[Tutorial] How to hack bitmaps.map

I doubt many of you will have a use for this, but I was helping skyline on AIM with this, and figured I might as well turn my AIM convo into a tutorial.
First of all, the advantage of having a hacked bitmaps map, is that you can insert new bitmaps into your tagset, which are normaly stock, and are ignored when you compile a map. Such bitmaps include the forerunner plate floor, background.bitmap (that is the bitmap for load screens), and gametype icons. While most people just re-referance the shaders, using a hacked bitmaps.map saves you the trouble of changing them, if it is a super common bitmap like detail rock, brushed metal etc... It is also the easiest way to change the loading screen, or the gametype screen, which loads from your unedited bitmaps.map.
Anyway, onto the tutorial. A few words of advice first. Make a backup of your bitmaps.map if you are in expierenced in using a hex editor. I use hex workshop 4.2, which you can download for free at www.download.com. In this tut, I will teach you how to edit the multiplayer load screen.
Alright, now open up your bitmaps.map in hex workshop 4.2. It might look overly complicated, but it is quite simple. Go to the toolbar at the top, select edit, and then hit "find" A little box will pop up. Under "Find What" set it to "Text String" and for Value, type in "background". Under options, select ASCII String. Now hit ok, and it will search the map for the background bitmap.

Once you have found the bitmap string, put the cursor before the first letter, and then put in any new letter you want. (I always do M for masters, as displayed in the pic above) The b in background should now be your new letter, which will be in red. Then simply save the map, replace the old background.bitmap with a new one of the same name (if you want a cool on, in the ui\shell\bitmaps folder, there is a tag named loading.bitmap, re-save that as background.bitmap to give your edited bitmaps.map a test). Compile your map, and enjoy your new h4x.
If you have any questions, or if this tutorial sucks and I forgot to add a step, contact me on either Gearbox forums, or on H2vista.net, and I will be happy to help you as well as revise this tutorial. Enjoy :leet:
-Masterz1337