This repo has some stuff for ripping 3D models from the Nintendo DS. It works Ninja Ripper-style, where to rip a model, you play in an emulator until the model is on screen, then press a key to dump everything drawn in one frame to a file. A Blender addon can import the dump.
If you want to convert an .nsbmd model file instead, I have another project for that.
MelonRipper consists of two parts: a patched melonDS for ripping dump files, and a Blender addon for importing them.
First, you need to build the patched melonDS. Windows users can download a precompiled EXE. Otherwise, compile the scurest:MelonRipper branch from my copy of melonDS. Build instructions are in melonDS's ReadMe.
Open the emulator. There should be a new hotkey for ripping a frame. Go to Config ‣ Input and hotkeys ‣ Add-ons and assign a hotkey to "[MelonRipper] Rip" (I used [F]).
Now when you're playing a game
you can press the hotkey
to rip the next frame to a .dump file
in the current directory.
Blender 2.82+ is required. Last tested with Blender 3.5.
To install the addon, open
import_melon_rip.py
and save it to your computer.
Then in Blender,
go to Edit ‣ Preferences ‣ Add-ons ‣ Install...
and select the file you just saved.
Enable the addon by clicking the checkbox
next to "Import: MelonRipper NDS Dumps" in the addon list
(use the search box to find it).
See the
Blender Manual
or
this question
for more help installing addons.
Then go to File ‣ Import ‣ MelonRipper NDS Dump
and pick the .dump file you ripped with melonDS
to import it.
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If the colors are washed out, try switching Blender's color space from "Filmic" to "Standard". See this answer.
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If you're having trouble finding the model in the viewport, try View ‣ Frame Selected.
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Sometimes different parts of the scene are displaced relative to each other. I think that's because they're drawn with different "cameras". (Dumped vertex position are all after the ModelView matrix but before the Projection.)
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Normals aren't ripped. The calculated lighting is baked into the vertex colors.
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Strip connectivity is not preserved. All faces in Blender are totally separate from each other, even if they were originally part of a polygon strip.
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Vertex colors in the middle of a quad will look different in Blender than on the DS because quads on a PC are rendered as two tris, while the DS renders quads as real quads. The melonDS blog has a great explanation for this.
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Translucent (partially transparent) faces are imported with "Alpha Blend". This may have sorting problems in the Eevee renderer. If you have sorting issues, try Cycles.
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Some DS effects aren't implemented: fog, highlight, shadow, wireframe, edgemarking, depth equal, rear plane.
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Exporting to .gltf sort of works (use Blender ≥2.92 for best results). You will probably need to modify the materials to export to other formats.