This is a note on changing Petz  5 backdrops, for hexers.  
I assume that you have a hex editor and that you know how to use 
it; if not, find and download one that appeals to you and learn 
how to use it and all its features.  This "howto" also assumes 
that you already know the basics of hexing petz files.

NOTE As always, keep backups.  As I say, this "howto" is for people 
who already know how to use a hex editor and how to look for items 
inside files with it.

If you want to change your backdrops in Petz 5 original scenes,
either use Resource Hacker to change them or use your hex editor as I did 
with my kitchen scene. 

If you're using Resource Hacker, as I say in my bitmap-changing howto
on the Infobits page, make sure that your chosen bitmap is renamed so 
as _not_ to have a .bmp extension.  Call it Mypic.bmm or something, just
so as it's not Mypic.bmp.  Now open the playscene in Resource Hacker,
get to the BMP section such that you actually see the picture on the 
right-hand side, right-click and choose Replace Resource, browse to find 
Mypic.bmm (or whatever you renamed it to) and click on it, then fill in 
BMP under Resource Type, Kitchen under Resource Name (or whatever playscene
name is the original in your chosen one), 1033 under Language, then hit 
Replace.  Don't forget to Save after that. 

If you're using a hex editor, you can do it two ways; Internal and
External.  The External method includes how to change sounds.

1) The Internal method:

For this, you need to locate the two big bitmaps.  There is another 
bitmap, a small one, which is the icon; of course you can change that 
also.  Search for the uppercase letters BM and you should be taken to 
the first bitmap, which is directly below the scene's ID number.  
If you don't know what I'm talking about, please read one of my basic 
hexing tutorials.  Now, the first BM is likely to be the icon -- this
depends on which scene you're editing.  See the "addendum" at the bottom
of this "howto" to check.  The addendum also tells you how large the
relevant icon is.  If you're using a scene with the icon first, you
have to find the start of the next bitmap.  Then open your own
bitmap into the hex editor and select the whole of it.  You want to
copy/paste it over the backdrop that's already in the scene; if it's a 
smaller size in bytes than the backdrop, then just select the relevant 
number of bytes in the scene, starting at the beginning of the backdrop 
bitmap of course, before choosing "paste".

Each backdrop is 2,359,352 bytes long (hexadecimal 240038), so if 
you copy your own over it in a hex editor, make sure that you don't 
make yours any bigger than 2,359,352.  You can make it smaller of
course, and fill out the remainder of the bitmap space with null 
bytes.  The icons vary in size in different scenes, so you're going 
to have to be careful in finding the start of the backdrop, but
the backdrops are all the same size.

Some scenes have no "night" backdrop, such as the Haunted Mansion,
which also happens to have the backdrop _before_ the icon, so if
you're editing that one you need to be aware of that. Arabia also 
has the icon after the backdrops. And some scenes have a third 
backdrop, such as the Salon and South Seas which have a different 
one also for a rainy day.  The Adoption Centre has a rainy day one; 
it also, curiously, has an old Petz 4 one tucked away in there which 
is in 256 colour and 787,510 (hex C0436) bytes long after the icon.

2) The external method:

This one is fun and flexible, and allows you to easily edit sounds etc
in the scene as well, just as with hexing the Petz 3 and 4 scenes,
without having to keep opening it in Resource Hacker or taking care
over sizes in the hex editor.

First, you need to find the List of everything that's in the .env file.
This List is above the first bitmap and the ID number, and in the Kitchen 
the start of it looks like this:

00040064 0000 0000 0000 0000 0300 4200 4D00 5000 ..........B.M.P.
00040080 0C00 4900 4300 4F00 4E00 5F00 4B00 4900 ..I.C.O.N._.K.I.
00040096 5400 4300 4800 4500 4E00 0700 4B00 4900 T.C.H.E.N...K.I.
00040112 5400 4300 4800 4500 4E00 0800 4B00 4900 T.C.H.E.N...K.I.
00040128 5400 4300 4800 4500 4E00 4E00 0300 5300 T.C.H.E.N.N...S.
00040144 5000 5200 1000 4B00 4900 5400 4300 4800 P.R...K.I.T.C.H.
00040160 4500 4E00 5F00 4300 4100 4200 4900 4E00 E.N._.C.A.B.I.N.

Now, if you want to re-direct your bitmaps to your hard drive, first
you want to make the game think that they are not inside this file.
You do this by changing one letter in B.M.P to something else; for
instance, change it to B.M.N.  Now you need to provide some bitmaps
or your game will crash when you try to go to the kitchen.  You do this
by creating a directory, using Windows Explorer or My Computer, off
your game's root directory, called "art".  Then create another off that
one, which must be called "sprites", then another off that called "Area",
and finally another off that called "Kitchen".  So you have a set of
directories, off your game's main directory, which looks like this:

\art\sprites\area\kitchen

Now put two background bitmaps (for day and night) and one icon bitmap 
into this kitchen directory and call them Kitchen.bmp, Kitchenn.bmp and 
icon_kitchen.bmp.  When you next start up the game and go to the kitchen, 
your bitmaps will be in place.
Note that some scenes have three background bitmaps if there is a "rain" 
one too -- such as the South Seas, where it is called SOUTHSEASR

The joy of this method is that once you've done it you can very easily 
change the bitmaps again any time you wish without the use of any hex editor.

For the sounds, you can do a similar thing; make the game think that there
are no sounds in the .env file by changing something in the List of everything
that's in the file.  You can see this in the Kitchen; there are several
sounds lists in this scene (T.X.T is followed by a series of list-names):


00040480 0300 5400 5800 5400 0D00 4100 4200 4F00 ..T.X.T...A.B.O.
00040496 5500 5400 5F00 4B00 4900 5400 4300 4800 U.T._.K.I.T.C.H.
00040512 4500 4E00 0E00 4200 4500 5600 4500 4E00 E.N...B.E.V.E.N.
00040528 5400 5F00 4B00 4900 5400 4300 4800 4500 T._.K.I.T.C.H.E.
00040544 4E00 1300 5300 4F00 5500 4E00 4400 5300 N...S.O.U.N.D.S.
00040560 5F00 4100 5200 4500 4100 5F00 4B00 4900 _.A.R.E.A._.K.I.
00040576 5400 4300 4800 4500 4E00 1B00 5300 4F00 T.C.H.E.N...S.O.
00040592 5500 4E00 4400 5300 5F00 4100 5200 4500 U.N.D.S._.A.R.E.
00040608 4100 5F00 4B00 4900 5400 4300 4800 4500 A._.K.I.T.C.H.E.
00040624 4E00 5F00 4300 4100 4200 4900 4E00 4500 N._.C.A.B.I.N.E.
00040640 5400 1A00 5300 4F00 5500 4E00 4400 5300 T...S.O.U.N.D.S.
00040656 5F00 4100 5200 4500 4100 5F00 4B00 4900 _.A.R.E.A._.K.I.
00040672 5400 4300 4800 4500 4E00 5F00 4600 5200 T.C.H.E.N._.F.R.
00040688 4900 4400 4700 4500 1800 5300 4F00 5500 I.D.G.E...S.O.U.
00040704 4E00 4400 5300 5F00 4100 5200 4500 4100 N.D.S._.A.R.E.A.
00040720 5F00 4B00 4900 5400 4300 4800 4500 4E00 _.K.I.T.C.H.E.N.
00040736 5F00 5300 4900 4E00 4B00 1A00 5300 4F00 _.S.I.N.K...S.O.
00040752 5500 4E00 4400 5300 5F00 4100 5200 4500 U.N.D.S._.A.R.E.
00040768 4100 5F00 4B00 4900 5400 4300 4800 4500 A._.K.I.T.C.H.E.
00040784 4E00 5F00 5700 4900 4E00 4400 4F00 5700 N._.W.I.N.D.O.W.

and then you see W.A.V followed by a load of sound-names:

00040800 0300 5700 4100 5600 1200 4500 4E00 5600 ..W.A.V...E.N.V.
00040816 5F00 4300 4100 4200 4900 4E00 4500 5400 _.C.A.B.I.N.E.T.
00040832 4300 4C00 4F00 5300 4500 3000 3000 1200 C.L.O.S.E.0.0...

You can simply change a letter of W.A.V and place your sounds,
which must of course be mono WAV files (can be 16-bit) and named:

env_refridgeratoron00.wav
env_refridgeratorhum02.wav
env_refridgeratoroff00.wav
env_cabintetopen00.wav
env_cabintetopen01.wav
env_cabintetopen08.wav
env_cabintetopen09.wav
env_cabinetclose00.wav
env_cabinetclose02.wav
env_cabinetclose13.wav
env_fridgeopen00.wav
env_fridgeopen01.wav
env_fridgeopen08.wav
env_fridgeopen08.wav
env_fridgeclose00.wav
env_fridgeclose02.wav
env_fridgeclose13.wav
env_fridgegrating01.wav
env_fridgegrating02.wav
env_sinkon1.wav
env_sinkwaterflowing03.wav
env_sinkoff1.wav
env_sinkoff2.wav
env_sinkdrip01.wav
env_sinkdrip02.wav
ktch_birdschirp03.wav
ktch_birdschirp18.wav
ktch_birdschirp19.wav
ktch_birdschirping23.wav
ktch_birdschirping24.wav
ktch_birdschirping25.wav
ktch_birdschirping26.wav
ktch_birdschirping27.wav
ktch_birdschirping28.wav
ktch_birdschirping29.wav
ktch_birdschirping30.wav
ktch_birdschirping31.wav
ktch_birdschirping32.wav
ktch_windowopen.wav
ktch_windowclose.wav

into this directory, that you create off the game's root directory:

Art\Sprites\Area\Kitchen\Sounds\

If you want to change the sounds' names, then you can either change
them inside the sounds texts -- search inside the .env file for 

Sounds root path=.

Each instance of "Sounds root path=." is the start of a sounds list,
a simple little text file.  If you edit them inside the playscene, you
will need to keep each list the same size as before. 

But if you want to have these little sounds lists external also, 
first of all you need to change a letter of T.X.T in the List of everything
that's in the .env -- so that the game doesn't think there are any .txt files
in there -- and then copy each of the sounds texts into a new file in the hex 
editor, save them as .txt files:

Sounds_Area_Kitchen.txt
Sounds_Area_Kitchen_Cabinet.txt
Sounds_Area_Kitchen_Fridge.txt
Sounds_Area_Kitchen_Window.txt
Sounds_Area_Kitchen_Sink.txt

For instance, the sink one will contain

Sounds root path=.
Art\Sprites\Area\Kitchen\Sounds\env_sinkon1.wav
Art\Sprites\Area\Kitchen\Sounds\env_sinkwaterflowing03.wav
Art\Sprites\Area\Kitchen\Sounds\env_sinkoff1.wav
Art\Sprites\Area\Kitchen\Sounds\env_sinkoff2.wav
Art\Sprites\Area\Kitchen\Sounds\env_sinkdrip01.wav
Art\Sprites\Area\Kitchen\Sounds\env_sinkdrip02.wav

and put them in the directory:

\Art\Sprites\Area\Kitchen\

You can then edit each sound's name inside each small text file
to suit yourself.  If you like, you can list the same sound for
each .wav or you can put NONE.WAV where you don't want a sound.
The point is that the game expects to see a certain number of sound
names and, although it won't crash if you don't have that number,
it won't necessarily play the sounds that you expect at the correct
time.  If you do this external sounds-list method of changing T.X.T,
remember that there are two other small text files also:

Bevent_Kitchen.txt
About_Kitchen.txt

these are not important, but if you don't have About_Kitchen.txt in
your \Art\Sprites\Area\Kitchen\ directory, the game will crash when
you try to see "about area" from the menu bar.  The file would normally
have one or more numbers in it which point to info from the main game
resource files, for instance the kitchen one contains

740
741
742
743

but if you have nothing or nonsense in it, the "about" will work but be
empty.


Addendum:
==========

For Petz 5 hexers, here is a list of which scenes have the icons after 
the backdrops, the size of the icons in hexadecimal, and in which order 
they have their bitmaps:

Fantasy Castle: backdrop, night back, icon size hex 06F8
Wild West: Icon size 07A2, backdrop, night back
Snowscene: Icon size 06F2, backdrop, night back
South Seas: Icon size 06F0, backdrop, night back, rainy back
Haunted Mansion: backdrop, Icon size 06F8
Nursery: Icon size 06F8, backdrop, night back
Salon: Icon size 06F8, backdrop, night back, rainy back
Adoption Centre: backdrop, night back, rainy back, Icon size 06F0, oldadopioncentre
Backyard: backdrop, night back, rainy back, icon size 06F0
Beach: backdrop, night back, rainy back, icon size 06F0
Family Room: backdrop, night back, rainy back, icon size 06F0
Arabia: backdrop, night back, icon size 06F0
Asian Temple: backdrop, night back, rainy back, icon size 06F8
Circus: backdrop, night back, icon size 06F2
Kitchen: Icon size 06F0, backdrop, night back


Enjoy

Carolyn Horn