call for level packs

[Mindless]

if you'd like your level packs put up on my site, this is the week to tell me, since next week I will be starting school again and won't have as much time to do updates and such

so far i've got:
- tumble_weed (00-13)
- insane steve (01-09)

[JM]

You could upload my packs couldnt you?

http://www.geocities.com/jmjm0052005/JMpaks.zip

I wouldn't mind having them put up on your site.

[Mindless]

Unfortunately, some of the levels in your packs contain errors that LemEdit does not catch.
For example, the fourth level in JM03 (Caught in a trap):
 Terrain
  T 26       X: 181        Y:-11         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 27       X: 215        Y:-11         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 28       X: 195        Y:-2          ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 29       X: 204        Y: 2          ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 30       X: 162        Y:-11         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 31       X: 227        Y:-18         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 32       X: 156        Y:-18         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 58       X: 1145       Y:-3          ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 59       X: 1134       Y: 40         ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 60       X: 1142       Y: 42         ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 61       X: 1157       Y: 41         ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 62       X: 1121       Y: 82         ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 63       X: 1137       Y: 84         ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 64       X: 1153       Y: 83         ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 65       X: 1169       Y: 83         ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 66       X: 1107       Y: 113        ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 67       X: 1117       Y: 115        ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 69       X: 1134       Y: 118        ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 72       X: 1171       Y: 119        ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 73       X: 1183       Y: 120        ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 74       X: 1147       Y: 120        ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 75       X: 1163       Y: 79         ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 76       X: 1145       Y: 45         ID: 66        Mod:0
  T 77       X: 1148       Y: 25         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 78       X: 1136       Y: 68         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 79       X: 1112       Y: 113        ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 80       X: 1118       Y: 129        ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 81       X: 1163       Y: 145        ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 82       X: 1164       Y: 94         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 83       X: 1151       Y:-11         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 84       X: 1155       Y: 8          ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 85       X: 1156       Y: 30         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 86       X: 1161       Y: 62         ID: 65        Mod:0
  T 119      X: 624        Y: 43         ID: 72        Mod:8
  T 120      X: 433        Y: 139        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 121      X: 473        Y: 141        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 122      X: 496        Y: 146        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 123      X: 477        Y: 143        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 124      X: 445        Y: 142        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 125      X: 561        Y: 143        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 126      X: 578        Y: 146        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 127      X: 593        Y: 149        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 128      X: 598        Y: 147        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 129      X: 574        Y: 145        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 130      X: 648        Y: 142        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 131      X: 660        Y: 145        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 132      X: 680        Y: 145        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 133      X: 720        Y: 148        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 134      X: 797        Y: 149        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 135      X: 778        Y: 147        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 136      X: 859        Y: 150        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 137      X: 895        Y: 143        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 138      X: 911        Y: 145        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 139      X: 930        Y: 146        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 140      X: 1012       Y: 145        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 141      X: 1027       Y: 147        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 142      X: 1036       Y: 144        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 143      X: 1051       Y: 146        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 144      X: 1067       Y: 145        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 145      X: 1074       Y: 148        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 146      X: 1089       Y: 149        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 147      X: 746        Y: 150        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 148      X: 736        Y: 147        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 149      X: 768        Y: 147        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 150      X: 694        Y: 147        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 151      X: 698        Y: 150        ID: 73        Mod:8
  T 152      X: 417        Y: 143        ID: 72        Mod:8
  T 153      X: 457        Y: 144        ID: 72        Mod:8

Notice that all these terrain pieces have ID's above 63.  I'm not sure how you accomplished this, other than HEX editing.  In any case, I'd appreciate it if you'd fix this and the corresponding problem in JM05 level 9 (Drown).

[JM]

What other errors were there?

[ccexplore]

Unfortunately, some of the levels in your packs contain errors that LemEdit does not catch.

Somehow I don't think JM would be hex-editing levels, especially for such ungainful purposes.

What happens when you examine such terrain pieces in LemEdit?

I'm pretty sure in Lemmings/CustLemm, it only looks at 6 bits for the terrain, hence that 1 extra bit is probably ignored.  Does the resulting terrain look obviously wrong (ie. out of place) in the level when played?

Finally, are you sure it isn't just your validation program?  You might want to look at the level data manually and check.

[JM]

I did not hex edit my levels. I made them all with Lemedit.

[Mindless]

What happens when you examine such terrain pieces in LemEdit?

I'm pretty sure in Lemmings/CustLemm, it only looks at 6 bits for the terrain, hence that 1 extra bit is probably ignored.  Does the resulting terrain look obviously wrong (ie. out of place) in the level when played?

LemEdit has strange ways for dealing with numbers that exceed the maximum allowed.  The level looks fine in LemEdit, but I haven't tried it in CustLemm.  I guess I'll change my prog to ignore that bit.

I'm not sure how that bit could possibly get set.  ::

[ccexplore]

Incidentally, I'm curious what exactly counts as errors (ie. what things are checked) by your program.  Just curious.

[Mindless]

Actually it's not a validation program, although that is a side effect... I'm waiting for OOP in freeBASIC, then I'll be able to finish and release it.

[ccexplore]

Actually it's not a validation program

Well, regardless, it's clearly doing some error checking, so which ones?

[Conway]

Mindless, how did you detect these pieces? And where did you get the table in reply 2? Lemedit aparentely doesn't detect these pieces, and the level plays okay in Custlemm.

 You can use my levelpacks if you like: Download!

[Mindless]

 - level is incorrect size (should be 2048 bytes)
- object id' which exceed the maximum of 15
- terrain id's which exceed the maximum of 63 (not needed when first bit ignored)
- unexpected non-nulls (in steel data blocks)
- (to be implemented) check for non-displayable characters in level name
- (to be implemented) check for objects with the y coordinates below 0
- (to be implemented) check for incorrect terrain and object modifers
- (to be implemented) check for terrain and objects with the y coordinates above 159
- (to be implemented) check for terrain and objects with the x coordinates above 1583
- (to be implemented) check for graphics sets above 9

hmm...perhaps i should make a dedicated level verifier...  

[Mindless]

It's from a program I wrote that lists all information from a level.

[JM]

Is the program able to be downloaded and where at?

[Mindless]

not yet

[JM]

Ok thanks

[tumble_weed]

I'm pretty close to finishing TWbestof.dat ...im basically modifying some of the levels slightly and doing some testing

EDIT: I've finished TWbestof.dat

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/

[Mindless]

I'll have to rewrite my levelpack.php script to add TWbestof.dat to the list, so it may be a while before it is added.

Don't ask why, because it's just bad coding habbits. X_X

[ccexplore]

I'll have to rewrite my levelpack.php script to add TWbestof.dat to the list, so it may be a while before it is added.

Don't ask why, because it's just bad coding habbits. X_X

Wow, must be really bad if you have to rewrite the script just to handle what it normally is supposed to do!  

[Mindless]

It's meant for packs that contain:
a) the author name (shortened)
b) the pack number

eg TWpack01.dat

I could modify it to handle these, but the script is pretty ugly as it is.

[ccexplore]

- object id' which exceed the maximum of 15

Definitely a good warning, and I'm sure LemEdit will probably throw a fit.  However, I think you can actually get CustLemm to accept higher object IDs.  You can do this on a custom graphics set by using some of the bytes in groundXo normally reserved for terrain metadata to instead hold the extra objects' metadata.

- (to be implemented) check for non-displayable characters in level name

This might be a good warning, but dare I suggest that once in a blue moon maybe a level designer would want garbled characters in the title?  As far as I know, while you will get garbage, non-displayable characters does not crash neither CustLemm nor LemEdit.

- (to be implemented) check for objects with the y coordinates below 0

I think what you really want to check is to see whether the object's activation area is outside the level boundaries.  Oh, the same goes for steel areas too.

- (to be implemented) check for incorrect terrain and object modifers

Is there such a thing for terrain modifiers?  If I recall all bits are used.

And as for interactive objects, I can tell you that although LemEdit doesn't support all of it, almost every bit in the modifier byte of the object is actually handled by the game (most aren't very interesting in case you're wondering), while the remaining are ignored and have no effect.  I would suggest not doing the check.

- (to be implemented) check for graphics sets above 9

Don't, in case it becomes possible to create your own graphics sets in the future.  Well, at most a warning, only because LemEdit might choke on it (haven't tested).  CustLemm doesn't care.

-------------------------

It also turns out that CustLemm has trouble if the terrain section of the LVL uses up all 400 slots.  This might be something you want to check.

And then of course there are things like no working exits and # to save > # out.  Oh yeah, and # out > 80 also tends to hang CustLemm.

[Mindless]

Don't, in case it becomes possible to create your own graphics sets in the future.  Well, at most a warning, only because LemEdit might choke on it (haven't tested).  CustLemm doesn't care.

LemEdit chops anything above 9 down to a number between 0 and 9, so 10 becomes 0, 22 becomes 2.

CustLemm handles extra graphics sets nicely... you can have groundAo.dat and vgagrA.dat by specifying the correct ASCII code in relation to the ASCII codes for 0 to 9, which would be 17. 18 for groundBo.dat and vgagrB.dat and so on.

In any case, my validator will issue a warning, which of course you can ignore.

[Timballisto]

My level packs

Jaaaaaaaa.

PACK1 TYPE THING - These levels aren't very good at all.
PACK2 TYPE THING - These ones are a big improvement
PACK3 TYPE THING - These levels are good.
PACK4 TYPE THING - Probably my best pack so far.

NOTE: &#A0;Pack 4 is missing the final version of the level 'Another one o' them line levels?'. &#A0;The final version is the same as the current one only it fixes a backroute. &#A0;I will put the finished pack up when I can get the final version which is at my dad's house.

Thanks

[JM]

All the levels except the extended graphics level have the wrong terrain set

[ccexplore]

Yeah, that has been discussed on this thread.

Either copy/rename the VGAGR and GROUND files as explained, or just manually change the levels' graphics set numbers in LemEdit.

I do think that since almost the entire rest of the world uses CustLemm, it would be nice if Tim can modify the levels at release time to use CustLemm's graphics set numbers instead.

[Timballisto]

Sorry.  It never occured to me that it might screw up in the first place.

[JM]

The levels in pack 4 aren't bad I would say they were some of your best levels.

[Mindless]

hmm...perhaps i should make a dedicated level verifier...  

finally got around to this...
lemmingslevelverifier_1_0_0.zip

[Mindless]

bug fix: steel width incorrect
lemmingslevelverifier_1_0_1.zip

(I've also update my DAT compressor and decompressor -> http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/tools.php)