Question:

Is it possible to edit the mice in Petz 4 or 5?

Answer:

You can hex the mice in Petz 4 and 5 the same way as for Petz 3.  The
.lnz files which you would hex are in the Petz 4 Rez.dll (or Petz 5
Rez.dll).  These .dll files are ones which you would not be able to
share on the Internet with others, as they are core game files, not the
peripheral files that we usually edit -- clothes, breedz etc (and the
Petz 5 one is huge).  But there is nothing to stop you from editing them
in your own game or distributing them as small patches.
Petz II mice can also be edited in a similar fashion, and Oddballz Grubz.

The mouse .lnz files can be found by opening Petz 4 Rez.dll in your hex
editor and searching for mousesnd.txt.  When you get there, you want to
scroll up slightly until you get to [Num Ballz]..16.  Put the cursor in
front of that, and select from there down to PFM_[V2.001].  Choose Copy;
open a new file in the hex editor, choose Paste, and save this new file
as mouse.txt.  You can then open it in Notepad and edit it; both mouse
.lnz files are in there.  You can also change the sounds if you want, by
directing \ptzfiles\mouse\mousesnd.txt to a different sounds list on
your hard drive (and of course putting new sounds wherever that list
points to).  You can copy the mouse sounds list out in the same manner
as the .lnz file; you find it by searching for
path=ptzfiles\mouse\sounds and selecting from Sounds root to
MSstrug4.WAV.

As regards behaviours, there is no way I know of being able to edit the
actual mouse behaviour files; I keep looking for a way in which it's
possible for the hand to stroke the mouse, but so far without luck.

If you want to distribute hexed mice of your own for other people to
put in their games, then you are going to need a patcher program.
Remember to warn downloaders that they need to keep a backup of
their .dll file.  You can find a shareware patcher at
http://www.funduc.com/text/

Others may be available; try searching on www.google.com.  I have an 
old DOS freeware one which requires some ability to use a DOS box, 
and I may upload it to this archive if there is enough interest.

It would also be possible to distribute the simple .lnz itself, if
people are willing to download and learn how to use the freeware
Resource Hacker, available from
http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/

for a more detailed instruction on how to edit the mice, here is the
information copy/pasted from my Petz 3 tutorial:

THE MICE! (and cockroaches)
==========================

It is possible to change your default mice and cockroach shapes, colours 
and even sounds.  The bad news is that you need to hex edit the 
"Petz 3 Rez.dll" file which is in your Resource directory, so you 
won't be able to put your special mice up for download in the same 
way as you can put up your breedz etc.  The good news is that you can 
put up the .LNZ itself, for anyone else who understands how to download 
and insert it into their own copy, and the sounds.

But please _please_ backup your "Petz 3 Rez.dll" file in a very safe place 
before you even begin to touch this; if you don't, and you accidentally 
corrupt it, your game will either not run or will crash, and you will 
have no option but to reinstall the game.

The .LNZ text for these starts at offset number 040C38.  When you've 
scrolled down to that part of the file, highlight from the beginning of

[Num Ballz]..16 

down to 

PFM_[V2.001] (c) 1997 PF. Magic, Inc. Lets not talk about me

Copy this to a new file and save it as a .txt file.  Open it in Notepad 
and you will see that it has three sections, two of which contain [Linez], 
[Addballz], and all three of which contain [Ballz Info]; the first section 
is the cockroach and the last two are the two mice.

Edit these in the same way as you would the breedfiles in the main Petz 3 
tutorial, it's all pretty straightforward if you've followed that okay.  
You can change shape, colour and sizes; indulge your imagination.  But 
remember to keep the edited textfile _exactly_ the same length as the original.

Paste it back in to the same area of the .DLL, run the game and eureka!  
Hexed mice!

Okay, so now you want to change the sounds.  In the mouse LNZ textfile, 
change \ptzfiles\mouse\mousesnd.txt to something like 
\resource\mouses\mousesn.txt and make a "mouses" subdirectory off the 
resource directory.

Now you need to get the textfile "mousesn.txt".  You could do a search in 
the .Dll for 

Sounds root path=ptzfiles\mouse

and extract the list to a textfile.  But to save you the effort, here's 
the list; just copy everything between the +++++++ lines to a text file:

+++++++
Sounds root path= ptzfiles\mouse\sounds
MSeat1.WAV
MSeat2.WAV
MSeat3.WAV
none.wav
none.wav
none.wav
MSfear1.WAV
MSfear2.WAV
MSfear3.WAV
none.wav
none.wav
none.wav
MSidle1.WAV
none.wav
MSidle3.WAV
MSidle4.WAV
MSidle5.WAV
none.wav
MSidle7.WAV
none.wav
none.wav
MSstrug1.WAV
MSstrug2.WAV
MSstrug3.WAV
MSstrug4.WAV 
+++++++

Save this file as mousesn.txt and put it into your resource\mouses\ directory.  
Now, open it and change the directory and one letter of each WAV line, so that 
it looks something like:

Sounds root path=resource\mouses\sound
MSeam1.WAV
MSeam2.WAV
MSeam3.WAV
etc

Now you need to make the soundfiles and put them in a "sound" subdirectory off 
the mouse directory.  Make sure that they are not too big -- really you don't 
want them bigger than 15k, but I suppose you could make bigger, I haven't 
tried -- and that they are 22,050 Hz, 4 bit, Mono.  Name them exactly as the 
.WAV files are named in the .txt list.

Run the game -- your mice should now speak with the voices you chose!

The cockroaches can be edited in exactly the same way, using the cockroach part 
(first section) of the mouse .LNZ and the cockroach sound list:

+++++++
Sounds root path= ptzfiles\mouse\sounds
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
roach.wav
++++++++

The observant will notice that only one WAV file is needed for the roach :-)

Follow the same directions as for the mouse, and there's no reason why it shouldn't 
work.

Enjoy

Carolyn Horn


