Viewing NDS graphics

[Dopefish]

Hey everybody, I have some certain NDS games... and NO I WILL NOT TELL YOU WHERE TO GET THEM...and I'm trying to extract the sprites from them. Now, I can get most of them from unLZ-GBA, but problem is, due to varying constraints in programming, we can't get nearly all of them in one version (Had to use two versions to get as far as we did, but still missing important graphics), so I was wondering, is there some other way to view NDS graphics (apparently with the LZ compression) besides using unLZ-GBA? Or is there perhaps a more recent version of said program, or related program or patch or something? Thanks.

[The 9th Sage]

> Hey everybody, I have some certain NDS games... and NO I
> WILL NOT TELL YOU WHERE TO GET THEM...and I'm trying to
> extract the sprites from them.

Well, I suppose you could try extracting the files and then looking at likely files individually...might narrow it down. Otherwise, from what I've heard just try looking for 2-D sprites as you would with a GBA game. It sounds like much of that stuff is the same as in GBA. If it's 3-D, I know of a program called NDS-packer that can view the uncompressed 3-D models in Metroid Prime: Hunters demo, but I don't think the person who programmed it ever did add in support for the compression which I would guess most games would use (why wouldn't they use it?).

Heh, guess that isn't that helpful...which game are you working on btw, not asking where to get it. I'll dump my own if I want a copy of them. :)<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by The 9th Sage on 09/19/05 12:39 AM.</FONT></P>

[Dopefish]

> Heh, guess that isn't that helpful...which game are you
> working on btw, not asking where to get it. I'll dump my
> own if I want a copy of them. :)
>


Well, mate, can ya suggest another program to use to extract the individual files? And also one to look at the files individually? I've never used anything more advanced than Tile Editor (actually, forgot the name) because I've never needed to.

Also, the game is Advance Wars DS. I have the US, JP, and EU beta versions.

[Atma]

Tile Molester is pretty much your best bet i'd say. you may need to allocate it more memory though, given DS roms are pretty big. from the help file:

Out of memory error when loading really large files. Nothing much I can do with it as it is due to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). It can be rectified by forcing the JVM to grab more system memory on startup. Run Tile Molester from the command line with the option -mxXm, where X is the number of megabytes you require; i.e. java -mx500M -jar tm.jar to allocate 500MB.

just allocate as much as needed for it to open the file and you should be fine.

-

I missed the part about LZ compression <_< still, you could give tile molester a go and see if it helps you out.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by Atma on 09/19/05 09:06 AM.</FONT></P>

[The 9th Sage]

> Well, mate, can ya suggest another program to use to extract
> the individual files? And also one to look at the files
> individually? I've never used anything more advanced than
> Tile Editor (actually, forgot the name) because I've never
> needed to.

You can extract the files from an NDS card image using NDStool (I think there are others, but NDStool is what I use...can't remember what the other is called). You can get it from Darkfader's website...except it seems to be down, so try the attatchment in this post.

C:Serverxampphtdocszopharoldwwwthreadsattachmentsn dstool.zip

[Dopefish]

aye, the zip, 'tis corrupted. :<

[Fortune]

Doesnt work for me...

[The 9th Sage]

> aye, the zip, 'tis corrupted. :

Eesh, that figures...the board software must be doing that...it seems to happen a lot lately...I was hoping I was exempt. ;)

Try the link on this page http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/zdd2/NDStool/index.htmlhere</a>. It's on Angelfire, but that's the only webspace I have that isn't just for images. :P make sure you open a new window or it probably won't work. You're also gonna need the windows binaries of Cygwin (unless something has changed since the first versions of the tool).<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by The 9th Sage on 09/20/05 02:04 PM.</FONT></P>

[Dopefish]

Thanks. A little bit o' help here, if you will. How exactly do I extract something? The -X parameter, it does naathing for me.

[The 9th Sage]

> Thanks. A little bit o' help here, if you will. How exactly
> do I extract something? The -X parameter, it does naathing
> for me.

ndstool -x "game.nds" -d "directory" <-- now correct :P

That's probably what you're forgetting...that kept happening to me until I realized I had to specify a directory to extract the files to, which makes sense.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by The 9th Sage on 09/20/05 11:19 PM.</FONT></P>

[Dopefish]

ndstool -x -d fwds fwds.nds

That good? Because it's not working for me, and I have that platform or whatever installed...

[The 9th Sage]

> That good? Because it's not working for me, and I have that
> platform or whatever installed...

Oops, I'm sorry...

ndstool -x "game.nds" -d "directory"

is how it's supposed to go...heh, sorry about that.
<img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif>

[Dopefish]

A'ight, sweet, thanks. Any suggestions as to the programs to use from here? If not, das cool, I'll try to find one.

[The 9th Sage]

> A'ight, sweet, thanks. Any suggestions as to the programs to
> use from here? If not, das cool, I'll try to find one.

I'm not sure....since you're looking for 2-D I'd think anything that worked for the GBA would work. I'd just try it out on likely looking files (filenames and directories might give you a hint).