Game Specific Model Ripping Guides

[Shadowth117]

I suppose I had better say this right off. I will NOT hold your hand through every step of these guides. It would be unnecessarily tedious and if you're even thinking of attempting this kind of thing its best that you have at least basic knowledge of 3D design programs in the first place. These guides are meant to be only that and while I'll try and put everything important in here I'm not going to list every little detail since there are many small common sense things that you should just know going into this. That said, if you are confused somewhere I can try and help you with your problem, but please do your best to help yourself before it gets to that.

Anyways, onto the topic at hand. Ripping a 3d model from a video game is quite different from ripping a sprite. At times it can be many times easier to rip a model than a sprite while at other times it can be much more tedious. It all depends on the how you end up ripping something.

Seeing as there's a lot of questions about ripping from various games and likely more to come, I've decided to start putting up some guides on how to rip from some of them through the methods I've learned to do so over time. Anyone else who has something to share is quite welcome to as well as questions if they need to about how to rip from a specific game. Think of this as the equivalent of the "Ripping Questions" thread in Sprite Discussion, but for Models Resource. I'll try and post stuff up for this when I can, but believe me when I say there is a LOT of stuff to cover and it will take some time for me to list everything.

First up is basically the equivalent of print screen for 3d objects. There's 4 programs I know of that can do this. Keep in mind these rippers will only work for Direct X or Open GL rendered games and may not even work on some of those.

Print Screen Style Rippers

Important
IWhen using this type of ripper you must weld the vertices to get rid of the massive amount of extra ones the program creates when it rips a model. To do this select all the vertices and weld them at a threshold of about 0.0002 or lower. If you can visually see vertices welding together you need to weld at at a smaller threshold. If all went well your rip should have much less vertices than before. To finish the job, smooth your model's polygons.

3D Ripper DX: http://www.deep-shadows.com/hax/3DRipperDX.htm

This is one of the more popular rippers you can use. The latest version allows you to rip from Direct X 9, 8, and 6. Other versions of Direct X will more than likely NOT work. The program is pretty straightforward and should be easy to configure for anyone who can read. Keep in mind that trying to rip from a 64 bit executable will cause this program to crash.

You don't technically need anything other than a program that can import .OBJ files and something to convert .DDS files to rip with this. However for whatever reason the program does not generate a .MAT file to accompany its rips and so you will have to texture things yourself. The only way to import something with textures is to use a supported version of 3DS Max and import the .3DR rip with the plugin the program provides on installation.

3D Via Printscreen: http://www.3ds.com/products/3dvia/3d-xml/1/

Another good ripper to use. This one rips from Direct X 9, 8 and Open GL rendered applications. It works similarly to the global monitoring function of 3D Ripper DX. Unlike 3D Ripper, you can select pretty much any key on the keyboard rather than only the function keys. This can be useful if you're trying to rip from say an emulator that already uses every function key for something.

The output of this file has two ways I know of to be converted. You can either make an account on 3d Via's website, upload the model, make it public and download it as a .DAE or you can import it with a script through 3DS Max. The script can be found here in the 3ds max folder: http://www.4shared.com/dir/5807782/1c394...enada.html

Edit: There is also a script you can use to import into Blender as well. Get it here: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=179057 Make sure you have Python installed if you want it to work.

GL Intercept: http://glintercept.nutty.org/

This is an older ripper that only works for Open GL programs. Unlike everything else on this list, this program is actually a DLL making it much less user friendly. It doesn't even output any format other than XML or text by default. To do that, you'll need this plugin: http://ogle.eyebeamresearch.org/readme
I don't really have any experience using this ripper since better things had appeared on the net by the time I began ripping stuff, but the documentation provided should help you out a bunch if you choose to use this program for some reason.

GameAssassin http://www.gameassassin.com/downloads.htm

This is a chinese program that apparently works with Open GL and Direct X. Using the poorly translated english language pack provided, it seems like this program has a lot of neat features it can use. Unfortunately, I have no clue how the hell to get the program to rip anything and haven't had luck finding any way to do it last time I did some searches on it. If somebody knows how to use this thing I'd be really grateful to hear how.

HijackGL http://www.cs.wisc.edu/graphics/Gallery/HijackGL/

Zerox found this so big thanks to him for allowing me to put it up. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks to work a lot like 3D Ripper DX, but for Open GL. However it will ONLY work on .exe files so be forewarned!

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Game Specific Rippers

Halo and Halo Custom Edition PC

This game is very well supported in this area due to all the people who've wanted to make maps for and mod it over the years. Basically EVERYTHING from ANY part of the game is rippable aside from a few things such as engine specific FX and sounds. Not only that, but pretty much anything you can rip from it can be put back into the game.

There are a few programs you'll want to rip from this game.

Halo Editing Kit: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=411

Requires an installation of Halo Custom Edition. Technically optional, but it provides a lot of the games files right off the bat. You'll need to use another program like the one below to extract a lot of the campaign files though.

HEK Plus: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=1542

You don't have to use this, but it allows you to extract files from most of the game's maps. There are other programs that do this, but this is the most popular.

GBX Model Importer: http://ghost.halomaps.org/bluestreak/gbxmodel/

Imports the model with vertex weighting and materials. The latest version has a bug that prevents all but 2 materials from showing up sometimes, but for the most part works beautifully. If you that bug shows up then just make new materials and reassign the textures where they're supposed to be. This tool does not extract the textures themselves.

Animation Importer: http://ghost.halomaps.org/bluestreak/animation/

Yup you can import animations. I'm not sure myself how exactly to go about exporting them into a format everyone can use, but I'm open to suggestions.

BSP tag converter: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=1609

Converts the model files for the terrain and such of a map. Doesn't extract bump maps and a few other textures so be aware of that.

Batch Bitmap Extractor: http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=2027

Extracts the textures to the data directory of your HEK installation by default or the directory of your choice. Simple enough to use.

That's it for Halo PC.

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Halo 2 Xbox

Before doing this make sure to extract your maps from your Halo 2 iso and/or the map packs from your harddrive.

This game is fairly well supported in this area despite being a console game perhaps because it was extremely popular and shared a similar file structure for its maps to the first game which had already been cracked.

The models can supposedly extract models with bones, but since they use .X for that format I haven't been able to find anything that well let me get them into any other program with the bones intact. If have a way to do it I wouldn't mind hearing it.

ADI and Entity: http://www.mediafire.com/file/5q2ecr3nmm...y2.1.5.rar

These two programs can both extract models from the maps. Only Entity can extract textures and level models, but ADI seems to extract the regular models better in some cases. It can also apparently export a rigged .X file, but I'm not sure that that actually works right. The UVW's may need to be flipped vertically as well after importing. Some things may only be in one of the shared or in the mainmenu map so check those if something isn't extracting right. Lastly, while the materials rip with models somewhat you'll need to assign the textures to them manually.

To extract textures you must go to the bitm tag folder in Entity and extract them by clicking the blue circle with a plus on it in the top right corner and going down to save bitmap. Save as anything other than a .jpg and then convert to .png.

To extract models in Entity go to either the mode tag for regular models or the sbsp tag for level models. Extract them by clicking the blue circle with a plus on it in the top right corner and going down to export meshes and then selecting to .obj unless of course you CAN use .x files.

For ADI go to the mode tags and after selecting a model click the house near the bottom of the window. From here it gives you a few options for exporting and a button for it.

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Halo 3 and Halo 3 ODST Xbox 360

You'll need 3ds Max to do this.

Just like in Halo 2 you must extract the maps before you can do this. DLC maps work, but must be extracted from their containers off of your storage device before you can use them. Unless of course, you have the iso of the second disk of ODST in which case you can extract them from there.

Xtraction: PM me for the link. Its not up on the authors' site and I'm pretty sure they don't want mirrors.
You MUST credit the people who made this program if you use it. They are very picky about that.

This is the only program you need to extract models. Just open a .map of your choice, go to the mode tags, and extract what you want. They will extract to an .EMF files, but the program provides a script to import these so don't worry.

To extract textures, go to the bitm tags and extract the appropriate textures for your model. Most of these extract fine, but a few don't and some use weird variants of the .dds format. For these you can only try to extract a .tif instead of a .dds. If it doesn't extract right then, then you won't be able to extract it at all.

Next make sure you download the .EMF importer script by scrolling down the "advertisement" in the left part of the program. Run this script with Max and load the .EMF you extracted. As with Halo 2, the materials are there, but you'll have to assign textures to them yourself.

You may also want to look for loose polygons that stretch around random places on the model. These always have only two faces and are a result of the minor imperfections of the importer. Just delete them if you see them and try not to delete anything else at the same time.

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Gamecube (and some Wii) Games

A lot of first party Gamecube games use a specific format. I'm going to explain how to and give you the tools to rip models from this format. There are a lot of games this probably won't work for, but a lot of first party Nintendo games do use this format.

Games that definitely can be converted with these tools courtesy of Thakis's page and a few from me:

Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
Pikmin 2
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Mario Galaxy 2
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker

Now onto tools:

Dolphin: http://www.dolphin-emulator.com/

Probably the best Gamecube and Wii emulator available besides maybe private ones by Nintendo. As a side feature, it extracts files from Wii and Gamecube ISO's. Just set your ISO directory by going to Options->Configure, clicking the paths tab, and then click add to select a directory. When that's set up, right click a game in Dolphin's main window click properties, go to the filesystem tab and then right click and extract files if you wish.

Thakis's BMDView2, SZS tools, and other Gamecube tools: http://www.mediafire.com/?eodcrvsn7g2ezyp

Should have everything you need. You'll want to use these tools on SZS (Gamecube ones anyway. This will NOT work on Mario Kart Wii SZS files!) files. You can try it on SZP files like in Luigi's mansion but its never worked for me though its supposed too.

Here's what tool goes to what. Just drag your file into the program and it'll output a file in the same folder:
.SZS = yaz0dec.exe
.SZP = yay0dec.exe
.ARC *= rarcdump.exe
.RARC = rarcdump.exe
.BTI (Textures) = btidump.exe

*May not be compressed, but there are also many variants of this format by other companies on a number of consoles. Don't be surprised if you find a game that uses this format and it doesn't extract because its not the Nintendo variant.

After using rarcdump.exe, you should have a new folder called
"*filename*.rarc_dir". Inside you should find a bunch of folders. You may see a lot of files, but you're looking for files with the .BMD or .BDL extension. Open up BMDVIeW2, open your .BMD/.BDL file, and select export model from the file menu (Export textures isn't neccessary IIRC). From here you can import the model into your program of choice. Make sure to convert the textures to .PNG and all the basic stuff if you plan on submitting the model.

MaxBMD Script: http://www.mediafire.com/?8x48a4r84jjpac6

This tool requires as you might guess from the name, 3DS Max to use. The advantage is that it imports the bones of a model and the rigging. On some models it may import animations as well. The downside is the compatibility rate is considerably lower since its coding was based off of BMDView rather than BMDView2. It may only work on .BMD models too.

To use this tool, follow the steps of the above tool until you get to the part about using BMDView2. Import your BMD into Max and you're done. Fix up the obvious things like texture file type if you want to submit it and that's it.

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Wii games that use .BRRES format

While this isn't for every game, many games use the .brres format for the Wii. In fact all of these games do while some of them may be compressed or packed in other files.

Animal Crossing: City Folk
Arc Rise Fantasia
Arkanoid Plus [WiiWare]
Bomberman (JPN) [Retail] / Bomberman Blast [WiiWare]
Bleach: Versus Crusade
Bubble Bobble Plus [WiiWare]
Captain Rainbow
Case Closed: The Mirapolis Investigation
Castlevania Judgment
Cooking Mama
Dead Rising: Chop 'Till You Drop
Dewey's Adventure
Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo
Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors
Elebits
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Dark Lord [WiiWare]
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King [WiiWare]
Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon
Fullmetal Alchemist: Daughter of the Dusk
Fullmetal Alchemist: Prince of the Dawn
Furu Furu Park
Kamen Rider: Climax Heroes W
Klonoa
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
Mario Kart Wii
Metroid: Other M
Monster Hunter Tri
My Pokémon Ranch [WiiWare]
Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution
Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2
Naruto Shippuden: Gekitou Ninja Taisen! EX 3
Naruto Shippuden: Ryujinki
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams
Oneechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers
Pokémon Rumble [WiiWare]
PokéPark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure​
Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure [WiiWare]
Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
Samba de Amigo
Simple Wii Series Vol. 6: The Wai Wai Combat
Sin & Punishment 2: Successor to the Sky
Sonic Colors
Soul Eater: Monotone Princess
Space Invaders Get Even [WiiWare]
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekidou
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom
Tenchu: Shadow Assassins
Toshinden
Trauma Center: New Blood
Wario Land: Shake It/The Shake Dimension
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
Wii Fit
Wii Fit Plus
Wii Party
Wii Play
Wii Music
Wii Sports
Wii Sports Resort
Xenoblade
Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Wheelie Breakers
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure

Big thanks to Random Talking Bush for the list.

You'll need to use a set of model correction tools to fix some of these, but its not a big issue. Moving on to what you'll need for this:

Wii Scrubber: http://www.mediafire.com/?smvanqedolqs7oh

Extracts files from Wii ISO's. You can also use it to replace files among other things in case you want to mod a game.

Dolphin: http://www.dolphin-emulator.com/

Probably the best Gamecube and Wii emulator available besides maybe private ones by Nintendo. As a side feature, it extracts files from Wii and Gamecube ISO's. Just set your ISO directory by going to Options->Configure, clicking the paths tab, and then click add to select a directory. When that's set up, right click a game in Dolphin's main window click properties, go to the filesystem tab and then right click and extract files if you wish.

.BRRES model viewer/converter: http://www.mediafire.com/file/zdr4chm4m3...viewer.rar

This tool is pretty straightforward. Just make sure everything is in working order before submitting stuff from it. It converts models to PSK/MD5 first by the way.

That should do it by itself, but there are also a few other programs that can be used for this, most of them not as good, but usable.

ActorX (.psk) importer for 3DSMax: http://www.gildor.org/projects/unactorx

You run the script and import the model, that's it. I can't imagine you could have trouble with this unless you're using an ancient version of Max. After you import you just select polygons by material ID, link the materials and there you go.

MD5 model importers: http://www.modwiki.net/wiki/MD5_%28file_format%29

I know at the very least the Blender script works, but I can't vouch for the other ones. But after you successfully import it you do the same thing you'd do if you were using the ActorX importer. You just select polygons by material ID and link your materials to them. Simple enough.

Kryal's BrawlBox 0.64 Beta: http://www.mediafire.com/?nyrmmgzhtnm

Not that it doesn't work, but I've had issues with this converter before personally. If it works for you great, but I'd suggest trying .Brres Model viewer first. Most models will also need to be fixed up with fortwaffles' tools first so make sure to do that if you use this program. Exports in .DAE, but do test it first to make sure it came out right.

Fortwaffles's model correction tools: http://www.mediafire.com/?ngdj2yznyt2

Basically converts models in a format much closer to Brawl's native one so that they work with BrawlBox. Just run a model through all of them and you should be good.

There's a few more converters, but these ones are probably the best choice for you to use. I can post them up if someone asks, but don't expect they'll work better than those above.

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Various Unreal Engine games

While this isn't going to be able to rip from every Unreal Engine game under the sun, its confirmed to work just fine for many of them. This tool supports games from every current version of the Unreal Engine although it is known to work more with Unreal Engine 3 games more than anything else. I'd put a list of what exactly it rips from, but he updates the tool often enough that I'd probably end up letting the list get way out of date. Thankfully, when you run the tool without commands it gives you a complete list of games that it can rip from so its pretty obvious right away. Still, here's a list of just a few of the popular games that can be ripped with this tool:

Any Unreal Tournament game
Bioshock
Borderlands
Gears of War 1 and 2
Mass Effect 1 and 2
Medal of Honor 2010
Mirror' Edge
Star Wars Republic Commando
Splinter Cell 1 and 2

And there's far more too as I said before. Check here for a fairly up to date list: http://www.gildor.org/projects/umodel/compat

Unreal Model Viewer: http://www.gildor.org/en/projects/umodel

A pretty straightforward tool, but you need to be able to use command prompt to use it. I won't walk you through that since there are countless guides for that already on the internet. Just search "Command Prompt running programs" or something to that effect and you should be able to find what you need to know.

As per usual with command line programs, you can just run it with the help command or without any commands to see its command list. Its fairly straightforward and all you really have to do to convert anything is put in Umodel -*export file type* *filename*. Remember if you go with .psk format to rename your .pskx file to .psk before importing or else your script won't look for it. If you are converting just textures alone you don't need to specify a format since it only converts them to .TGA.

The models are stored in different places from game to game, often with the textures for them in a separate folder. In most of them its fairly straightforward, but in Unreal Tournament 2004 for example some of the models are stored in the slightly misleading animations folder. Levels are generally where you expect them to be though in the aptly named maps folder.

ActorX (.psk) importer for 3DSMax: http://www.gildor.org/projects/unactorx

You run the script and import the model, that's it. I can't imagine you could have trouble with this unless you're using an ancient version of Max. After you import you just select polygons by material ID, link the materials and there you go.

MD5 model importers: http://www.modwiki.net/wiki/MD5_%28file_format%29

This definitely works for Blender, but I can't vouch for the other programs. After you successfully import it you do the same thing you'd do if you were using the ActorX importer. You just select polygons by material ID and link your materials to them. Simple enough.

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I'll post up stuff for more games when I have time.