Asset Extraction

Asset extraction is the process of separating specific data from software. In a sprite animation context, it's mostly used for the sake of obtaining graphics or audio belonging to a video game. Another well-known name for this process is ripping (with the extracted assets sometimes referred to as rips, e.g. sprite rips).

It's usually correct to assume that, for popular games, someone may already have gone through this process and shared the results on the web for others to benefit from, but not always. If that's not the case (or the existing extractions are of poor quality), it may be a good idea to attempt this on your own.

Extraction approaches
At its easiest, graphics or audio can be extracted from a video game by way of a recording:


 * For graphics, that's usually done via screenshots (and probably some kind of frame-stepping functionality)
 * For audio, a capture of what's currently being sent to your speakers (and usually a way to play only the audio fragment wanted, with nothing else mixed in)

If you're lucky, in cases where a recording is not practical, it may be the case that an existing computer program can do the job, and so all that may be required is a matter of following the relevant usage instructions for that software. Otherwise, more challenging extraction projects may involve some sort of reverse engineering, possibly requiring programming knowledge, in order to develop the necessary tooling.