Reference... Utilities... Guest Info...

Go to the mad Scientist Page
for Demo Foolers, modified exe files and other unusual stuff
Go to my LNZ breakdown chunks
for some very useful information on the LNZ files which make up the core of your new Petz breed, Oddballz breed, or Babyz. Also helps in understanding the .CLZ part of a clothing file etc. Really. No, really. Do go and see. It might stop you from writing to me to pick my brains; most of my brain-pickings are there :-)
Download the petz editing manual
Compiled by Nicholas Sherlock of Sherlock Software from my LNZ information and other info. Makes the sections easier to find, as well as providing a set of great colour-charts for all of the games and a good visual aid to x,y,z coordinates. The file is in CHM help format. Only up to date as far as Feb 2005; check out my LNZ breakdown chunks for later info
Go here for a brief note on the 2006 UbiSoft "Petz" games
Go here for my Babyz-specific tutorials, fixes and howtos
Go here for my Oddballz-specific tutorials, fixes and howtos
Go here for my Petz-specific tutorials and howtos
Go here for modified .exe files and oddities like sprite-swapping etc
And here for Tinker, LNZPro, Pet Workshop, and extra petz features
LNZPro 2 tips here
Tinker and LNZPro 2 tips here
PLEASE NOTE that almost all the tutorials and howtos on my pages were written before Nicholas created the marvellous LNZPro and Tinker tools. All the info in my howtos is still valid for anyone who wants to understand what goes on "under the hood", and my "easy" packages are still fun to use, but these two new tools make things amazingly easy for us hexers. Give 'em a try, you know you want to :-)

Reference items and Fixes
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What IS "hexing"?
What to do if Petz won't start or crashes.
What to do if Babyz won't start or crashes.
An explanation of how I personally edit and why I do it that way
What hexing is and what tools you need
My Colour Chart for Petz II, 3, 4, 5 hexing
My Colour Chart for Babyz hexing
How to find the ID number ('The Byte' or 'Offset')
My own breedz ID numbers list
as sent to Petz Offset Numbers Directory at the end of Aug 2003, for anyone who cares
How to play with petz from same-name, different-ID breedz
Where to find serials for older games
What to do if my breedz crash your game.
This is the Windows XP problem. Also added info on Petz 5 sound not working in WinXP SP2
What to do if your game freezes, or Omar's Debugger gets stuck
A quick subsitute for the important part of Omar's debugger
Also known as the Brain Sliders, or Biorhytm Sliders.
Useful for breeding petz and for altering pet age, health etc
Status report on 2nd-gen research
updated 02 October 2005 (more on [Fur Color Areas])
Getting all the Petz 5 toys in your toycase
Note -- Daniel of Odd-petz has created a newer version of this.
Mine was made before I had the game, so I was working "blind" and one or two toyz may be missing.
I keep it here because it basically works, it's the one I use (because I'm too lazy to change it), and it's a kind of curiosity for people who collect my stuff :-)
Some tips for fixing ResHacker problems
ResHacker versus "easy-edit" packages
ResHacker -- changing bitmaps
Yet another attempt to explain how to edit the ID number
How to put bitmap headers on filmstrips
Not really needed since the arrival of Tinker for easy filmstrip-splitting, but interesting perhaps to some.

USEFUL UTILITIES
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Nicholas Sherlock's utilities
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Petz 5 toyz editor, LNZ file editor...

PFE, useful for Pet to breed editing:
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PFE (programmer's file editor)
don't be put off by the "programmer's"; it's just a very useful text editor.

Hex editors:
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Axe hex editor I use this for splitting filmstrips.
Hex Workshop Shareware, handy because it has a checksum facility.
There are loads of hex editors available; just do a search using
Google for: "Hex editor" Freeware
Note: I will not send you the hex editors etc that I use (download them yourself) and I will not recommend any particularly; the ones listed here I happen to use but that doesn't mean you'll like them best. Lots of people use different ones. Find one that you like and experiment with it on something unimportant.

Resource editors:
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ResHacker
Freeware, use for Win 32 resource files only (Petz 2-5 .dog or .cat files etc)
eXeScope
Shareware, use for Oddballz, Dogz 1 or Catz 1 resource files -- Windows ones; Mac users have ResEdit :-)

Other handy tools:
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Pet2bmp by Bryan Franklin (Fraggle)
I use this for getting a quick Adoption-centre picture of a pet. For Petz II, Petz 3 or Petz 4 petz only. Pet2ply by Bryan Franklin (Fraggle)
Makes online "player" files such as the one I have of Phantarella on my front page. Compatible only with the Petz 3 or Petz 4 players.
Speedwagon75's brilliant "unmute" utility for Petz 5 pets
Firebird's excellent Hexing tools
Omar's PetzDebug utility for Petz II, 3, 4 and 5.
If you're looking for the Debugger while Omar's site is down, you should be able to find it at Turn Blue K&C in the Help section, under Downloads; also I believe that it's now available at Daniel Wright's Odd-Petz site Also there's a partial alternative -- which is what I use -- at the top of this page. Lesley's Petz 4 Playscene Converter

Guest Information
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These are pages of information which Ron Tigat had up at his Odd Planet site; while that site is down, it seemed a shame for this information to be lost. These pages are of interest to people who edit for Oddballz and like to know in-depth stuff. Although Oddballz is not a Win32 game, the information is still useful for those of us who edit for the Win32 Petz games.
Changing the size of a file
A study of the .flh section

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