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How to Extract Sprites From a VBA

Visual Boy Advance, or VBA, is an emulation program that allows you to run Nintendo Gameboy Advance games on a PC. One of the features of the program is the ability to extract graphical elements from the games as well. These two dimensional images are called "sprites." It is possible to extract sprites from the emulator to then open them in any image editing software. However, you should only do this for personal use because using the sprites in any commercial fashion is illegal.

Instructions

Using Screen Captures
- 1
  Start "VBA" and click "File," "Open" to select the game you want to extract the sprites from. The latest version of the emulator is available from the VBA website.
- 2
  Start the game and play until a scene where the sprites you want to extract are visible. Click "Options" and "Video" before clicking on the "Layers" option. Click once, one each layer, with a name that starts with "BG" to disable them. These are the background layers.
- 3
  Click "File" and "Screen Capture" to save an image of all the sprites on the screen. The emulator allows you to save the image as a "PNG" or "BMP" file which you can now open with any image editing program.
Using the "OAM" viewer
- 4
  Start "VBA" and click "File," "Open" to select the game you want to extract the sprites from. The latest version of the emulator is available from the VBA website.
- 5
  Start the game and play until you reach a scene where the sprites you want to extract are visible on the screen.
- 6
  Click "Tools" and "OAM Viewer." Drag the slider underneath "Sprite" (left on the screen) to cycle through all the available sprites currently displayed.
- 7
  Click "Save" once you find the sprite that you want to extract. Type in a name for the file and select either the "PNG" or "BMP" format for the sprite. Click "Save" again to store your newly extracted sprite.

Game Boy