Ripping Models & Textures With Ninja Ripper
Software you’ll need:
Ninja Ripper (website)
Noesis (website)
3D modeling software (Blender is free)
Extract ninjaripperX.X.X.7z and navigate to either the x86 or x64 folder:
If the game you’re trying to rip from is 32-bit, use the x86 executable. If it’s 64-bit use the x64 one.
Start NinjaRipper.exe
In this case I’ll be ripping from Mass Effect: Andromeda, which is a 64-bit game.
Click the [...] here and select the executable for the game you’re ripping from.
Change this to where you want all the models and textures to be ripped to.
Warning: depending on the game the output for each rip can be several gigs, so don’t pick a drive that has little space left.
This is where you may need to do some trial and error to get Ninja Ripper working.
This is the method of injecting Ninja Ripper into the game so it can, well, rip.
Start with “Intruder inject”, if that doesn’t work try the next one down.
For Mass Effect: Andromeda the D3D11 wrapper was the only thing that would work for me.
The D3DX wrappers work by putting a d3dx.dll file in game’s directory, this file is loaded automatically when the game is run.
This means you can rip from the game even if Ninja Ripper isn’t running.
You should delete this file when you’re done ripping.
Click the Settings button in the lower left, this is where you set the shortcut keys for ripping.
I use Ctrl+F10 to rip “All”, which means models and textures. If you just want to rip textures, use that shortcut.
I'm not sure what “Forced” does.
Hit that “Run” button and hope it works
If the game runs, that’s a good start. If not, try changing the inject method.
It may take several seconds for the game to start, so wait a little while.
Intruder inject will not work if there’s a d3dx.dll file already, you’ll have to delete it (it tells you this).
Go to the thing you want to rip in the game
In this example I’m ripping a character’s head model.
This program only rips models and textures that are “visible”, so you need whatever you want to rip to be in view and as close as possible, to get the highest resolution model/textures possible (LOD and whatnot).
Hit that rip button
If the game freezes, that usually means it worked.
After several seconds it should unfreeze.
What now?
Navigate to your output folder, there should now be a _NinjaRipper folder.
Inside that there should be another folder with a name like “2017.03.30_22.13.09_GameName.exe_238″, this should have a bunch of .rip and .dds files in it.
Converting the .rip files with Noesis
Assuming everything worked and you now have a bunch of .rip files, you’ll need to convert them to something usable by Blender or whatever 3D software you’re using.
Extract Noesis if you haven’t already (link’s at the top).
Noesis can’t open .rip files by default, but Ninja Ripper comes with a plugin for Noesis.
Copy fmt_ninjaripper_rip.py from the Ninja Ripper folder to the plugins/python folder in the Noesis folder, as shown:
Run Noesis
Find the folder with all the .rip and .dds files in the left panel. When you select it they should pop up in the middle panel.
This is where it gets tedious
As far as I know there’s no easy way to do this, you just have to literally go through them one by one.
However, you’ll eventually figure out that certain things are certain sizes, assuming you have a basic understanding of file sizes.
In this case I’m looking for a head model. There’s no way it’s going to be 1KB, so those can be ruled out immediately.
In the case of Mass Effect: Andromeda, it turns out the head models are usually between 600KB-800KB.
This time I got lucky and it was one of the first models.
Once you find a model you’re interested in, click File > Export and export it. You may need to experiment with settings to get the correct output.
For Mass Effect: Andromeda Flip UV’s is necessary, otherwise you’ll have to do it manually for the textures to work.
What about textures?
Same idea: use an image viewer (I use IrfanView with DDS plugin) to go through the .dds textures to find the ones you’re looking for.
Import the output into your 3d software and have fun!
Unfortunately some games don’t play nicely with Ninja Ripper, and the rips are broken or deformed, like in this case.