Here I Go Again!

[Simon]

Ah, to clarify the Stallman post: I don't mean GuyPerfect gets profit this way. But a lot of the rest applies. Software should be given away to "your neighbor who needs it", i.e. Dullstar or anyone who is going to design levels in the future. (This wasn't said explicitly in the linked article although I thought it was; it's only in the definition of free software.) It'll also drastically reduce the time to find/fix bugs/usability issues. (This was in there.)

I will continue to read about the development here as I've done all the time. So back to the topic, yup.

-- Simon

[Dullstar]

Okay, minimac, I deleted that previous post.

[Minim]

Thanks for that.

Anyway, I wonder how many skills GuyPerfect have got on the editor this time (Probably all, I guess ). When I was thinking of editing Lemmings 2, I would just modify the skills on every L2 level created, but what I find amazing is that you can artistically create new levels from scratch.

[ccexplore]

Um, when people talk about a level editor, it usually means the ability to actually create new levels from scratch. So yeah, that's what GuyPerfect's working towards.

And since it's just an editor (ie. no playtesting or anything advanced like that for now), skill selection is just a single feature and doesn't require one to add individual support for each individual skill.

[GuyPerfect]

Well at least I didn't find it too easy.  After a number of false starts, I eventually ended up with the attached solution.  This time I used up all the skills given.

YouTube again

[Minim]

Nice youtube clip

But is there possibility that we can play some of these levels without using DOS? My dosbox doesn't work at all.

[Dullstar]

Nice youtube clip

But is there possibility that we can play some of these levels without using DOS? My dosbox doesn't work at all.

O RLY?  Start a thread in Help and maybe we can figure out, "Hey, uh, what's wrong with this?"

[ccexplore]

and there are a few problem elements in the official levels that were put in the files incorrectly that need to be fixed on load so that the editor handles them properly.

Just curious, how was it that if they were put in the files "incorrectly", that the game itself still handles them fine? Maybe I'll understand better if I know exactly which elements in which levels you were talking about.

[GuyPerfect]

Invalid element IDs, mainly. For tiles, the game seems to just load them as tile ID 0. For objects, I've told the editor to just ignore them, and a few steel blocks here and there disappear from levels during load. They write back to the file just fine when I insert them manually, so it's just an assumption at this point that they're stored incorrectly in the file.

[ccexplore]

For objects, I've told the editor to just ignore them, and a few steel blocks here and there disappear from levels during load.

Weird.  Is there any pattern to how invalid object IDs in L2BO gets mapped to the expected object IDs of the missing steel blocks?  Although I guess it doesn't matter too much, since custom levels created from the editor won't have this problem.

[weirdybeardy]

Hi all. Glad to see this thread hasn't dried up yet.  At the moment I'm fiddling around with Mindless's old "provisional" L2 editor, just to amuse myself. I might publish the results of my half-hearted experimenting up here - if I manage to create anything worth sharing.

So, umm... yeah. Sorry if that's slightly off-topic.

[Mindless]

At the moment I'm fiddling around with Mindless's old "provisional" L2 editor, just to amuse myself. I might publish the results of my half-hearted experimenting up here - if I manage to create anything worth sharing.

I think you mean geoo's PCL2ED.

[weirdybeardy]

Yes. That's what I meant. Silly me. 

[ccexplore]

Hi all. Glad to see this thread hasn't dried up yet.  At the moment I'm fiddling around with Mindless's old "provisional" L2 editor, just to amuse myself. I might publish the results of my half-hearted experimenting up here - if I manage to create anything worth sharing.

I've actually already toyed with the idea of combining PCL2ED with supplemental programs to end up with a suite that taken together, has enough functionality for basic level editing.  However, that turns out to not work mainly because PCL2ED is simply not good enough for real level editing.  In fact, it keeps locking up my XP laptop (granted, it has one of the worst brand of graphics cards out there, so the display driver is probably at least partly to blame), and even on a better machine, I find that the inability to manipulate whole sprites rather than individual 16x8 tiles is a real roadblock to serious level editing.

Still, if you're desperate enough to consider using PCL2ED to edit levels, I can go about and see if I can whip up some quick UI for editing level stats (eg. skills etc.), so that taken together, you get enough basic functionality to (kind of) edit levels without resorting to a hex editor.  Of course, given the little free time I have nowadays, I sincerely hope that GuyPerfect will beat me to it with his full-function editor.

[weirdybeardy]

Still, if you're desperate enough to consider using PCL2ED to edit levels, I can go about and see if I can whip up some quick UI for editing level stats (eg. skills etc.), so that taken together, you get enough basic functionality to (kind of) edit levels without resorting to a hex editor.  Of course, given the little free time I have nowadays, I sincerely hope that GuyPerfect will beat me to it with his full-function editor.

I wouldn't call myself "desperate" - merely curious.  I know of PCL2ED's limitations, but it's interesting enough to mess around with until the next big thing comes along. I've got a real appetite for editing Tribes since I re-released some of my old CustLemm levels on the archive. It just feels like a natural progression. I'm a little surprised that nobody has tried to fully "Lemmix" L2 before now. 'Cos let's face it, GuyPerfect is making it look easy so far. 

I'm grateful to geoo and to GuyPerfect and to anyone making an effort in this area.  I salute you!

Right, I'm off to shuffle some 8x16 tiles around.  Bye for now.