[Tutorial] Arcade Game Sprite Ripping / "Hard Ripping"

[John2k4]

Required Programs:
MAMEUI32/64 (Any version of MAME should work, but MAMEUI gives you a nice frontend and options. Download MAMEUI64 if you have a 64-bit system.)
GIMP (Or Photoshop; I use GIMP for this tutorial. GIMP is free.)
Game ROMS & BIOSes (I am not going to supply either of these. You need to obtain them yourself. Message me if you need help.)

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Step 1: Start the game
Fairly obvious; start up the game, and play/get to the screen with the sprite(s) you wish to rip. You can press "P" to pause the game. For this tutorial, we will rip the "1P" text.
Once you are ready, press F12 to capture a screenshot of the game.


Pressing F12 will capture a perfect (1:1) screenshot of the current game screen, no matter what resolution you have the game window set at.

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Step 2: Open GIMP & Import the capture
Open up GIMP.


File -> Open..., and find your screenshot (They are located in the "snap" subdirectory, in the MAMEUI folder. In this case, "MAMEUI32\snap\pbobble2n\0000.png")

With the screenshot open, select the tool that looks like an Exacto Knife from the tools, and draw a box around what you want.


Click in the box, or Press enter, and you will be left with the letters, plus some of the background around them. This alone would not do for submitting, so we need to refine it a bit.

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Step 3: Refining your sprites
For lack of a better word, we will "refine" the sprite, and remove all the stuff around it.
Switch to your Eraser tool, and check the box titled "Hard Edge". You will also need to click on the "Brush Size" box, and set the size to either 1, or 3.
Hold down your "Control" key, and scroll your mouse wheel up to zoom in enough to see what you are doing.


As you can see, attempting to erase the brown background around the sprite results in a white area. To fix this, right-click on the layer, and near the bottom, click on "Add Alpha Channel". This will allow transparency.


Now use your eraser, and remove anything that is not sprite.
Tip: To Erase a long line of pixels in one click, hold down "Shift". Now moving the mouse will give you a line. Clicking will erase everything under the mouse point, along with everything under the line.



Finish up your cleaning.


Once you have a nice sprite, just go to File -> Save As..., and save it as any PNG image (PNG allows for transparency).

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Now you can assemble these individual sprites into a sprite sheet, submit them, and/or use them for whatever you please!