AssetRipper vs Crowbar

AssetRipper is an analysis tool for game developers working with Unity game files. It can identify accidentally included dependency assets, broken asset references, and code that could not be inlined or trimmed, as well as convert assets to native Unity format. Unity Project Export creates a project that can be opened in Unity Editor. For viewing content outside Unity, Primary Content Export produces meshes, scenes, and prefabs as GLB models, including for Blender workflows. Supported Unity versions range from 3.5.0 to 6000.4.X, with support quality varying by version. Free stable and nightly builds are available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Premium access costs $10 a month while an eligible membership is active, and includes features such as shader decompilation, static mesh separation, prefab outlining, asset path overrides, user-defined package export, and deduplication. Vulkan and OpenGL shaders can be decompiled on any platform, but DirectX shaders are limited to Windows. Traditional Il2Cpp analysis succeeds on about 10% to 20% of methods on x86 games, with lower success on other platforms.

Crowbar is a free Windows tool for modding GoldSource and Source Engine games. It can decompile, compile, and view models, as well as unpack, inspect, and search Valve VPK, Garry's Mod GMA, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines VPK, Tactical Intervention FPX, and Fairy Tale Busters APK packages. It can also pack folders into Valve VPK and Garry's Mod GMA files. Decompilation can recreate QC, mesh, animation, and procedural-bone files, while batch workflows can process a selected folder and its subfolders. Crowbar supports downloading Workshop items and publishing them for several games. The maker says Windows XP or later and .NET Framework 4 are required. Compiling models needs the game's authoring tools or SDK and its studiomdl.exe; viewing models needs authoring tools or an SDK and hlmv.exe. The latest release shown is version 0.74, dated February 2023. Help materials include guides, tutorials, reference resources, Discord, and Steam discussions.