Introduction: Hacking Esheep - the Lovable, Slightly Annoying Screenmate

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About: Hello. I'm Matt and I am one of those people who likes to experiment with things. To tamper with their innermost parts, and see what makes them tick. That is why I love hacking. It is the only thing that con h…

For those of you not familiar with Esheep go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESheep
To download your own Esheep go here: Sheep
This is an indepth guide to hacking these lovable little critters to better fit your taste.Tired of yellow, make one that is green with black horns, and white skin. Maybe even add some red to his eyes for that crack-head effect. With the help of this guide, you too can spawn your own little 16-Bit bundle of joy.

Step 1: Obtain the Color Values

Okay, you got your Esheep, and your'e all ready to go Michael Jackson on him. (I mean plastic surgery-wise, not meant to be taken any other way.) But where to start? Well to change his colors to something new, we need to know what colors he has now. And don't just tell me yellow, purple, and peach. We need to be specific here. That is where hexadecimals come into play. When talking about color, hexadecimals are 6 characters long. For instance, the code for hot pink is ff00ff. To find the color codes for Esheep, download Color Cop here: Color Cop

Step 2: Reverse the Code

You saw in the previous screenshot that the code for the lighter part of the sheep's skin was ffc4a1. Now we need to reverse it becuase that is the way the esheep program stores the code. By now you are thinking, "That's easy, ffc4a1 reversed is 1a4cff." Right? Wrong! Hexadecimal are always in twos. ff means 255,c4 means 196, and a1 means 161. To keep the color the same we must reverse it like this.
Start with the last two characters - a1
Then the second two - c4
And finally the last two - ff
The reversed code would be a1c4ff, not 1a4cff.
For a complete list of pre-reversed codes for Esheep go to http://www.answers.com/topic/esheep.

Step 3: Replacing the Color Value

Now you need a hex editor to change the colors with. I will be using xvi32. You can get it here: xvi32
Once you have it, open up the esheep program with it. You will see a whole lot of crazy numbers and letters. Don't be intimidated. We'll get through this together. To replace the colors, press Ctrl+R. Choose Hex String. Type the reversed code into the first hex box. But wait! There is another box. This is for your new color. But we don't have a new color yet. To get a new color, just open color cop again and find a color you like, reverse it's code and viola! Now type this code into the second box. Now replace all.

Step 4: Save and Hope for the Best

Now save your ugly little monstrosity as a .exe file, open it, and see if it works. If so, congrats! If not, too bad, try again and make sure to read each step carefully. Once you get a working hack, you can further your project by changing all of the codes to match. For some examples of hacked sheep go to my site. That's all for now. Happy Hacking!