[TUTORIAL] Model Ripping Guide For Beginners (.BRRES Format) [Updated: 8/5/2012]

[Garamonde]

Made a fairly large update to the guide. I've bolded the parts that are new (for the second paragraph, the only new part is the whole bottom portion about .OBJs and .MTLs).
I generally update this pretty often, so be sure to read this stuff over regularly.

1: BRRES Viewer (get it here, and you can find an updated list of games that use .BRRES format here)
2: Noesis (this is the easiest way, you don't have to mess with the model at all usually. Get it here)
3: A text editor (Notepad ++ is recommended because of all the great features it has, but you can just use Notepad if you like. Get Notepad ++ here)
4: An image editing program (MS Paint will probably do the job, it's for making preview images so that your model will be uploaded faster)
5: Icon Maker V3. You can get it here.

Start off by opening BRRES Viewer and browse for the model you want and open it. Now you should see this tall window on the left, listing the model(s), textures, palettes, animations and etc.. This is called the file tree, and will be referred to as such from now on. You can press the enter key to center the model so it won't be on top, or use shift to move it back to its initial position. But for now you want to go to File > Export All Files. You will see a small window appear. Click the Textures dropdown and select PNG (you can also right-click on each texture individually and select Export (then choose the directory you want them to go) to make sure you get them all, but this is tedious). Leave the Models dropdown as it is, as you want to export all your models in .MD5 format.* You should click the Animations dropdown and select "(do not export)" if you don't want to include animations in your submission (you can include them if you want but most people don't and it isn't required). Very important: Make sure you check the "Create one folder for each brres file" box when exporting multiple files so that the files will not conflict and get mixed up with eachother. Now you have to go into the folder that had the BRRES file of the model you just exported. There will be a new folder named "exported". You can pull that out and put it somewhere else. You should now export each model again as a .OBJ. However, it seems that when you click "Export All Files" and choose to have your models exported as .OBJ, it does not export the .MTL file with it (which tells the model which textures go where), thus the model loses its texture mapping. The solution to this, is to double-click on the model (you must be actually viewing the model for the "Export" command to work) you want to export in the file tree, and then go to Model > Export > OBJ. Keep in mind that this will not export the textures with it, so if you don't already have them, go to Export All Files again, make sure the textures drop down is set to PNG, and pick "Do not export" for the other two (if you have multiple models loaded, don't forget to check "Create one folder for each BRRES file" or the textures will be all mixed up!). However since you already exported them as .MD5 first (or at least you should have), you should have them already.