Lemmings Forums

Lix => Lix Levels => Topic started by: Liebatron on November 13, 2020, 08:38:21 AM

Title: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on November 13, 2020, 08:38:21 AM

Today I started making a Chicago Elevated Rail terrain set, and I wanted to put a level I made with it out here! It's not super complicated, but I had fun making it!

I'll be busy with other stuff for a couple days, but I'm pretty happy with how the train cars themselves came out in this pack. The ones here are the 2400/2600 series Chicago El rolling stock; I think next I want to make some sprites for the 4000-series cars; they ran from 1914 through the 50s mostly, but weren't completely retired until 1973. The 4000-series cars are my favorite Chicago El rolling stock. Everyone should have a favorite Chicago Elevated Rail rolling stock production line. But anyway, Lemmings! Or in this case Lix! Let me know if anyone wants to see more Chicago terrain stuff!

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Proxima on November 13, 2020, 08:48:35 AM

Looks awesome! :thumbsup:

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on November 13, 2020, 10:45:00 AM

Thanks! I was going to go to bed because I have to drive tomorrow, but instead of doing that, I did the logical thing and made revisions to a level right after posting it...

There's stars and a moon now! No other changes. I know you probably can't really see stars at night in Chicago, but we can pretend.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on November 14, 2020, 12:37:59 AM

This is a lovely idea for a set, great work!

When you're happy with the set, we can discuss including it in the Lix standard download.

The scale of these tiles (in comparison with the lixes) is so that it it still looks reasonable; any smaller and the lixes would look gigantic in comparison. The benefit of this scale is that we can have entire buildings as single tiles. Looking forward to how you continue with the set!

Are you going to create some solid terrain pieces to serve as ground under the grass/road, or to put in midair? In a pinch, one can put earth from other tilesets below the train landscape.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on November 16, 2020, 12:18:12 AM

Thank you! I'm glad you like it!

Also, I'm home again! I have some stone ground tiles with grass on them, but it's still pretty bare bones right now. I have a couple ideas for floating blocks and the like, but I'm not sure exactly how I want to implement those yet... I'm thinking making 'floating buildings' would be cool, but I might add some clouds too.

I also want to add some gadgets, but I'm not entirely sure what the rules are for those. I've got a working exit, hatch, I think I've got water figured out, and I found the gadget parameter help file, but for some reason one of the traps I'm trying to make won't render in the game. The file for it is larger than most traps, and I wonder if it's because I've overrun a size limitation of some sort? Is there a limit to how many frames you can add, how large they can be, or how large the animation png can be?

EDIT: Nevermind! The trap is working! I took out some non-moving frames at the end of the animation, so I'm guessing I just hit a frame limit.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on November 16, 2020, 12:29:28 AM

IIRC: Either 2048 or 4096 is the limit, and the limit depends on the graphics card, too. For compatibility, we shouldn't make graphics larger than 2048.

I should write these things in the help files, too.

In hindsight, I don't know how good it was to have the game read all animation frames from the same image. At least sticking all frames into the same image makes the animation much easier to edit.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Forestidia86 on November 16, 2020, 05:38:19 PM

I like your set, it looks great and atmospheric.

I've solved the level and attached a replay if you're interested.

The exit train looks quite similiar to the normal terrain trains, which confused me a bit.

(Just if someone has problems playing, the content of the zip needs to be put in ...\images\Liebatron.)

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on November 17, 2020, 02:54:24 PM

That's good to know, I think my largest animation image is 1681x59, so it sounds like that'll be comfortably inside the limit.

Also Forestidia, thanks! I'm glad you liked it! I've changed a lot of the object names, so I had to fix some stuff, but I did check out the replay. I liked what you did to get on the platform; you wield bridges like a surgeon wields a scalpel. That was pretty neat to watch.

I'm not sure what to do about the graphical similarity you mentioned though.. I really really like the idea of the Lix boarding the train, getting off the train, etc... Just... Interactive trains. But at the same time they are really similar to the non-backgrounded trains. I'm trying to make it so everything that can be walked in front of has at least some sort of animation, even if it's just a flashing light. The pattern I'm trying to use to denote lethality is "If it has a red light on it, it kills you", but I'm not sure that'll be obvious enough to avoid confusion. We'll find out soon though!

I'm not sure I want to call it done yet, but I've got an updated tile set and a couple more levels with them. Again, not super serious puzzles, the new ones especially are mostly just here to show the new terrain set! This is what's new:

Terrain:

-CTA 4000-Series Railcar
-4 buildings (some design/layout differences, but they're mostly just recolors of the second building I made), and corresponding modular building pieces
-Fire escapes
-Phone booth
-Some floating building foundations
-Modular rail station pieces

-Sewer pipes (I like these in theory, but I'm not sure happy with how they came out... I don't really know what to do though. I feel like generally speaking they just have too much red. I feel like I'll just have to recolor them from scratch at some point.)

-Decorative details; specifically a basketball hoop, cars, meters, a fruit cart, shrubs, trees, street lights.
-Basic rectangular stone shapes and a wedge piece
-Basic vertical, horizontal, and diagonal steel beams

Hatches and Exits:

There's hatches for both types of train cars now! When the level starts, the train doors open, and Lix start getting off the train.
There's also exits for both types of train cars!

Sidenote, I have a white-window and a black-window version of the CTA 4000 car; for most of the gadgets I only made a black-window version... I like how the white-window variant looks, but I'm debating whether it should be included in the final tile set.. And whether it should have a complete set of animations and whatnot. I really like the train animations, but I also don't want to clutter up the gadget selection screens.

Traps:

The traps are a bit unusual... I wanted to make a trap where a Lix would get crushed by a moving train, but I had to do some interesting stuff to account for how wide the trap would need to be. Since the animation moves the Lix to the animated location as soon as they enter the trigger area, I realized if I made it like a normal trap, I would end up with this weird thing where a Lix would get teleported to the middle of a train before being crushed. Theoretically I could just make a bunch of small traps representing different starting frames for the same animation, but that would massively clutter the trap selection window. Sooo I tried two things as :lix-frown::lix-frown:ke how that works, but I'm not sure if I should keep it as water or try to achieve the same result another way... Maybe I'll try making a fire variant?

Second, I made a version of the animation that has crossing gate, and the trap is only triggered when the Lix gets to the middle of the crossing gate. But then it was awkward to use because the only time you could use it was when it was wedged between two objects in a gap. I figured a tile-able trap animation would allow for longer trains, which would allow it to be used more flexibly... In order to make that happen without having crossing gates every car length though, I separated the railcar animation from the crossing gate animation entirely and set the trigger area for the traincar trap to zero. Since the railcar trap was technically no longer lethal, I went ahead and changed the indicator light on it from red to green.

So now, the set has two railcar 'traps' which are technically just scenery, but they're meant to be used in conjunction with the 'crossing gate' trap (Which is full of flashing red lights). And technically you can use the crossing gate trap by itself, but then you'll just see a Lix appear to be crushed under the wheels of an invisible train.

And finally there's one new trap involving an expired parking meter...

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Forestidia86 on November 25, 2020, 10:05:24 PM

I've solved your other levels as well.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on November 28, 2020, 11:10:33 AM

Thanks for playing them, Forestidia!:D I liked your solutions; particularly your solution for Going Down Town with the single massive bridge.

So I think I'm happy with where the pieces are now :lix-grin:! If there's anything that should be included but isn't, let me know! Like; "A complete set should ideally have this shape", or "I need a piece that fits in with these and turns Lix around", or "You forgot to include the rolling stock from my favorite Chicago Transit Authority Elevated Railcar Production Line."

Also, Simon and anyone else who's involved in Lix development, I wanted to get your thoughts on the traps! Specifically the 'water' traps which are actually moving trains... I would prefer to make them normal (non-water) traps where the animation is more flexibly placed, but in order to do that as it is now, I'd need to make a bunch of 8-pixel traps, each representing a single frame of the train's animation, which would add a lot of clutter to the trap directory. I'm thinking for now the 'water' variant is the best alternative, but I'm not sure if that breaks any style conventions you want to maintain for Lix terrain sets. If it does, let me know and I can either take the 'water' traps out, or figure something else out for that.

Also just generally speaking, let me know what you guys think of the set!:)

The terrain set is attached as Chicago.zip; it goes under \images\Liebatron

I'm also uploading a short level pack to go with it as "Liebatron.zip"! It's got 16 levels in 4 difficulty levels ranging from "Just Ducky!" to "Riveting". If you guys play any of those levels, let me know what you think of those too!

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on November 29, 2020, 11:50:06 AM

Excellent progress! The set looks versatile for multi-layered terrain now, the screenshot of Over and Under makes it all look natural and un-forced.

The sheer number of trains and locomotives characterizes the set and clearly shows its point. Lovely level of detail. I have played the DOS adaption of 1830 and easily recognize the William Mason locomotives.

The "Now for PC" sign contains copyrighted Lemmings graphics, this will be tricky when it comes to including the set in the Lix main download. Would you be up to redesign this sign? Strictly, the drowning lemming also looks to be the Lemmings 1 drowner sprite. (All other lemmings appear to be fan art, including the forum smileys, so they're all fine.)

I'll look at the trap and the implementation ideas in more detail. I'll reply these days specifically about the trap. I agree that bloating the trap browser is a problem. Until now, I've always kept the trap technicalities simple, even though that made some designs hard to realize.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on November 30, 2020, 01:03:59 AM

Thanks for looking at the tiles!

I haven't heard of 1830, but now I kind of want to check that out. I hadn't heard of the William Mason specifically, but it looks like it's a standard American 4-4-0, and I drew these by looking at pictures of The General and The Jupiter, also standard American 4-4-0 configurations, so I think it's cool that the design was so immediately recognizable! I based the recolors and slight shape variants primarily on those, the Judy K from Cedar Point, some random loco from a local scenic rail line in Pennsylvania, and a well-known Detroit & Lima loco (that I have in N-Scale!)

I drew the Forney types while looking at pictures of Forney type locos operating on the Chicago El and New York El from the 1800s prior to electrification.

I can redesign those two signs to take out the Lemmings graphics, also! I might just see about replacing them with Lix.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on December 06, 2020, 08:44:54 PM

Whooooooaaaaa....
So I just checked out 1830, and it's almost identical to this board game:
https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Gryphon-Games-Railways-World-Strategy/dp/B002I61OOU

Now I know where they got the idea for the board game... Like.. Down to the hexagonal piece distribution. I think I'm through stock trading for the first round, but now it wants me to "Enter word at page 54, line 8, position 5", which... I'm pretty confused about that. I don't think it's going to let me build track or buy trains unless I can either guess the secret word or google it successfully. But I'll get back to that later.

More on topic; I'm back in a place with internet and I'm uploading a revised terrain set! I added 2 more versions of the RS3 and the Forney type loco. I changed the two signs also, I took the Lemmings graphics out and put in Lix graphics, and I also changed the name of one of the signs. None of the name-changed pieces are solution-breaking when absent, but if you want versions that aren't missing pieces in weird places, I'm reuploading the levels too.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Forestidia86 on December 07, 2020, 05:28:24 PM

I've played the new levels apart from the ones I've solved before and the no skill level.

Remarks (click to show/hide)

Many levels seem to rely heavily on working with the details of the terrain which was instructive but also sometimes finicky. The levels seem often to have an unconventional actiony touch in general squeezing out the whole of the mechanics, which I liked since it forced you to think outside the box.(I'm not sure if the solutions were intended though.) I liked as well that often the Lix specific skills (compared to other fan engines) like jumper, batter etc. were used.

Beating a Path - I found it a nice and funny idea for stalling but dragged on too long in my opinion.
Falling For This City - If intended it has nice actiony mechanic and is a neat little puzzle in total.
Promotionary Point - I got first stunned how this level is solvable but again a quite unconventional solution.
Bi-Level Platform - It seemed a quite standard nice puzzle to me although it happened to work out tightly in the end. So I don't know if the solution is fully intended.
Crimson and Clover - A quite unconventional use of the miner if intended, was intructive but also quite tight.
Green Line - This level took the longest for me to solve and I only got it with a very tight squeeze and much manipulation of timing. So not sure if intended.
Which Way is Up - Interesting torus level though I'm not sure if I backrouted since I abused the reset of fallheight by flingers and could have saved even one more I think.
End of Shift - Rough to get everything together.
Over and Under - At first stunned how to solve without constructive skills but in the end not that hard if you know how the terrain works.
Overtruss Trek - Abused heavily the mechanic of the flinger.
Station Transfer - Again very heavily reliant on knowing how the terrain works, therefore at first stunned as well. Solved it almost by accident.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on December 07, 2020, 07:25:05 PM

DOS 1830: Try hitting Enter on the copyright check (without entering a word from the manual). Any success?

Youtube video with 1830 rules (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dtNSyjyPgs) (17 minutes)

Gist of 1830 rules (click to show/hide)

• Companies start with 10 x par value in their treasury.
  
• Stock prices rise when all certificates are held by players, and/or when dividends are paid. Stock prices drop after a player has sold that stock, and/or when the company keeps earnings or had no trains.
  
• Routes must contain a city with your station. Routes can start and end at any city. Routes cannot pass through cities that are completely filled with other companies' stations.
  
• 4-trains will rust when the first Diesel is bought. 5-trains are permanent.
  
• Compaines without trains must buy a train at end of turn, unless they have no route yet. If the company treasury is insufficient (often happens with Diesels at $1100), the president must add private money. The president may not put money into company treasury at other times.
  
• The winner is the richest player. For this, all stock will be scored at end-of-game stock price, then cash is added. Company treasuries are ignored.
  

It's not necessary to learn the private companies during your first games. Each private company has a special rule. They all block hexes until they're bought by public companies, or until they close when the first 5-train is bought.

---

The tileset is getting massive! It's becoming more and more a city with trains.

Certainly, change the tile names as much as you like. It's best to have good, concise tile names when we publish the set in the main Lix download. It's completely OK if some levels need changing during these early days.

Eventually, I should also go over the naming myself. I promise that, in case I suggest changes, I'll write a Bash/sed script to automatically rename the tiles in all levels, and I'll offer you to send me levels to run through that script.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on December 09, 2020, 12:41:05 PM

I do promise I'm done adding trains! :P (Unless anyone has any requests!) I was a little worried about the size of the tile set in general, also. I'm thinking if I make any major changes at this point it'll probably be to take out two of the red boxcar recolors. I was originally thinking it'd be nice to have some variation in one of the colors so you can have a complete train without every single car looking identical, but realistically the 3 red ones are so close in saturation and hue that I probably only need one of them.

Also, for the names, I'm curious as to the reasoning behind wanting concise, descriptive tile names. Does it have to do with how they appear in the Lix editor, or is there another reason? Specifically I want to check whether it's important that the name itself be concise, or the full path. I made subdirectories for purposes of organizing the pieces in the set, which makes for longer paths than usual, so I also want to make sure that won't cause any issues. I did that in part to control the order in which pieces appear in the editor menu, and also to make it easier to work with different pieces in the set during set creation. I'm thinking I'm pretty happy with most of the tile names themselves at this point, but if you've got any changes to suggest, let me know and I'll make those!

If it's just a couple, I can just go through the levels and change them manually, but if you anticipate the subdirectories causing problems in the future, that really will require every tile to change. In that case, I'll come up with tile names that ensure that they appear in that order anyway, but at this point I think you're right, some variety of automated solution will be needed...

I've already gone through and changed most of the tile names in the first 8'ish levels about 4 times for various reasons, so it's interesting you mention that; I was considering some java-based solutions to the problem. I feel like I can't be the first person to run into that issue while making a new terrain set and accompanying level pack "Oh, I want to change this tile name, but I also have to change it in these 50 places now." It'd be cool to have a reusable utility for that kind of situation. Something where you could say "Hey, here's 40 levels. I want to change this tile name to this in all of them. Make it so.", or have it read in a list of arbitrary tile name changes as JSON or XML and do the same. Or... Potentially a thing where you could do the same thing, and give it the path to the tile set and the levels, and it would list the tiles for you, and you could rename them in the interface and it would do it in both places simultaneously and resave everything with the changes in a separate output directory. It might take me a minute to put that together, but it'd be a cool utility to have available.

Also no dice on the blank entry for 1830. I'm thinking at some point I might try downloading it from somewhere and running it for reals on DosBOX instead of using that online emulator thing. I never fully trust the online emulator to faithfully reproduce games. I don't really have a reason to doubt it, it just seems like a weird thing to exist.

Forestidia - Thanks for playing the levels and providing feedback! I'm checking out your solutions now, and they are fascinating. You came up with cool ways to solve these. It looks like I've got a lot of minor/partial backroutes and a couple major backroutes to fix still.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Intended] Beating a Path - "I found it a nice and funny idea for stalling but dragged on too long in my opinion."
- I would agree. I originally made this level so I could play it with my fiancée since she's new to the game, and we both died laughing when we were playing it together. When you're playing it single player though it doesn't quite have the same appeal for as long. I think I'll keep the hallway as it is, but shorten the bridge span so you don't have to stall for as long.

[Backroute] Falling For This City - If intended it has nice actiony mechanic and is a neat little puzzle in total.
- This solution was fascinating. I would never have thought to do it the way you did it. I don't want my constraints to give away too much for the intended solution, but I think I see a way to prevent that backroute without making the intended solution too obvious... I kind of tried to build these levels as with "Chekhov Pieces" to hint at where the solution should be applied. To that end, I think I might actually need to take a couple pieces out in this one.

[Intended Solution] Promotionary Point - I got first stunned how this level is solvable but again a quite unconventional solution.
-Neat!

[Partial Backroute] Bi-Level Platform - It seemed a quite standard nice puzzle to me although it happened to work out tightly in the end. So I don't know if the solution is fully intended.
- Not the intended solution! I'm fascinated by your solution though because it employs a certain mechanic that I didn't anticipate, and Timballisto did the exact same thing when he first played it. I have a pretty basic change in mind that will eliminate the backroute you found though. At the risk of giving away the intended solution, you're right, it's not supposed to be that tight timing-wise at the end.

[Not precisely as intended, but same basic idea] Crimson and Clover - A quite unconventional use of the miner if intended, was intructive but also quite tight.
- Another fascinating solution; it's not exactly the one I'd intended, but it's very close. The way I intended is a little easier to time, but does require more skills.

[As Intended with a twist] Green Line - This level took the longest for me to solve and I only got it with a very tight squeeze and much manipulation of timing. So not sure if intended.
- This level actually has 2 potential solutions; the one you found is the more difficult of the two to execute. It has a few very minor variations, some of which don't necessarily hinge on timing, but the way you found is pretty fascinating because it comes really close to exploiting the key intended mechanic, but just barely bypasses it. Both potential intended solutions to this level are supposed to rely on "sliding" to get above the platform... I think. I may be misunderstanding what counts as "sliding." Technically there's two ways to do it, but one of them is technically the 'real' intended solution. I might considering making the solution more obvious for this one and bumping it down a difficulty level though... I think this one might be more difficult than I expected, but based on your feedback it seems like there's a chance that it's not difficult for the *reasons* I'd intended.

[Partial Backroute] Which Way is Up - Interesting torus level though I'm not sure if I backrouted since I abused the reset of fallheight by flingers and could have saved even one more I think.
- This was a neat backroute, but it's one I should have seen, since it really does take advantage of the primary intended mechanic (resetting fall height with a Lix detonation). I'll have to rework this one a bit to get that flavor of backroute closed without making the intended solution too obvious, because I reeaalllly want people to find the intended solution. It's tight but it's sooo elegant in practice... The intended solution almost gives me that feeling you get when a song hits a high note section... I think it's called Frisson.

[Backroute] End of Shift - Rough to get everything together.
- This is actually backroute, but the fact that you came up with this solution before coming up with the intended solution is making me doubt whether it's reasonable to expect anyone to actually arrive at the intended solution the way it's set up now... For the intended solution, you're supposed to erm... Reach for the stars. I kind of want to keep that part in place, but the intended solution also relies on a highly specific set of actions at a critical point after that, and it might be good to simplify that part just so people don't get to it and think "This might be a dead end. I think I took a wrong turn when I started running around on the stars."

[Backroute] Over and Under - At first stunned how to solve without constructive skills but in the end not that hard if you know how the terrain works.
- There's a more reliable way to do the first part of this level, but I like the efficiency of the solution you used. I'm actually glad to hear that you were briefly unsure how to get across the river without builders; that was the intent there. I wanted to make something that looked like it could be bridged, but have the actual river crossing occur through other means. As for the part on the other side of the river, just... Just... I have no idea why the solution you came up with there didn't occur to me. The solution I intended initially was completely reliable, but it did rely on some narrow timing. What you did is way easier. I'm... Again, strongly debating whether I should fix this one, or leave it as is and just change the skills to match your solution.

[Hilarious backroute] Overtruss Trek - Abused heavily the mechanic of the flinger.
:lem-mindblown: Wow. So uh... The intended solution does abuse the flinger mechanic in two ways actually, but it has a number of steps in between as well. I love that your solution just went way over the top and was like "I don't need no intervening steps, I'm just going to super-abuse the flinger mechanic and throw all of my Lemmings all the way across the screen with a single detonation. That is just hysterical. So uhh... I'm going to go ahead and make some minor adjustments to this one. The funny thing is I actually already thought of a very similar backroute and I added the metal bar to close that route. Evidently it was not as closed as I thought. I will go ahead and rework a couple more things here...

[Intended Solution with a Twist] Station Transfer - Again very heavily reliant on knowing how the terrain works, therefore at first stunned as well. Solved it almost by accident.
- This was exactly the intended solution, but I'm sorry you ended up having to solve it by accident : \ I think I need to take out the purple RS3... The absence of anything up there and the inability to get a bridge up high enough to slide up on top of the platform was initially supposed to be a hint; I don't remember why I ended up putting that second engine in. This one also needs some additional work, I think.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on December 16, 2020, 02:09:03 AM

Subdirectories within tileset are fine. Lix editor tile browser will flatten the subdirs. It's up for debate whether the browser should flatten for every tileset.

Naming: I like all-lowercase, consistency, and no redundancy with directory names; for example, if tile is in a dir called "trains", tile itself doesn't need to be called "blue_train", "blue" would be enough here.

There exists no tool for the tile renamig yet because I've always done it with shell one-liners. It's certainly conceivable to make such a tool. It's occasionally handy for maintenance, but it's extremely handy for tileset designers, indeed.

If you know Java, you can also peek at the Lix source (https://github.com/SimonN/LixD). The object-oriented parts of D are heavily inspired by Java.

Still have to reply to many details, including the trap design. Will come back to you this weekend!

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on January 10, 2021, 09:24:09 PM

I wanted to reply about the trap design. I'm still sorting through the different zip archives, trap examples need the exact right version of the tileset to play. The most recent archive has subdirectories, the trap examples seem to need the old, flatter tree.

It's getting too late today, I'll come back to that in a couple days!

If you already have the tiles/matching levels in git somewhere on the internet, that would help me. But don't stick the tiles in git merely for me; if you prefer zip archives, then stick with those. Eventually, we'll put the tiles directly in the Lix main repository.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on January 14, 2021, 02:43:15 AM

I hadn't considered a git repo, but I do have a github account... I might do that eventually, but for the time being I haven't made any changes to the tileset, so you've still got the most up-to-date version.

Also there's absolutely no rush!

I know everyone knows the holidays themselves are busy, but I feel like the post-holidays are frequently underappreciated for how busy they are. You've got just... Lots of stuff to put back the way it was, and you're already tired, and work things all pick up at the same time as people rush to be like 'What was I doing...', and you have to deal with that after this kind of emotional de-escalation of everything, because the 'big events' are over, and you're basically not running on adrenaline anymore. I feel like January is often a mess in that way, and it goes unrecognized.

I'll keep checking back and stuff. I was gone for a while, but now that I'm here again I want to remember to check in and hang out here with at least some regularity even if I'm not in a highly active phase of a specific project. It's just a good place, and a good group of people to stay in contact with.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on January 14, 2021, 04:07:26 AM

All right, I'll look at the example levels in your current version, then, to figure out the best way for the traps.

On first thought, I'm fine with adding traps, but reluctant to add new types of traps/animations. We can think about reorganization of how the editor's browser offers the traps. Still, let's try not to spam traps merely because of animation reason. Trap animations have their known problems, e.g., the dying lixes are part of the trap and thus aren't recolored in multiplayer.

See also: github #347: Improve some odd trap death effects #347 (https://github.com/SimonN/LixD/issues/347)

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Forestidia86 on January 30, 2021, 12:30:18 AM

I thought train traps would fit better as fire traps (more fitting sound) but I can see a point for water traps as well (like pulled under the train).

There is a new issue(#411) (https://github.com/SimonN/LixD/issues/411) concerning better trap management.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on January 31, 2021, 04:24:06 PM

I will reply in detail within a day. Gist:

• Issue #411: Better trap design (https://github.com/SimonN/LixD/issues/411) has ideas to improve existing traps and allow you to better realize what you want to do. I'm 50:50 whether it's worth it. Format change considerations etc.
• When a tile is divisible by 8 or 16, I encourage you to make it align with the grid better. Whenever you can design a tile so that it aligns with the 16 grid, do it, or try to aim at least at the 8 grid. One train gadget looks like it should align, but it doesn't.
• Tileset encourages levels that depend on icky details in the physics.
• Some sizes not divisible by 16 even though there is no clear reason to deviate, e.g., box girder. I'll have to find the exact tile again.
• Steel is hard to see. Nubs aren't enough at first sight. Color it much closer to white? Reserve light grey for steel and make other stuff darker?
• Police trap is amazing, everybody in Lixtown will be locked away for misdemeanor.

More details soon!

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on February 01, 2021, 05:56:23 AM

Traps: If you want permanently-running trains, I agree that the empty crossing plus decorative animated background is problematic. It's too easy to use one part without the other during level design. The 0x0-sized trigger is cute, but ultimately goes against Lix's spirit that everything animated should have an effect.

I recommend that you implement this idea with a single tile (not two tiles that shall be overlaid) and make it water or fire. It will kill lix continuously, which is appropriate for a train running through; it won't kill only one lix at a time.

The crossing can either become terrain, or become a graphical variant of the single-tile trap.

If #411 goes through, we can then replace the water/fire with a functionally identical trap that has your already-designed death effect, but is still continuous. If #411 doesn't go through, I feel like the water/fire is still the least-nasty way (compared with two tiles that kill one-at-a-time).

Please consider supporting the 16-grid. :lix-grin: E.g., Chicago/active/Water_CTA_2400_car_1.W looks like it aligns only to a 4-grid. It would help if it sat on the ground perfectly whenever both the ground and the trap are placed under the 16-grid (4th button in editor's top row).

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on February 04, 2021, 09:25:44 AM

Thanks for looking these things over! I appreciate you taking time out of your day to inspect my silly train tiles! :P

I figured there was a pretty good chance the perma-trains and crossing gate would go that way, but I'll keep a local copy for nostalgia, and in case there's ever another place to use them!

I'm thinking I'll turn the static crossing into terrain then, and keep the animated crossing attached to a dedicated "Trap with crossing" object which will also be water. I initially made it water just as a placeholder, but when I saw it in action I realized that the drowning sound can also kind of sound like a crushing sound if your brain hears it while paired with the visual of a Lix getting pulled under a train. If you're ok with it, I think it'll work out ok!

As for the 16 grid, I think I know why that is... I might not be 100% clear on what the misalignment is until I can look at it in the Lix editor again, but I'll take a look at that on a per-object basis too and try to optimize for 16- or 8-grid compliance.

I was kind of having the same thought myself about the steel tiles towards the end too. It's pretty obvious when they're compared to the non-steel beam variants, but when it's just the steel ones standing alone, the bolts don't stand out as much as I would have liked.

I am glad you liked the police trap, also! :lix-laugh:

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on February 27, 2021, 07:41:22 AM

Done so far:

Made closed crossing gate into a small detail terrain piece; "crossing_gates_closed_1"
Renamed "open_crossing_gates_1" to "crossing_gates_open_1"
Removed "Trap_CTA_2400_car_1.T"
Removed "Trap_CTA_2400_car_2.T"
Removed "Trap_CTA_4000_car_1.T"
Removed "Trap_CTA_4000_car_2.T"
(Now the only remaining railcar trap variants are the ones that act as water)

All traps, hatches, and exits are now 16 pixels tall (or a multiple; one is 32)

Left to do:
Make railcars multiples of 16 pixels tall where possible (The Forney is *17* pixels tall right now and I can't really take a pixel off the height... Debating whether I should make it 24px, or just go all-in and make it 32 pixels tall with 15 pixels of empty space?
Fix steel tiles to be more obviously steel
16 pixel horizontal alignment... Would be a lot trickier for the hatches and such, but might also be worth looking into. The hatches/exits/traps are already 8-pixel compliant; debating whether or not to add 8 pixels of empty space, or if I should just leave 'em as is... It would mean 8 pixels of blank space on a graphic that's already a multiple of 8 pixels. Pros: Would align to 16-grid. Cons: Would bug me... I should just go ahead and make it align, shouldn't I?

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: 607 on March 05, 2021, 12:52:58 PM

Wow, I love it!! The trains are beautiful! :thumbsup: I like the buildings a lot, too. :)

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on March 05, 2021, 07:05:59 PM

Support for grid 8 is already good, it's your call if the extra mile for grid 16 is worth it. Empty space, hmmmmm, it's nasty that empty space is the only way in current file formats to align to a grid.

At least grid 8 is a good start for things that are hard to support grid 16.

For comparison, the truss square is 42x42 and is designed to overlap with copies of itself by 6 pixels. As it stands, neither grid 8 nor grid 16 will get us anywhere near what we want to do, and we'd use grid 2 with this square. The truss square looks like it would benefit the most from becoming 48x48 (40x40 in a pinch), with an overlap by 8 pixels.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on April 20, 2021, 03:15:18 AM

Alright... In that case, then after much deliberation, being distracted by other things in life, and pain thinking about 15 pixels of empty space, I think I'm going to go ahead and make the Forney have *7* pixels of extra space at the top. That will be less than half as painful as 15 extra pixels.

Still still to do:

Make truss squares 48x48, or possibly make two versions; one 48x48 and another 32x32...
Fix steel tiles to be more obviously steel
Add 7 pixels to Forney type
Fix level pack up for new sizes
Fix "Up" arrow key on keyboard, since it's decided it doesn't want to work anymore

Also, thanks 607! :laugh:

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on June 27, 2021, 02:29:47 AM

Make truss squares 48x48, or possibly make two versions; one 48x48 and another 32x32...
Fix steel tiles to be more obviously steel
I ended up doing a bit of a compromise here; I decided I couldn't really make the steel obviously steel without scaling it up a bit in terms of thickness, so I went ahead and did that, which also resolved the 8-pixel overlap tiling issue. The resulting steel piece is 48x48!

I do still really like the thinner square truss though, and I like the idea of having a generic square truss that *isn't* steel, so I did just add it separately under the "truss" section as a non-steel square truss piece with the same size. That one doesn't tile with the same 8-pixel overlap, but it would tile with a 4-pixel overlap, and it's still 48x48. If you needed to tile them on an 8-pixel grid, it would still work, you'd just have double-trussed vertical and horizontal bars. Let me know if that sounds like an acceptable solution!

Add 7 pixels to Forney type
I mixed this up; I needed 7 pixels to the *side* to adhere to the 8-grid. That's more palatable than a bunch of empty space at the top. This is done!

Fix level pack up for new sizes - Still need to do this part!

Fix "Up" arrow key on keyboard, since it's decided it doesn't want to work anymore - Ordered new machine. This one is starting to do some interesting things anyway, aside from the key failure. This has been an outstanding machine for several years, but I think it's time...

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on June 28, 2021, 07:52:53 PM

Thanks! I've downloaded it and taken a first glance. Lots of reallife stuff to do, but in due time, I'll look with much more detail and write feedback.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on July 18, 2021, 08:49:35 PM

Awesome!

Also, one more update; I was playing around with it and I noticed an issue with the hitboxes for the fire traps where the hitbox didn't quite extend to the bottom of the fire, much less below it. I think I forgot to make adjustments after adding pixels to make it 8-pixel grid compliant.

I did some hitbox testing and made some adjustments; the Lix can survive having their hair or feet singed a bit, but if they decide to befriend the fire too much, they go up in flames as expected. :devil: :XD:

EDIT: One more tiny fix; literally 3 pixels the *slightly* wrong color on two of the trains. I reuploaded the zip!

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on July 19, 2021, 04:50:01 AM

Also here's updated versions of the levels themselves! Most of the changes were made just to accommodate the new steel terrain, but there's a couple changes I made to make a couple things less tedious, particularly in the later levels. I'm attaching replays too this time!

Also, there's 4 "Bonus" levels in this pack; I wanted to make a level pack which would exclusively use pieces from the Chicago terrain set, and I *almost* did; Walk-In Appointment and Promontory Point both use an outside entrance and exit, Overtruss Trek uses a "construction" set hatch, and in 4 levels I did use someone else's water. I came close though!

The bonus levels are just 4 more (Really 3, one is just a silly no-skill level) that didn't really fit into that goal!

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on July 27, 2021, 09:59:57 PM

Yeah, inconsistent hitboxes between fire/water is cultural debris. Fire will trigger if (foot + 0, 4, 8, or 12 hi-respixels above) intersects the hitbox. Water will only trigger if foot intersects the hitbox. Since the hitboxes are filled rectangles, never weird holey shapes, better rule would be to always only trigger on foot, and increase all fire trigger areas downwards by 12 pixels. I'm reluctant because this would be breaking change, and really hard to detect: Nothing would prevent old-tiles with new-game, nor new-tiles with old-game.

The cultural debris comes from: Fire originally hit the eyes that dependend on the spritesheet, not (foot + 12 above). It's stupid to depend on the spritesheet for such unexpected detail like eye position, therefore I simplified to (foot + 0, 4, 8, 12 above) and kept backwards-compatible hitbox definitions in the tiles.

---

Still busy, haven't looked in peace at the updated tiles. Thanks for sticking to the 8-grid! I'll take a closer look eventually and go through your changes.

I remember, as a player, that the Chicago exit/goal was hard to find; the exit looks on first sight like any other train wagon, with only subtle detail to set it apart. Instead, exits really should pop into view, it's an important place in the level. The quick suggestion is to draw a large animated arrow over the exit train car. Combine it with the "board here" sign? But I'll have to look at the tileset in peace again before I can suggest anything serious.

It's hard to add space to the left/top after-the-fact to existing tiles. Long-term idea for Lix is to allow that, and specify offset in a tile definitions file (txt file). Such definitions are only allowed for gadgets in 0.9.x. That's enough in this particular case where we might add to top of exit. But in general, it's conceivable to also allow them for normal terrain. On the other hand, I'd like to keep things easily-guessable for new tileset designers... unsure how much freedom is the right choice. Definitions text files are already a stretch for simplicity; if I allow them, I may as well give more power.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Forestidia86 on August 12, 2021, 11:43:19 PM

I've played through the 3 bonus levels with skills.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For Crying Out Loud - Was a nice challenging level, had one skill left in the end.
Extrawurst - I used basher mechanics, so that the platforms were sufficient and had a lot of skills left.
Lixylvania -  A lot of hidden fire that could be omitted with some squeezing.

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on August 24, 2021, 03:49:30 AM

Thanks for trying them out!

I took a look at the replays, and I've gotta say, the Extrawurst replay took me by surprise :D
It did not at all occur to me that you could just platform right over the hitbox for the 'customer'... I'll have to find a way to prevent that.

Your solution to "For Crying Out Loud" is cool, also! It uses most of the same mechanics as my solution, but uses up a couple more skills on the left, while using significantly fewer on the right side of the level. Mine saves 18, but it uses up all the skills :P

Lixylvania - There is quite a bit of fire! I'm curious though, what do you mean by omitting by squeezing?

Also, I have some ideas for the exits... When I've got time, my plan is to fiddle with the lights around the door and see if I can't make the exits more obvious that way!

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: mobius on December 05, 2022, 11:26:32 PM

I've noticed this isn't included in the main download yet, what's the status on this?

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on December 06, 2022, 06:51:46 AM

Quote from: mobius on December 05, 2022, 11:26:32 PM

I've noticed this isn't included in the main download yet, what's the status on this?

Don't use the Chicago tiles for lemforum levels yet.

I've let the inclusion fell by the wayside in late 2021. The first impression was that the tiles were nice, but fiddly and non-tiling. Then Liebatron improved the grid of the steel to 8, but I still haven't looked at the improved gridding since.

I remember being concerned about the fiddlyness and it was hard to put into words. Sizes are perfectly consistent within Chicago, but clash with all remaining tiles of Lix. This has implications for the editor and the architecture of Lix in general. E.g., Lix offers one big selection of all tilesets' traps, another big selection of all tilesets' steel, but Chicago feels like it calls for separation. Then there are the concerns with the trap definitions etc. from my reply #32. Lots of little stuff to get right to include Chicago properly in Lix so that neither's quirks harms the other.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Liebatron on March 13, 2023, 03:11:24 AM

I'm still around; if there's anything I can change to get the things to work better with other tilesets, let me know!

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on March 14, 2023, 05:47:33 AM

Thanks! I'll re-look into your Chicaco tiles within the next weeks, and post feedback here. At latest, I'll post the feedback after Easter, i.e., Tuesday, April 11th.

I'm still busy as usual in other parts of Lix and other hobbies, and I'll be away for a week. The deadline of April 11th is for me to not let the tiles drift again.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on April 10, 2023, 09:04:59 PM

Real-life stuff came in-between. I was away for the past 2 weeks.

I'll look at the steel within the week, and post feedback for the steel until Tuesday, April 18th.

Overall, the earlier problems still stand: Lix doesn't support the set well. The many non-terrain tiles would flood Lix's browsers because, e.g., traps all appear on a single page in the Lix editor browser, not in a file tree. Nonetheless, I want to look at the steel as promised! The steel in Lix 0.10.7 is already confusing. Ideally, I'll give you feedback on the steel that can also help us improve the existing steel in 0.10.7.

-- Simon

Title: Re: Chicago-Themed Terrain
Post by: Simon on April 17, 2023, 11:58:34 PM

Here's the promised feedback on the steel.

Steel adheres mostly to the 16-grid. Nice! In particular, the big steel truss square is 48x48 now.

You don't have overly many steel pieces, that's nice and plays ball with the editor's steel browser that merges all installed steel into a single view.

Shape nitpick: Some steel is 6x32 or 32x6. That is quirky, but okay, if you want 6-wide bars instead of 8-wide, then that's how it is and designers will have to use the 2-grid instead of the 8-grid.

Theoretically, you can make the bar's bitmap 32x8 with only the central 6 pixels solid, and 1+1 transparent rows at either side. Such a tile feels misalinged unless it had an odd shape to begin with, but you don't have odd-shaped decor; you have rectangular steel. I think the 32x6 is more honest.

Nails: Good! When we look at the steel, we see the nails, and will likely consider the tile steel.

(Now your steel isn't the hardest steel to recognize anymore. I'd like geoo's white steel pipes to get similar nails, or at least small bumps. Those pipes are hard to recognize as steel until you've memorized them.)

Color: The main steel problem wouldn't be in the steel tile itself, but rather a feature of the the overall set. You have diggable grey houses, diggable grey earth, diggable brown railway truss, but then greyish-brown steel. The steel's color still blends in.

E.g., see attached screenshot. We recognize the steel bar clearly as steel once we've decided to look for steel and found that steel. But it doesn't jump into our eyes. With all the colorful action, we're prone to hit the steel by accident.

I don't have a good recommendation. You could make the steel white-and-dark-grey with even glarier nails, but then you'll kill your mood. After all, you want steel trusses that fit the scenery.

Compare with other sets: Other tiles aren't as colorful or mini-detailed, or have much larger details. Grey steel with nubs sticks out in those other sets.

---

That's the feedback on steel. More feedback on the entire set to come, again with a deadline: Tuseday, April 25th.

-- Simon