Combining .ZTD files

Let me preface this by saying...this is a lot easier than it sounds...this is the way I do it, there may be a better way, and if you have an easier way, feel free to post it.

Okay...in order to combine .ZTD files into one file, you first need to extract them, so you need winzip or a similar unzipping program (the one that comes with Windows XP is fine)

For Animals:
say you have 2 animals you want to combine...bluezebra.ztd(APE id# 12345678) & pinkzebra.ztd (APE id#ABCDEFGH) ( I recommend copying the files to your desktop...it makes them easier to work with and if you screw anything up, it's a copy....delete them and start over)
1)start by renaming the files by right-clicking on the file, choose rename, and change the extension from .ztd to .zip...you will now have 2 files bluezebra.zip & pinkzebra.zip
2) extract the files to folders...if you have winzip, right click on the .zip file and choose: winzip/extract to folder....if you are using built in windows unzipper, choose extract all to bring up the extraction wizard ( I also extract to the desktop)
3) now you should have 2 folders on your desktop ....pinkzebra & bluezebra....if you open these folders there will be a subfolder called "animals". Inside the animals folder is a subfolder named with the APE id# of the animal and a .uca file also named with the APE id #, so for the blue zebra you would have a folder called 12345678 and a file called 12345678.uca
4)Whichever animal you choose to work with first, say blue zebra, double click to open the folder and then click and drag the animals folder to your desktop
5) for the pink zebra, open the pinkzebra folder, open the animals folder, then click and drag the ABCDEFGH folder and the ABCDEFGH.uca file into the animals folder from the blue zebra that you dragged to the desktop in the previous step. So you should now have an animals folder with 2 subfolders and 2 .uca files.
6) next you need to create a new .zip file on your desktop by right clicking...if you have Widows unzipper choose new/compressed(zipped)folder...if you are using winzip, choose new WinZip folder...this puts an empty .zip folder on your desktop.
7) click and drag the combined animals folder from step #5 into this new .zip folder, then rename it with whatever name you want and change the extension from .zip to .ztd...so for this case I would name it coloredzebras.ztd...put this file in your updates folder and delete the individual pinkzebra.ztd and bluezebra.ztd

For Objects
the steps are basically the same, just the subfolders in the .ztd file are different...take the objects you wish to combine and extract them like you did for animals, inside you will see 2 subfolders, "objects" & "scenery"

so for example if you want to combine blueflowers.ztd and pinkflower.ztd...follow all steps from above for extracting to folders
then:
1)open the blueflowers folder and drag the "objects" folder to your desktop.....open the blueflowers/scenery folder and there will be yet another subfolder called "other"...drag the other folder to your desktop
2)next open the pinkflowers folder.....open the pinkflowers/objects folder and there will be a subfolder with the APE id# as its name....drag this folder to the "objects" folder you dragged to the desktop in step 1......open the pinkflower/scenery/other folders and you will see the .uca file, drag the .uca file to the "other" folder you dragged to the desktop in step 1
3) right click on the desktop and choose new/folder...name this new folder "scenery" and drag the "other" folder that is on your desktop into the "scenery" folder...you should now have 2 folders again, "objects" & "scenery"
4) just as described above in step #6 for animals, create a new zip folder, and drag the "objects" and "scenery" folders into it. rename it and change the extension to .ztd...for example flowers.ztd

I forgot who said this, but it was on the forum, if anyone knows email me at webmaster@mzt.cjb.net