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11-02-05 12:59 PM
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Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - General Emulation - Any convenient way to rip Playstation "sprites" ? | |
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Surlent
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Posted on 07-09-05 03:41 PM Link | Quote
I put sprites into quotation marks since the PS doesn't have layers like SNES and such, so in 2D games like Valkyrie Profile the "sprites" actually are like flattenend polygons, parallel to a parallax scrolling background (if I understood that right).

Since I like to set up animated sprites from games, of course, PS ripping is not far as convenient like SNES (ZSNES -> Turn off background layers until you have one background color left, as long it is no mode 7 BG, F1 -> Dump screenshot, increase frame and so on. Set up transparency in PSP, save it as a GIF, run Animation Shop Pro, put the images together into a nice animation), so this requires more work.

The only way which is the fastest for me, is that one below, I use ePSXe for that:

1.) I go to the place I want to have the character ripped from. If possible, using a non-colored background and having no overlapping other characters or items like a cursor.
2.) Place a save state here
3.) If not already done, exit ePSXe and disabling all filters, putting resolution to 320 x 240) in a window
4.)The framerate has to be set as low as possible, so in Pete's video plugin, I go down to the minimum of 10 fps and disable frame skipping if set previously
5.) Running the game again, loading the recorded save state. Now I'm starting Paint Shop Pro and srarcht a good beginning frame which will be immediately captured by pressing ALT + Print Screen.
6.) Pasting the screen in PSP via CTRL + V. This procedure will be repeated until I have all frames
7.) Now I save all images as PNG files in full size, along with a proper description.
8.) Opening the first PNG, using the cutting tool to reduce its size - as long in other frames no parts of the animation will be missing (like a sword which is stretched forward later), then I use the wizard tool to delete the bigger background parts around the character.
9.) This is not hard but can be a pain in the ass and costs a lot of time! I have to do most of the work by hand, separating each pixel by hand for one image.
10.) Like before, if I am satisfied (not really usually ), I set the background color to transparent and save that as a frame for a GIF.
11.) Setting up the animation in Animation Shop Pro.

Well, I'm not lazy but is there a more convenient way or even an emulator which allows some other features, such as "highlighting" by outlining certain sprites, so these can be put out easier ?

I just show an example of what I mean. This is an image of an avatar I use somewhere else, I had major problems with the staff due to nearly the same colour of the stuff in the left upper part - and the hand



Since here are people who know about emulation and stuff, I'm simply asking this. If there is no other way, I'll keep it like that and work on more using hotkeys in PSP ("B" - Brush, "R" - cutting tool and other ones)
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Posted on 07-09-05 05:45 PM Link | Quote
I wish I knew. I've been contemplating ripping the graphics from Skull Monkeys (that would be bad ass to have in a signiture of avatar). I hope that it is more a matter of ePSXe's features than anything else. Hell, you can't even take screenshots without alt+printscreen! That is so utterly bull. Also the ripping process doesn't always work all that well. I notice that unless your have ePSXe configured PERFECTLY it will often distort proportions so that it's only imitating a certain pixel width and it doesn't really measure up sometimes... just not accurate enough for sprite ripping.

I'm going to have a hell of a time ripping this, but your methods are going to be very useful to that end.

Skull Monkeys screencap
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Posted on 07-10-05 04:03 PM Link | Quote
If it's anything with what I usually do, it's either the easy way or the hard way. Easy way is you find a way to turn off everything but the sprite layer via the emulator. Slowing it down to pause and advancing frame also helps big time. ZSNES is easy for this type of stuff, since it's drawn out nice; stuff like GBA is a little tougher but I can still pull them out relatively fast (see newest title)...but then this is PSX and I don't know how ePSXe handles it, so I don't know if layer turn offs are an option or not and I'll take your word for it otherwise.

Hard way is you take shots, hopefully with pause/advance frame, and piece them together, crop what you need with Animation Shop (3.04), and then go from the taking out what is in the animation and what isn't. I haven't messed with PSX emulation enough to know, but I assume it would be something in or around those lines.

I'm assuming that's probably the best any can come up with unless you find a video plugin that does the disable layering job.

I will add, though, that if you take Animation Shop and take what order you wish to put the PNGs in, you can just use the crop tool with all frames selected and cut that way. It'll cut what you need out of all the frames. That's what I do and it makes the job a lot easier. Primarily, I used Videomach II for this role but I later learned how to crop effective in Animation Shop, so it did the job faster for me.


(edited by Priere on 07-10-05 07:04 AM)
(edited by Priere on 07-10-05 07:08 AM)
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Posted on 07-11-05 01:46 AM Link | Quote
Well, what I do when I need to rip something that doesn't want to be ripped is I hack it. For example, take my old Yoshi's Island layouts. As you may know, ripping sprites from YI is difficult because it uses a gradient background, and ripping backgrounds is hard because they're big and you don't often get the opportunity to scroll around freely and see all of them. So I just opened up EggVine and made a level with the background I wanted, a solid BG colour and some cleverly-placed platforms so I could see it all, shut off the layers and ripped away. In your case, you might try deleting background graphics or something so you have a nice solid colour around your sprites.
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Posted on 07-11-05 04:08 PM Link | Quote
Thanks for your anwers. The cropping tool from ASP truly is a god-like feature, yes
I use that only when ripping SNES sprites, because, as already stated, you can reduce the image size to the actual sprie(s) you want to have ripped, but when it comes to PS emulation, I rather crop the screens in PSP already than in ASP - due to the more work required, although I know the magic wand (that thingy is located within the selection tools, at the bottom), even if it might be basically only a little more work. It takes a lot more time than in ZSNES' screenshots, sure, but that way I can work more accurate.

I only define an actualy origin for the selection tool, like x = 100 and y = 90 for example, and then I note down the actual selection, like a height * width of e. g. 90 x 90 px. This will be applied to all screens then. ePSXe has a slight glitch of the 3-4 bottom or top lines disappearing and replacing with another part of the image, when taking several screenshots in a row in a window. You might already have run several times into that when playing in full-screen, pressing ESC or ALT + ENTER, then turning back into full-screen mode. The window status bar might appear then until the next frame is drawn (depends also on video plugin and refresh settings, I noticed that with Pete's Soft Driver 1.16 for example), like when you enter a game new in a new screen, enter battle mode or when you leave a map in the game.

It rarely requires replacing the images, or moving them one or two pixels in some frames. But other than else, I'm going like that way too.
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