Lemmings Forums
Lemmings Boards => Tech & Research => Topic started by: eisnerguy1 on December 29, 2018, 03:38:22 AM
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I hope this is the correct spot for this. I was wondering if there was a tool that would extract the graphics from the Mac version of Lemmings? I've been playing the Christmas Lemmings (92, 93 & 94) during the holiday and wanted to see if I could extract the graphics.
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I'm not sure how much is known about the Mac version internally.
If it uses the same level file format as other versions, a last resort option would be to create custom levels which contain all pieces (without them overlapping) and take screenshots to extract the graphics from.
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I've been wanting to suggest this for a while now, however not with regard to Christmas Lemmings, but to original Lemmings: The Fire tileset has a slightly different looking exit in the Mac version. It looks more like an actual gnawer / rodent, not like a devil.
For example (skip to "A task for blockers and bombers"):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6rB-4Lk7Qk
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Interesting! I didn't know there were some slight differences. If I can somehow get this version working, I can at least rip the fire exit.
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I've been wanting to suggest this for a while now, however not with regard to Christmas Lemmings, but to original Lemmings
Oh, you shouldn't have waited so long! I already extracted the Mac graphics for original Lemmings ages back, see this topic (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=1567.0) for download link. It includes all terrain, objects as well as the lemmings animations.
I was wondering if there was a tool that would extract the graphics from the Mac version of Lemmings?
I wrote one a long while back (more than 5 years ago at least, if not 10) but IIRC the program was hard-coded to the specifics of Mac Lemmings (ie. vs ONML or the Xmas/Holiday Lemmings). Unfortunately it was all on an old, long since defunct laptop that I only made rather spotty backups from, so I'm not sure if I still have the source code for the program anymore, nor any notes I've taken about the technical details for the ripping. (Furthermore, my notes often can be as spotty and incomplete as the backups.) :-[ The tool is also written to run on Windows (I don't have a Mac nor the tools to program on it).
If I manage to find the old stuff from my backups and the materials recovered are sufficiently complete, I'll let you know what I need from you to try to get it to work on other Mac Lemmings games. But it's all a very big IF at this time so please don't get your hopes up, sorry.
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Update: to my surprise, I was able to locate the backup that has all my stuff from the old laptop. 8-) There were no notes, but the source code and compiled EXEs for the tools I created do exist in the backup, and it looks like I also already had a copy of the data for Mac Holiday Lemmings 93 as well.
Unfortunately, while those pre-existing tools seem to work as-is on the data from Holiday Lemmings 93, the extracted graphics ended up all blank, or in some cases encountered errors during extraction. :( So it would seem that something has changed slightly or a lot format-wise between Lemmings and Holiday Lemmings on the Mac. It is not clear at the moment whether I can get past this problem. If it's a totally different format then most likely not. If it's just slightly different, then maybe, but it will still take time to work out and the holidays are over, so I can't promise spending much time on this in the near future.
namida's alternative idea of creating a custom level with all pieces could be viable if the level file format is basically the same as DOS Lemmings, but you will need to first find on the web a resource editor for Mac files that runs on the Mac, in order to change the levels that come with the game.
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Success! So as it turns out, it was just a fairly minor change in formatting, so I've now successfully ripped the graphics from Mac ONML and Mac Holiday Lemmings 93. 8-)
Though truth be told they don't really look all that different from the graphics in DOS or Amiga. :-\