Ripping Questions

[Badassbill]

Don't know wtf you're doing when it comes to ripping/capturing sprites? Then good news! In this topic I will be laying down the basics of sprites and emulators.

The main things to look for in an emulator (as far as capturing sprites goes) is good layer and frame control. Layers are the separate planes that hold different sets of graphics, Background, Tiles, Sprites etc etc. Frames are the individual ...well frames of a game when you are emulating them, and frame control is being able to control the frames either by FPS (frames per second) or pausing and then going a single frame backwards or forwards. There are other features that can help in capturing sprites, such as the OAM viewer in Visualboy Advance, but we'll get to that later. Now for the consoles and emulators themselves.

Nintendo - NES
The NES is notoriously hard to capture from, as even though the graphics are basic; you cannot separate the layers of graphics within the programs. If you are capturing graphics you need to cut out sprites and tiles manually.

Nestopia (<-Download)
Mac OSX

Features:
Frame Control (FPS only)
Palette Control
Save States
Cheat Codes
Joystick Support
(Windows only)

Minimum system requirements:
# Processor: Pentium MMX or comparable AMD
# Ram: 64MB
# Video: Direct3D 9.0 compatible graphic card.
# Software Installed: DirectX 9.0c or superior.

And if you are wanting to make some custom sprites or mock-ups to fit in NES style, here are the system specs/limitations:

# Resolution: 256x224 (ntsc) or 256x239 (pal)
# Colors available: 52
# 4 colours per sprite/tile (Including transparency)
# Max Colors on screen: 16, 24 or 25.
# Max sprites: 64
# Max sprites per line: 8
# Sprite size: 8x8 or 8x16
# Picture Scroll: 2 h.v
# RAM: 16 Kbit (2kbyte)
# Video RAM: 16 Kbit (2kbyte)


Super Nintendo - SNES
The SNES is usually a very easy choice for capturing games, as both leading emulators have excellent layer and frame control.

ZSNES (<-Download)

SNES9X (<-Download)
Mac OSX

Features:
Layers
Palette Control
Frame Control
Save States
Cheat Codes
Joystick Support

Personally I prefer SNES9X, but both get the job done.

And if you are wanting to make some custom sprites or mock-ups to fit in SNES style, here are the system specs/limitations:

# Resolutions (Progressive) 256x224, 512x224, 256x239, 512x239 (Interlaced) 512x448, 512x478
# Pixel Depth 2, 4, 7, or 8 bpp indexed; 8 or 11 bpp direct
# Total Colors 32768 (15-bit)
# Sprites 128, 32 max per line; up to 64x64 pixels. 16 colours (including transparency) per sprite/tile.
# Backgrounds Up to 4 planes; each up to 1024x1024 pixels
# Effects:
-# Pixelization (mosaic) per background
-# Color addition and subtraction
-# Clipping windows (per background, affecting color, math, or both)
-# Scrolling per 8x8 tile
-# Mode 7 matrix operations


Nintendo Gameboy/Colour/Advance - GB/C/A

Visualboy Advance (<-Download)
Mac OSX

Features:
Layers
OAM Viewer
Palette Control
Frame Control
Save States
Cheat Codes
Joystick Support

The OAM Viewer is a feature that lets you scroll through every sprite that is currently on screen and view it fully on its own, so if sprites are overlapping in frames you can just grab them from the OAM viewer.

And if you are wanting to make some custom sprites or mock-ups to fit in GB, GBC, or GBA style, here are the system specs/limitations:
(Gameboy)
# 4 Colours on screen (White, 1/3 Grey, 2/3 Grey, Black). 4 Colours per sprite/tile including transparency.
# Screen Resolution of 160×144.
# Sprites: 20 - 8x16, 8x8 (max 4 colours including transparency)
# Tiles: 256 on screen (max 4 colours including transparency)

(Gameboy Colour)
# Colour: 10, 32, or 56 on screen colors from a palette of 32000 (56 = 32 tile colours and 24 sprite colours)
# Resolution: 160x144
# Sprites: 40 - 8x16, 8x8 (max 4 colours including transparency)
# Tiles: 512 on screen (max 4 colours including transparency)

(Gameboy Advance)
# Resolution: 240 x 160 pixels.
# Color support: 15-bit RGB (16-bit color space using 5 bits depth per channel), capable of displaying 512 simultaneous colors in "character mode" and 32,768
(2^15) simultaneous colors in "bitmap mode".
(The rest of the limitations are very similar to SNES, if not exact)


Nintendo DS - NDS
Nintendo DS is fairly new to the emulation work, so ROM support is ... well ... shit. The best emulator by far is NO$GBA, and ironically you have to pay for the latest version. Version 2.5 is free.

NO$GBA (<-Download)

Features:
Layers
Save States


I'd also reccomend using Animget, which will capture every singe frame for you.

DO NOT ASK FOR ROMS. ROMS ARE ILLEGAL.

More to come later on.