: 2227 Location: Liberlian Barrel

I am no help for you if you want to rip Innes, Sunny~ ;_;

So, I use GGD to rip. First of all, download an archive that a nice guy on The Spriter's Resource ripped - the site seems to be down right now, but it should work later... hopefully. The link to the archive can be found in the Tales of Hearts thread of the forums. Downside though is that you can't put together the main characters because they're put together differently than the enemies. But it does have all the 3D models unpacked, if you like to fiddle around with it. Maybe we should also rip the textures of the battle BGs later, it's rather simple.

Anyway, for the enemies' sprites, go into the \TOH\btl\char\ folder. Next, open GGD and drag and drop one file into the main window and the ColorPaletteWindow - I've used E009.DS3, which is Peridot. It should look like this:

The main window is all clustered and the ColorPaletteWindow shows random colours. The bit that is shown in the main window is not the whole, just a fragment - you can scroll up and down by pressing "Page Up" and "Page Down" while you're in the main window. Let's scroll down until we see this:

You'll see that it looks better, but still horrible. Let's try to get a correct palette first. Click into the ColorPaletteWindow and you can scroll through the palettes by pressing "Page Up/Down". To change how much you scroll, press "S". In the InformationWindow, you can see how much you scroll by pressing "Page Up/Down" in the second to last line, PalShiftMode. First, let's press "S" until it's changed to "1 Palette" and press "Page Down" 6 times. Afterwards, press on "S" again to change the PalShiftMode to "16 Palettes" and press "Page Down" three times (The same can be used to change scrolling in the main menu, just click into the main window and the DataShiftMode will change). It will look like this.

...Still looks awful, huh. That's because all we did was change the palettes, there are some other settings too. Right now, as you can see in the InformationWindow, the Pixel per Bit are set to 8 Bit. Let's click into the main window and change this by pressing "B" until it looks better... the outcome should be this.

The first light blue thing is the hair, then Peridot's cape thingie, then her left and right arm and then the legs. Let's move to the legs, they serve as a better example then the previous ones.

The pixel rows are scrambled. We can fix this by pressing left and right to increase the width of the image. By doing so, the ImageSize in the InformationWindow will change. Let's press the right arrow key 4 times to change the width to 32.

Well, now just change the palette again (which I won't do because I took the screenshots without realizing it was wrong...). If it's the wrong one, just scroll around through the palettes until you hit the nail. The legs are split apart, but you can either fix this by pressing "Page Up/Down" after you change the DataShiftMode to 1 Byte or by simple putting it together in Paint. There we have it, the first finished piece of sprite!

...I'd like to say that, but it's still missing some parts. The missing parts are right under the legs we just put together - however, you need to change the width of the image again to fix the rows - or put it together in Paint like I do. In the image above, you can see the rows directly under the legs (it's missing two parts, sorry. I erased too much and am too lazy to revert it).

That's my way, it probably takes a bit more time, but saves the trouble with constantly switching the width and then being confused where you stopped. In any case, this leg was rather easy, Peridot's torso looks like this:

Pretty much the same deal though, the parts where the width doesn't fit are attached to the left, then just put the big parts together so Peridot doesn't walk around with a bare stomach. And remember that you need to change the palette since it uses a different one than the legs.

And that's pretty much it. I suggest that you rip all parts first since some stances make use of parts that you've already ripped way earlier. And name the parts while you're at it, makes searching much faster. And don't give up, ripping it takes "a while". Peridot alone has over 250 parts. And you still have to put them together so... good luck!

For putting them together, I suggest using a program where you can have layers - like Photoshop. GIMP should work to, but I never worked with it, so I wouldn't know. Oh, and a program to rotate stuff, there are a lot things that are rotated, like weapons - just look at Innes' Blade Sunny ripped.

...well, that was longer than expected. Huh. One more hint, if you're working with screenshots and your computer is strong enough, you can use a program called AnimGet. It will allow you to make screenshots in quick succession. This could be faster then ripping every little thing via GGD, but I do it with GGD because my PC can't handle Emulators very well...

Sunny · Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 9756

First of all I would like to say thanks a bunch for teaching me how to understand the damn GGD program. Thanks for going through the trouble of screenshotting, hosting pictures, and organizing it into a real tutorial. xD

Anyways I still have a few problems:
1) Like you said Spriters Resource is down. Unfortunately it still IS down. So I was wondering if you can give me the btl/char file or folder. I actually know which one you're talking about and I have the actual file. But you said to "drag and drop" one file. I am assuming that it's just one individual file out of many since you specified on file "E009.DS3". Basically I'm saying that my "char" file is one huge DAT file. So do you mind if I ask if you can upload the char files somehow?
* I also have what is called a char.b file which is much smaller. Know anything about that?

2) When you said to change the "pixel ber bit" you screenshot shows that you have it at 48Bit. Mine only goes up to 32bit. Do I need a newer version of GGD or does it depend on the file I'm using? >.<
EDIT: Mines is also v0.21.

3) I understand the rest of your directions so getting the correct files is all I have to worry about as of now.

Again, thanks a bunch for all of your help.
_________________
Support XSEED | Listen to Falcom music | Do life the right way

This world is cruel. And also very beautiful.

LGameTales · Joined: 28 Jan 2009 Posts: 986 Location: California

GGD?

I can never figure that thing out.

It always ticks me off Brick wall

Ill try to read through what you posted to see if itll get better though! Very Happy

_________________
YouTube | Photobucket | DeviantART | MediaFire

RyuHiroshi · Joined: 16 Dec 2007 Posts: 2227 Location: Liberlian Barrel

http://rapidshare.com/files/304711001/TOH_BTL.rar.html

Since it's RapidShare, you can only download it 10 times, MegaUpload refused to upload for me. If you can't download it because there were some mean lurkers, PM me.

Oh, and it isn't 48 Bit, it's 4 Bit. Blame the horrible font the program is using.
_________________

YouTube