I don't use Reshacker, but I think it's a whole lot easier to change the AC picture using Reshacker than a plain hex editor, as I do. So, if anybody can explain how they do it with Reshacker, that'd be nice -- I'll post the way I do it here anyway (I use Hex Workshop,) in case it might be helpful
Other people have slightly different techniques to replace the Adoption Center picture, but I find this is the easiest for me. Just try it out and use whichever technique works best for you. Don't be frightened by the length of the steps below -- it's long just because I explain everything step-by-step, in detail
To replace the picture shown in the Adoption Center for your breed, you will need to do three separate things:
a) Extract a kitten or puppy picture from a pet of your new breed.
b) Extract the existing bitmap from your breed file.
c) Replace the bitmap in the breed file with the bitmap you extracted from a pet file of your breed.
Note: Remember that the breed file MUST remain the same size when you are finished working on it! (I think that does not apply to Reshacker.) So write down the file size of your breed file before you begin.
The easiest way to extract a picture of one of your pet, is to download a small utility called "Pet2bmp 2" (and I insist on *version 2, by Firebird!*) If you do not yet have Pet2bmp 2, you can download it here:
www.dmwright.com/oddpetz/ (again, be sure to download version 2!)
1. Adopt a pet of your breed from the Adoption Center.
2. Keep it a kitten or puppy, and exit the game.
3. Launch Pet2bmp 2 and select the pet file of the new pet of your breed that you just adopted.
Pet2bmp 2 will extract the kitten/puppy bitmap picture from your pet file.
Now that you have an Adoption Center picture of your pet, you need to select and save a copy of the current bitmap image in your breed file:
1. Open your breed file in your hex editor.
2. Search for the letters BM in the breed file. This will be the beginning on the bitmap image for your breed.
It will look something like this for instance:
BM.).....2...(...o...Y.
3. Place your mouse cursor just before the letters BM (and leave it there! Do not click elsewhere in the ASCII or hex pane until later down the steps!)
4. Scroll down until you see a semi-column with the name of the original breed (you will have to scroll down a lot of numbers, letters, dots, etc...)
For instance, for the Tabby, it would show this:
; Tabby....(Default Linez File)..
5. Now, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, and then click with your mouse just before the ; in front of Tabby (or other breed name.) Doing so will highlight everything from BM to just before ; Tabby.
6. Now that you have the entire bitmap in the breed file highlighted, open your hex editor's "Edit" menu and select "Copy".
7. Open your hex editor's "File" menu and select "New".
8. In the new file you opened in the hex editor, open the "Edit" menu again and select "Paste".
9. Save this new file (which is the current breed's bitmap image) and name it anything you want, as long as you give it a .BMP file extension (i.e. name it tabby.bmp) The file size of the bitmap should be 10,688 bytes.
Tip: Keep the bitmap highlighted in your hex editor while you follow the rest of the steps. This will allow you to easily paste the new picture onto it when it is ready in a moment!
At this point, you have both a copy of your actual pet's bitmap picture, and a copy of the current bitmap in the breed file.
Because the dimensions of the Adoption Center picture is slightly larger than that of the image Pet2bmp 2 creates, and also because you will want your breed's picture to have a transparent background, you need to edit the picture in a graphic editor (like Paint Shop Pro, or Photoshop, or whatever program you use to do graphics work.)
1. Open both the picture of your pet (extracted with Pet2bmp 2) and the breed file picture (which you manually extracted from the breed file) in your graphic editor.
2. In your graphic editor, copy your pet's picture to the Windows clipboard.
3. Now select the breed file picture and paste your pet's picture onto it. You will see it is slightly smaller in height, and slightly larger in width, so just center it.
4. Use the Color Picker tool (or whatever it's called in your graphic editor) and select the pink color of the original picture's background.
5. Select the Fill tool and make sure it uses that same pink color, then fill in the background around your pet's picture, so that it is the same pink color as the rest.
6. Save the modified picture.
Now, you have a picture of your pet that is the correct dimensions, and has the correct background color to appear as a transparent background in the Adoption Center. All that is left to do is place this new picture onto the old one in the breed file.
1. Open the new bitmap image (the one you just edited) in your hex editor.
2. Highlight the entire bitmap in the hex editor, and then select "Copy" from the "Edit" menu.
3. Switch back to your breed file. If you kept it as it was, the bitmap section in the breed file will still be highlighted. If it isn't, you need to highlight everything from the letters BM down to the ; before the breed name again.
4. Once you have the entire bitmap highlighted in the breed file, select "Paste" from the "Edit" menu of the hex editor, to paste the new picture onto the old breed file picture.
Look at the file size of your breed file. If it is larger or smaller than the original breed file because the size of your pet's picture was slightly different than the original picture (and it will be!), you will need to add or remove some null bytes (hex 00) at the end of the bitmap section, just before the ; that precedes the breed name.
(Thanks to Carolyn for her tutorials, without which I could never have figured this out!
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