So you wanna make a Selective Breed?
Selective Breeds are a wonderful feature of the unmodified games. With the advent of breeding with Petz 3, a whole new world opened up to us. Yes, we can mix and match the Original Breeds to our hearts' desire, but we can also create new breeds with careful breeding, much like how real life breeding works!
Before we get into the 'how' let's talk about exactly what a Selective Breed is.
Before we get into the 'how' let's talk about exactly what a Selective Breed is.
What is a Selective Breed?
When you adopt two dalmatians from the Adoption Center and breed them together, you get a purebred dalmatian. It still has a dalmatian head, dalmatian body, ears, and so on. This is because those two dalmatians only have dalmatian traits. But if you breed a dalmatian with a mutt, you will likely get a combination of the two breeds. Maybe it will have mutt ears, a dalmatian head, and a mutt body.
Every dog or cat has a set of visible traits and a set of hidden traits. So while this mutt/dalmatian mix may have a dalmatian head, if you breed it back to a purebred dalmatian, you may get a mutt head because it 'carries' that trait, hidden. But with careful prolonged breeding, you can breed out that mutt head and retain the mutt ears.
In the simplest of terms, Petz Selective Breeding works much like real life selective breeding. You breed for the traits you want and weed out those you don't. On the technical level, it does work differently, however, but we will get into that when we finally get to the tutorial.
Every dog or cat has a set of visible traits and a set of hidden traits. So while this mutt/dalmatian mix may have a dalmatian head, if you breed it back to a purebred dalmatian, you may get a mutt head because it 'carries' that trait, hidden. But with careful prolonged breeding, you can breed out that mutt head and retain the mutt ears.
In the simplest of terms, Petz Selective Breeding works much like real life selective breeding. You breed for the traits you want and weed out those you don't. On the technical level, it does work differently, however, but we will get into that when we finally get to the tutorial.
On the left, you can see what looks like a mixed breed dog. Technically, it is. It has a dachshund face, dalmatian body, ears, feet, and legs, and a sheepdog tail as well as a sheepdog fur texture. It is a mixed breed, BUT it's also a Selective Breed.
If you breed these two dogs together, you will get offspring with the exact same traits because I have carefully bred them to not carry any hidden traits. No matter how many times you breed them together, you will get the same head, ears, tail, body, legs, and feet. |
That is what a Selective Breed is. Careful breeding to eliminate all unwanted traits, creating what is essentially a brand new breed in the game, that will breed as true and reliable as if you were breeding two petz of the same breed straight from the Adoption Center.
How do you make a Selective Breed?
Ultimately, it isn't a complicated process, especially with modern technology. I highly recommend downloading GenePoolz, a program that shows you what traits your pet has, both hidden and visible. In addition, I recommend reading what the maker of GenePoolz has to say about the way Petz Genetics work. They have clearly done a lot of research into the technical aspect of it, so it will help you have a good grasp of breeding.
To sum up, GenePoolz shows you the two sets of genetics your pet has. If you breed a mutt to a dalmatian, you will see this in GenePoolz.
To sum up, GenePoolz shows you the two sets of genetics your pet has. If you breed a mutt to a dalmatian, you will see this in GenePoolz.
You can see that the two sets perfectly resemble the purebred dog. That's because when you breed, the offspring pulls one trait from each parent. Because in this case, the parents were purebreds, the offspring could only pull a Dalmatian trait from the Dalmatian parent and a Mutt trait from the Mutt parent.
The dog itself looks like a mix of dali and mutt traits, as the charts in GenePoolz does not actually tell you what traits are displayed, only what traits the dog has in total. |
When you breed a mix to a mix, however, the sets will look different. The dog still pulls one trait from each parent, but since the parent has a mix of traits, the result is different. The offspring has a 50% chance of pulling from either trait the parent has. So in the case of the dog above, when bred, it's offspring will have a 50% chance of taking either its dali trait or its mutt trait.
That is how easy it is to purposefully or accidentally breed out certain traits. Just two generations of breeding, and this dog is back to being almost purebred dalmatian. In fact, let me explain how I would do that. Ignoring color for now, this dog has only two mutt traits. Mutt personality and mutt tongue. But it only has one copy of those traits.
If I were to breed this dog to a purebred Dalmatian, that offspring would 100% certainly pull only dalmatian traits from the Dalmatian parent and then only have a 50% chance of pulling the mutt traits from the mixed parent. The odds would be fairly high that with just a few breedings, you would get a dog without any mutt traits.
Making a new Selective Breed, is basically doing just that, over and over again until you only have the traits you want.
If I were to breed this dog to a purebred Dalmatian, that offspring would 100% certainly pull only dalmatian traits from the Dalmatian parent and then only have a 50% chance of pulling the mutt traits from the mixed parent. The odds would be fairly high that with just a few breedings, you would get a dog without any mutt traits.
Making a new Selective Breed, is basically doing just that, over and over again until you only have the traits you want.
But HOW do you make a Selective Breed?
The 'how' can vary depending on your preferences. Many people start with purebred 1st gen petz from the adoption center. Personally, I usually start with high gen mixes I've adopted from various sources. The reason for this is that I enjoy having a high level of color and marking variation and high generation petz are the best way to achieve that.
My most recent Selective Breed at the time of writing this is my Rogue Terrier.
My most recent Selective Breed at the time of writing this is my Rogue Terrier.
This Selective Breed has mostly Scottie traits. The only body traits that aren't Scottie are it's head and feet, which are Bulldog. Overall, i'm very proud of this breed and happy with the result, but it is nothing like I intended when I first set out to make a breed that day.
Let me show you the two dogs I started out with. |
However, as breeding commenced, I realized one of them had a hidden Bulldog head. I ended up with a lot of bulldog headed dogs, despite wanting to recreate Nelo's Mutt head. Many offspring also had mostly Scottie traits and pretty quickly, I ended up with a lot of dogs that had mostly Scottie traits with Bulldog heads. While that wasn't my initial vision, I had to accept that was where the breeding wanted to go.
Here's the thing... Sometimes, no matter what the math is, the project fights you. When you want a mutt head, even when the odds are with you, sometimes it just won't give you a mutt head. I'm not going to say there is any technical reason for this or if it's just bad luck, but it can have me pounding my head against a wall sometimes.
In this project, no matter how many breedings I did, they wanted to create Bulldog headed scotties. It really just developed itself, with very little direction from me. I did have to carefully breed out Dali bodies, which were prevalent but thankfully didn't take much work to be rid of. But aside from that, this Selective Breed selected for itself. I just had to go with it and stop fighting it.
Here's the thing... Sometimes, no matter what the math is, the project fights you. When you want a mutt head, even when the odds are with you, sometimes it just won't give you a mutt head. I'm not going to say there is any technical reason for this or if it's just bad luck, but it can have me pounding my head against a wall sometimes.
In this project, no matter how many breedings I did, they wanted to create Bulldog headed scotties. It really just developed itself, with very little direction from me. I did have to carefully breed out Dali bodies, which were prevalent but thankfully didn't take much work to be rid of. But aside from that, this Selective Breed selected for itself. I just had to go with it and stop fighting it.
You still haven't told me HOW to make a Selective Breed!!!???
I suppose I haven't, but the reason for that is that there is no right or wrong way. I've hopefully explained the technical aspects behind it, but as far as the how... That's up to you. I think I only have a few final words of wisdom to say.
Most people these days know how to use PetzA to age up and instantly breed petz, but let me just be clear: The project could take literal years if you don't speed things up with PetzA. Use the instant mating, instint birth, and 'make puppies/kittens grow up' features to create your selective breed. With this, most of my selective breeds only take a few hours to create.
While you may have an idea in your head for what you want your breed to be, I recommend letting the breed tell you what it wants to be. To have a firm plan is asking for frustration in my opinion. Mix a few petz randomly and go from there. Carefully guide the breed rather than forcing it into the mold you want.
Use a letter or number system to keep track of what 'stage' you're on in breeding. try to avoid crossing backwards too much, or you may reintroduce traits you don't want.
Inbreed. I can't say this enough. I don't think you can make a real Selective Breed without inbreeding. If you can, more power to you, but that sounds like so much extra work and it's hard enough to start with...
Tree trim! Don't let your files get so big they corrupt. I lost my very first selective breed due to this. It also lags your game as the files get bigger.
Have fun! If it starts getting frustrating, just stop. Don't get to the point where you're angry at it for not cooperating.
Use hotkeys. There is a hotkeys program here, but the one I use is different, I just don't remember where I got it. It will save you a lot of time and clicking!
That's all I have for the moment, but please let me know if you have any specific questions. Maybe I'll add an FAQ!
Most people these days know how to use PetzA to age up and instantly breed petz, but let me just be clear: The project could take literal years if you don't speed things up with PetzA. Use the instant mating, instint birth, and 'make puppies/kittens grow up' features to create your selective breed. With this, most of my selective breeds only take a few hours to create.
While you may have an idea in your head for what you want your breed to be, I recommend letting the breed tell you what it wants to be. To have a firm plan is asking for frustration in my opinion. Mix a few petz randomly and go from there. Carefully guide the breed rather than forcing it into the mold you want.
Use a letter or number system to keep track of what 'stage' you're on in breeding. try to avoid crossing backwards too much, or you may reintroduce traits you don't want.
Inbreed. I can't say this enough. I don't think you can make a real Selective Breed without inbreeding. If you can, more power to you, but that sounds like so much extra work and it's hard enough to start with...
Tree trim! Don't let your files get so big they corrupt. I lost my very first selective breed due to this. It also lags your game as the files get bigger.
Have fun! If it starts getting frustrating, just stop. Don't get to the point where you're angry at it for not cooperating.
Use hotkeys. There is a hotkeys program here, but the one I use is different, I just don't remember where I got it. It will save you a lot of time and clicking!
That's all I have for the moment, but please let me know if you have any specific questions. Maybe I'll add an FAQ!