July 26th 2004, expanded slightly on the [Fur Color Areas] section, and added the unused [Marking Factor] and [Spot Factor] texts. June 9th 2004, expanded on the gender and overrides sections. Also listed this chunk's key Texts at the top here May 9th 2004, an attempt to make the [Fur Color Areas] info a bit clearer. May 2nd 2004, some tips in the variations sections. SOME BREEDZ HAVE THESE: ======================= ======================= [Fur Pattern Balls] [Fur Color Areas] [Fur Markings] [Marking Factor] (apparently unused) [Spot Factor] (apparently unused) [Adjust Clothing] [Flat Clothing] [Add Clothing] [Force To Female] and [Force To Male] [Color Info Override] [Outline Color Override] [Fuzz Override] [Ball Size Override] Remember, I'm only talking about the P.F.Magic (and Studio Mythos) original breedz in this study. What I'm doing here is listing the actual command in its [ ] brackets as the header for my information on that subject, then beneath that I'm listing the programmers' comments which come with it, including those which we hexers see as handy column headers. Then I'll show examples where appropriate and details of what all the columns are for. First, I'll show the items which are apparently very puzzling to most people but which are important to breeders. In the past we never paid much attention to them, because people who cared most about breeding were "selective breed" makers, and it was considered not-proper to use hexed breedz as the basis for these. Nowadays, with the huge popularity of "realistic" dogz and catz, and shows for them, the 2nd-generation issues with hexies are becoming more important. When you want your breedz to breed correctly in 2nd-gens and upwards, these first three sections can help if you alter them or add them to your breed. However, I must note that for players with Windows XP, if these sections are used, you may experience game-crashes. The only solution I know of when that happens is to erase these sections (and remove a fair bit of 2nd-gen control from your breed) or use a better, older operating system ;-) [Fur Pattern Balls] ==================== ; addballs which are part of fur only addballs: 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103 ; tail These are used to control the Add Ball balls which are designed just to make fur patterns. So they are used for the Tabby cat's tail and leg stripes, and the Maine Coon's ruff, etc. If you look carefully, you'll see that these cosmetic ballz don't tend to have linez joining them to any ballz other than similarly non-structural ballz. If you have problems with pets which have this kind of "cosmetic" addball breeding true, try making sure that you add [Fur Pattern Balls] and list them correctly under it. Note that the Great Dane has no such section, probably because the extra tail ballz are structurally a part of the tail, not a cosmetic addition. Note also that this section is intended to keep the colour of each "pattern ball" which is listed "true", which means that the tabby stripes will remain black when the rest of the cat mutates in colour. Conversely, the extra tail ballz of the Great Dane, which are _not_ listed, mutate with the rest of the tail. Get the idea? Start each line with addballs: and then list the relevant add ballz, with commas between, and list each set of different body area ballz on a different line. See the tabby for example; the stripe ballz for the tail are all listed on one line, then on the next line the arm stripe ballz are listed, and so on. So, basically: if the ballz that you are having trouble joining up in 2nd-gens are "cosmetic", i.e. they are supposed to join up with each other and not necessarily with any base (or "structural") ballz, then there is no need to worry about the "group" number, just add this section to your breedfile and list all the ballz which should go together on one line. If the ballz you are having this trouble with are not cosmetic but are part of the breed's structure, then you need to make use of the balls' "bodyarea" numbers, as mentioned in my 2nd-gen fixes under [Add Ball]. [Fur Color Areas] ================== ; (1-4, 5 - jowls) ;FurColorTrait ballWithBaseColor colorAreas As with all these sections, you can add it to your breedfile if it doesn't already exist in there. Put the header [Fur Color Areas] on one line and then, beneath it, list the "trait" number, then the ball with the base colour, and then all the colour areas which should be in this group. Some breedz have 0-7 colour areas listed in this section, and some, such as the Russian Blue or Calico cats, only 0-3. The Calico is interesting, because it only has one colorArea per FurColorTrait and ballWithBaseColor, whereas the Russian Blue has colorArea 0, 1, 2, 3 all in line with one FurColorTrait and ballWithBaseColor. An interesting item in this section is shown in the Scottie breedfile, and only in that one as far as I can see: ; rampbase: only works currently with black balls 2 34 rampbase: 1 2 It's one of those things which, like the Dalmatian's [Additional Frames], doesn't seem to be of real use. The idea of "rampbase" as a term used in colour areas typically has to do with palettes; you would normally have a colour changing from one shade to another via a series of gradations, and the rampbase would be the start of this. In the Scottie breed under [Fur Color Areas], you will see the programmers' comment that the rampbase only works with black balls. Then they put the FurColorTrait 2 and the ballWithBaseColor 34, which is indeed black, and then there is the rampbase: 1 2. I have fiddled with this in the past but not seen any significant differences in either adoptions or new-borns. You may find it more useful, who knows :-) You can make your 2nd-gens' ballz either usually pick up on the colours from your breedfile, or usually pick up on the mother's colour, if you manipulate this section. What you need to change varies depending on which basic P.F.Magic breed you used as a base, but I have found that altering the "group" number for a ball (in [Ballz Info] or [Add Ball]) to 1 and then changing the FurColorTrait number in [Fur Color Areas] to 2 (in Scotties) or 3 (in chihuahuas) will force the game to take the colours from the breedfile, while 4 (in Scotties) makes the game tend to pick the colours from the mother. Of course, changing the Group number has an effect on how a pet's ballz take paint from the paint-brush, and you may find that other numbers will work just fine. This is really just to show you what sort of thing with which you'll want to experiment. If you simply cannot get the colours to pass on in some balls, then use whatever works best for the others and then put -1 as the group number for the stubborn balls (works both for [Add Ball] balls and [Ballz Info] balls). All the balls with -1 as their "group" will become un-paintable with the paint brush, so if that matters to you you'll have to either carry on trying to find the perfect group/fur colour area combination or accept some albino/bad colouring effects in your 2nd-gens. [Fur Markings] ============== ; e_GroupType_Normal == 0, e_GroupType_BodyArea == 1, e_GroupType_Primary == 2, e_GroupType_Paw == 3 ; groupType, balls/paintballs which logically constitue a single marking (if e_GroupType_BodyArea replace entire area, used esp. with dog ears) This section is once again likely to be of use to breeders who want their petz to pick up on the correct markings, in this case particularly the paint patches, within the breedfile. Take a look at the structure of the [Fur Markings] section, and you should get some idea of how to build your own. You get some help from the programmers' comments here: e_GroupType_Normal == 0, e_GroupType_BodyArea == 1, e_GroupType_Primary == 2, e_GroupType_Paw == 3 This is pretty clear, I think, when you look at the two column headers: groupType and balls/paintballs which logically constitue a single marking The first column is the e_GroupType, and the basic type will be 0 or 1 or 2 or 3. 3 is there in all breeds that have this section, because all of them have paw pads. The breedz which don't have this listed are breedz which don't have any other ballz to list in this section, because the dogmaster.lnz or catmaster.lnz already have these listed. A typical example is the Dalmatian, which has this as the first [Fur Markings] line 3 9:0 10:0 11:0 13:0 33:0 34:0 35:0 37:0 44:0 45:0 46:0 36:0 20:0 21:0 22:0 12:0 and all of these are of course paw paint ballz. In fact, this may seem like a bit of overkill because, if a breed doesn't have the paw pads listed, it shouldn't really make a difference since they are in the Catmaster.lnz and Dogmaster.lnz. However, whatever you see in a breedfile actually overrides whatever is in the catmaster or dogmaster .lnz files, and if [Fur Markings] are listed without the line of paw markings, the game will not use the paw marking data from the "master.lnz" [Fur Markings] and your paw pads may mutate illogically. Paint Ballz are listed here in : form, but don't let that panic you; it simply means that the particular base ball has one or more paint ballz attached to it. If you have only one for a baseball, the number is (for instance) 16:0. If you have more than one paint patch for one base ball, they go (for instance) 24:0 24:1 24:2 etc, counting up on the right-hand side of the : mark. I have noticed that it is possible to have ballz in a given "paint ballz" line that don't actually have any mention in the [Paint Ballz] section, as with the Egyptian Mau and its sole/wrist balls 41, 42, 63, 64. I don't know if this is a StudioMythos error, or whether this has any real effect on 2nd-gens with this particular breed. It may be that it was an error that they didn't see, or didn't bother to fix, because the Egyptian Mau furfile is made to be opaque. Breedz such as the Dalmatian, which in fact have a lot of [Paint Ballz], don't have all of these listed in the [Fur Markings] area. It would seem that this may be partly because the default dalmatian spots for the game are in fact black, so there is no 2nd-gen problem. This will most likely be why people have trouble with breeding Dalmatians which do not have black spots. When numbers don't have the : form, they are just ball numbers from [Ballz Info] or [Add Ball], as opposed to [Paint Ballz]. This is illustrated rather well by this line from the Dalmatian's [Fur Markings] 1 28, 29, 30, 83, 85, 87 which means that for this breed, the right ear ballz (including the right-ear add ballz) have had to be listed together as groupType Bodyarea. So, if you want to add your own [Fur Markings] area to a breed, or you want to make sure that you get your breed to be consistent in 2nd-gens with certain markings, list on a line the group type, and then the balls _or_ the paintballs which are to be grouped together for that type. [Marking Factor] ================ I have never seen a pet which makes use of this. The idea is obviously that it helps control the markings on petz, but I have not found a syntax yet which makes any appreciable difference. [Spot Factor] ============= I have never seen a pet which makes use of this. The idea is obviously that it helps control the markings on petz, but I have not found a syntax yet which makes any appreciable difference. CLOTHING AND THE ADOPTION CENTRE ================================ ================================ These next three sections are also not always in a breed, and are not really vital unless you have problems with some clothing item or wish to have a pet come out of the AC wearing a particular item, as with my Swedish Elk and Snowbo. [Adjust Clothing] ================= ; kind: Shirt,Pant,Sock_FrontL,Sock_FrontR,Sock_BackL,Sock_BackR,Tail,Hat,EarringL,EarringR,NoseThing,Glasses ; kind offset scale (floating point, 1.0 is no change in size) Hat 0,0,0 0.8 You only need this section -- and to change it -- if some item of clothing doesn't look right on the breed. Choose from the list of items shown for the "kind" column. The offset is the usual x,y,z co-ordinates relative to where the clothing item sits normally, so that you can shift it to a different position. The scale allows you to make it look bigger or smaller. [Flat Clothing] =============== (bulldog) ; kind: Shirt,Pant,Sock_FrontL,Sock_FrontR,Sock_BackL,Sock_BackR,Tail,Hat,Hat2,EarringL,EarringR,NoseThing,NoseThing2,Glasses ; kind toy_dll lnz file #8.0;sweater, red Shirt "\Resource\Clothes\Red Sweater.clo" "\art\Sprites\Toyz\Clot_SweaterRed\Clot_SweaterRed.clz" #7 Shirt "\Resource\Clothes\Red Sweater.clo" "\art\Sprites\Toyz\Clot_SweaterRed\Clot_SweaterRed.clz" (etc) This section is only needed if you want some pets to come out of the Adoption Centre wearing a specified clothing item such as shirts, socks, pants; things which cover the pet's ballz closely, rather than standing outside them. [Add Clothing] ==============(chinchilla persian) #3.C ; kind toy_dll lnz file Hat "\Resource\Clothes\Pink Bow.clo" "\art\Sprites\Toyz\Clot_HatBowPink\Clot_HatBowPink.clz" #2 Hat "\Resource\Clothes\Pink Bow.clo" "\art\Sprites\Toyz\Clot_HatBowPink\Clot_HatBowPink.clz" #1 ## This section is only needed if you want some pets to come out of the Adoption Centre wearing a specified clothing item such as hats, bows, etc, which stand outside the pet's own ballz. To add clothes to a pet which comes out of the Adoption Centre, decide which of the two types of clothing the choesn item is (Flat or Add). Then put into the file [Flat Clothing] or [Add Clothing]. Then, you can find out what the .lnz (.clz) for the given item of clothing is either by looking inside the .clo file or (a little easier perhaps) by putting the item on some pet, closing the game, and looking in the .pet file for the string art\Sprites\Toyz\ Take the case of Glasses, you would have the "kind" is Glasses (you find that defined inside the Glasses file), the "toy_dll" is the .clo file Glasses.clo in your clothes directory, and the "lnz file" is Clot_Glasses.clz: [Add Clothing] ; kind toy_dll lnz file #2.A Glasses "\Resource\Clothes\Glasses.clo" "art\Sprites\Toyz\Clot_Glasses\Clot_Glasses.clz" #1 ## GENDER FORCING =============== =============== [Force To Female] and [Force To Male] ===================================== This "Force" section lets you choose which variation comes out of the Adoption centre as female, and which as male. In this example, variations 3.C and 2 will always come out female, and variation 1 will always come out as male. [Force To Female] #3.C 1 #2 1 #1 0 ## [Force To Male] #3.C 0 #2 0 #1 1 ## In this example, the pet will always be male [Force To Male] 1 In this example, the pet will usually come out female but occasionally male [Force To Female] #4 1 #3 1 #2 1 #1 0 ## OVERRIDES, i.e. VARIATIONS in BALL COLOUR, FUZZ, GROUP, and TEXTURE ==================================================================== ==================================================================== These are sections which provide you with simple variations; you don't have to have them but if you want to have different sets of variations for colour, outline colour, group, texture and fuzz this is the P.F.Magic way of doing it :-) You can list [Add Ball] ballz here as well as [Ballz Info] ballz, but _not_ [Paint Ball] ballz. A lot of people don't seem to realise that the "override" is simply any variations that you want. If there isn't one of these sections in your chosen breed, as always you can insert it and enter your own data. [Color Info Override] ===================== This is where you put variations for ball colours. NOTE: if you don't have a variation number with no data at all between it and the next variation number, then the [Ballz Info] colours won't ever be able to show through for the listed ballz. If two columns, it's ball number and colour. If three columns, it's ball number, colour, and group. If four columns, it's ball number, colour, group and texture. Use the [Texture List] for the number you want, just as with [Add Ball] and [Ballz Info] sections. [Outline Color Override] ===================== This is where you put variations for outline colours, and the most common to see here is the iris outline. For some reason, the iris outline is one of the most common problems that catch newcomers to petz hexing. NOTE: if you don't have a variation number with no data at all between it and the next variation number, then the [Ballz Info] outline colours won't ever be able to show through for the listed ball outlines. The first column contains the ball number, and the second column contains the colour number. [Fuzz Override] ============== The first column is the ball number, and the second column the amount of fuzz you want this variation to have. NOTE: if you don't have a variation number with no data at all between it and the next variation number, then the [Ballz Info] fuzz amounts won't ever be able to show through for the listed ballz. The first column contains the ball number, and the second column contains the amount of fuzz. [Ball Size Override] ==================== The first column is the ball number, and the second column is the size. When you see this in the puppy or kitten .lnz, it's there to give your pup or kitten a different look from the adult. When you see this in the adult .lnz, it's there to make variations. NOTE: If it's in the adult section and you don't have a variation number with no data at all between it and the next variation number, then the [Ballz Info] ball sizes won't ever be able to show through for the listed ballz. These different override sections can all be given "linking" variations, by which I mean a structure like this: #3.A #2 #1 ## and then they will all work together instead of producing random colours, groups, textures, fuzz, and sizes. For anyone who wants to know how to make a petz breed to stay the same size and look like a puppy as an adult (but not look like the adult version of the breed), you need to take note of these overrides. First off, you need to make the various Defaults the same in pup and adult .LNZ files, but then you have two choices. You can either make the adult [Ballz Info] the size you wish and then delete the override sections in the puppy .lnz, or you can put all the defaults and size/fuzz overrides that are in the puppy .LNZ into the adult .LNZ also. Simplest way to do the latter is to overwrite the various default sections and then, above the [Ballz Info] section, put in a [Ball Size Override] section and enter the data below it exactly as you see it in the puppy section, without any variation # numbers. Also, if the puppy has [Fuzz Override], put that into the adult .LNZ in exactly the same way, with no variations. Note that if there is already a [Ball Size Override] and / or a [Fuzz Override] in the adult .lnz, you will want instead to replace the data that's under them with your puppy's data and make sure that there are no variation # numbers. Your dog will look like a pup all its life. This works with catz/kittens too of course. The thing to remember with these overrides is that they can be used in the adult section to give you variations -- or even to make the game ignore the relevant data in [Ballz Info] or [Add Ball] -- and in the puppy/kitten section to give a different effect for the babe or also to give it variations. That's the end of the "sometimes" section. Go back to the main "mad scientist hexer" page to get to the next section of this .LNZ breakdown :-) Carolyn Horn P.S. Tantalising items in Petz II ================================ Petz II, coming as it did soon after Oddballz, has some interesting little items in the Catmaster.lnz, including such tantalising Oddballz items as [Locomote Types] and [MinBallScale], [MaxBallScale] etc. Unfortunately, changing the [Locomote Types] to the values that would cause flying or hopping in Oddballz do not appear to have any effect at all in Petz II, and trying to insert [MinBallScale], [MaxBallScale] etc into the Petz 3, 4 or 5 games does not solve the [Default Scales] 2nd-gen problems in very small or very large hexed breedz. Also in Petz II there are remnants of the Oddballz [Default Factors], in the Calico and in the game's mice. I have not found putting these into other breedz to have any obvious effect, sorry.