Greetings!  So you wanna rip on ZSNES huh?  Well,  it's not hard,  and this little guide should tell you exactly how to do it.  If you have any questions, post them here.
 

what do I need?
what are the basics?
how do I begin?
common known headaches
making the animation
naming the file
submitting
advanced users only! (coming soon)
 
 
 
 
 

what do I need?

• always helps to have the latest version of ZSNES (currently 1.31b)
• a good animation program, such as animation shop 3
• lots of patience (this is pretty easy, but the more complicated stuff can get frusterating)

Basic keys to remeber:  numbers 1-5 drop out certain BG and sprites, and 6 returns everything to normal.  the F1 key pauses everything and opens the rip menu as shown here:

how do I begin?

    First lets say, your first rip, will be of the game Contra 3, the soldier shooting (that was my first rip).  First thing you must do is drop out the backgrounds, with the keys1-4 (5 is the character).  Next, press the button to make the character do whatever it is you want them to be doing during the rip, and quickly press the F1 key to pause the game and bring up the rip menu (if it is something like a street fighter move you must time  the exactly).  Finally, select "snapshot/increase frame" to take a picture AND move the game ahead one frame, do that until the image cycle completes (the key to this, is to find a point, in which the image, goes full-cycle, so it looks even).  Its better to take too many snapshots than too few.  Each snapshot is automatically placed in the zsnesw file.
 
 

common known headaches

    The biggest headache in ripping, is other images interferring with what you are trying to rip.  There is no solution for that, just try you best to get the shit to do right.  You must be careful that you take the snapshots from start to finish,  otherwise it will look terrible when you put everything togeather.  There is a way to get around this problem, but that is left to the advanced section.

making the animation  (animation shop 3)

    Before you do anything, write down the file name of the starting point, and ending of the animation cycle.  For example 1-10.  Sometimes if you are doing multiple animations, or forgot to clear out the files the last time, or maybe just took too damn many snapshots they might not be in order, and the first one might not be "image1".
 
 

Next, click the button called "Animation Wizard". In that setup, normally, just choose the default answers to the questions it will ask you.  In the next menu, add each image, in order.

CROP the image.  Easy concept,  you don't want all that useless crap in your image right?  You just want a part, like a character in the image right?  So you will need to crop it to get rid of the excess crap..
 
 

Click the crop button.   Then position the mouse to the corner of where you want tobegin cropping the image.  This sounds alot harder than it accually is.  With the corner selectedmove the mouse to the opposite corner so that the "box" is completly around the part of the image you want in the final animation.

 

So, now the image is cropped.  But you want to make the black BG transparent right?  Its easier than you think.
First, select the "dropper" and take a sample of the color you want to remove; in this case it is the black background.	Then go over to the color menu to add the sample color to the custom colors. once you click the color box, just click "add custom color" and it will add the sample to your list of custom colors.

To remove the color,  click the button at the top called "animation" and select the option "replace color."  In the replace color menu, select "all frames" and make the "old color" the sample color you just took and the "new color" the transparent.  Then click "ok."

thats it!!  after that you should have this image:  

now, the best part about this is,  you have a nice image,  only 2 frames long, and only 1.4K in size.  Of course other rips will be longer, and some alot harder.

Name the file

    The correct way to name any rip is system_gamename_character_action  such as snes_contra3_solider_shoot, or something like that,  just makes it easier for everyone to know what the image is and where to put it.

Submitting your rips

    Think your rip is good enough to be added to GifGoodness?  Find out, send you submitions to GifGoodness@hotmail.com.  Make sure it is labeled correctly.

ADVANCED USERS ONLY!!  (coming soon)

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