Tutorial  on “How to rip sprites from DBZ Budokai 3“ by MaJiTa

1.   Before starting:
You need:
•   A fast computer (preferably dual core and at least 1GB memory)
•   Budokai 3 (iso)
•   Savegame with all characters (can be downloaded from ngemu forum or whatever) google it.\
•   PCSX2 (current version is 0.9.2) + bios
•   Photoshop
•   Animation shop (or comparable)
2.   Setup:
•   Use pcsx2.exe
 
•   Setup the controller to your liking and the videocard to 1024-768 resolution ( or higher if you want)
•   During emulation you can change video settings
o   F4: frame limit mode (this makes everything go black once changed so don’t touch it (unless you want to rip special effects which somehow get on top of the black)
o   F5: interlace toggle (useless)
o   Shift+f5: bilinear filtering.
o   
o   F6: anti aliasing (I always switch to x4 for ripping for best quality. It’s much slower though
o   F7: video recording! AH! Now this is important. You need to find out which encoder works best for you with animation shop. Some types animation shop can’t seem to open and some are really slow when recording. Also try to maintain quality as high as possible by using  100% compression quality. (I use Microsoft video 1. Files get huge so don’t record too long. I rip 5 animations max)
•   States! Use them! Save a state once you’re at the place you want to rip from
o   F1 to save a state
o   F2 to cycle between states
o   F3 to load states
3.   Ripping time
•   Choose your character and a character of equal size
•   Use the hyperbolic time chamber to rip (you’ll see why later)
Some things you have to be aware of are angles of the camera and distance. You may want to rip from as close to the character as possible and mind the light source. Use sidesteps to position your character in the best looking position for nice shading. And remember the angle! Notice the difference:


Once you’re all ready for it, record the animation you want by pressing F7 and choosing the video plugin.
Perform the move and try to avoid getting behind the other character or hitsparks or anything. (press F7 to toggle between recording and not recording. You can pause from recording!) Once done, hit escape to leave the game (then file->exit) (make sure you saved a state which you can load next time to skip immediately to ingame.)
You’ll notice a file ‘zerogs.avi’ in your pcsx2 folder. Play it to check your movie!
4.   Getting the frames!
•   Now you want to load your recorded movie in animation shop(file->open). Make sure you only load 100 frames at a time otherwise things will go
Sllooowww:
•   Now select the frames of 1 animation (for example all the stance’s unique frames) by pressing the first and the last frame while holding shift
•   Cut and paste them to open them in a new animation.
•   Select all frames in your animation by pressing ctrl+a
•   Remove frames by using the ‘cull animation’ option. (I assume you don’t want to use ALL frames) Reduce them to a reasonable number of frames. For the stance I use cull down to 5 frames. (you can cull the animation multiple times…duhh)

 
•   Select all the frames again (ctrl_A) Now go to file-> save frames as.
Done with getting the frames! Now it’s time to start using photoshop
5.   Getting rid of the background and edit the sprites. FINAL STEP!

Removing the background!
•   First open photoshop and a frame (you can also copy paste them on one big sheet and flatten all layers to do multiple frames at a time
•   Now duplicate the layer so you have to the exact same layers!

•   Select the top layer and go to image->adjustment->brightness/contrast. Then increase that until the background is almost gone (don’t mind your characters colors)
 
•   Select it using the magic wand tool. (make sure the settings are right though (tolerance and contagious: 0 and on!) sometimes there’s a little edge around your character. Select that edge also by expanding your selection (select->modify->expand (1)). Also select other parts you want to remove!

•   Now you got the background selected, make the top layer invisible, select the real layer and delete it! Make sure you get a black background color!

•   ALMOST THERE! Now go to -> image and resize it to your likings. Compare with classic games like capcom or guilty gear to see how big your sprite has to be. I suggest resizing by using percentages (easy to remember and keeping the same for every sprite)!
•   When resized, select the background again using the magic wand, go to select->modify->smooth (1px) and again, select the remaining black parts from the background! Delete it (making it a pink background)… You can remove the top layer you used to get rid of the background if you want.

•   Now you can start editing your spites really quick (colors):
o   Brightness/contrast, levels, curves… whatever you want.
o   You can also apply Filter->blur->smart blur to reduce messyness a bit. Just experiment with it.
•   Now you’re done… make sure your pink background is still only 1 color! Select it with the magic wand…. If not everything is selected then increase tolerance to 10 and select everything again… When everything IS selected, just delete it (to fill it with pink…the second color will be the background color when there’s no transparent frame behind it) again.

Result: