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Engine Bugs / Suggestions / Re: [SUG][PLAYER] Colour-coding clear physics mode
« on: Today at 11:04:51 pm »
It looks like there isn't really much support for this idea. I've put up a poll just in case there's a lot of silent support.
- December 14, 2019, 11:26:15 pm
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Engine Bugs / Suggestions / Re: [SUG][PLAYER] Recolor lemming count red when not enough remain
« on: Today at 11:02:28 pm »
Implemented the simplest version of this: If not enough lemmings currently exist (including not-yet-spawned lemmings, but excluding potential lemmings from cloners), the lemming count will be red. This is in addition to the other possible colors (to indicate whether the lemmings are all neutral, all regular, or a mix).
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Engine Bugs / Suggestions / Re: [DISC][PLAYER] Styles cleanup - Duplicates / near-duplicates
« on: Today at 10:45:34 pm »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG2OmQ1B96U
From V12.8.0 onwards:
- NL's main download will include a few styles: "default", "xmas", "special", "orig_sega", and all the L1 / ONML styles.
- Other styles can be downloaed either manually, or through NL. NL can do this automatically when encountering a level that needs the styles; and also has a menu to manually download any available style.
- An "all styles" download will continue to be provided. This download will be updated periodically; not necesserially every time a single style is updated.
This mostly averts the problem with the styles download being huge. I need to give some thought to how sounds might be better handled in this system, but everything apart from that is pretty much good to go now.
From V12.8.0 onwards:
- NL's main download will include a few styles: "default", "xmas", "special", "orig_sega", and all the L1 / ONML styles.
- Other styles can be downloaed either manually, or through NL. NL can do this automatically when encountering a level that needs the styles; and also has a menu to manually download any available style.
- An "all styles" download will continue to be provided. This download will be updated periodically; not necesserially every time a single style is updated.
This mostly averts the problem with the styles download being huge. I need to give some thought to how sounds might be better handled in this system, but everything apart from that is pretty much good to go now.
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Closed / Re: [SUG][PLAYER] Hotkey placeholders in pre/post texts.
« on: Today at 10:38:23 pm »
Seems there's no further input on this, so closing this topic now. If anyone does want to make further requests / suggestions relating to this feature, please open a new topic.
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NeoLemmix Main / Re: Plans for V12.8.0
« on: Today at 09:25:29 pm »
I can confirm that style download capability will be returning in V12.8.0. 
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NeoLemmix Graphic Sets / Re: NeoLemmix 24-bit/Hi-Res Graphics & Sprites
« on: Today at 05:58:51 pm »Quote
I like this idea and it's certainly workable, buuut if I have to be 100% honest, I think at the moment I just prefer the original Digger sprite to any of the ideas we've discussed. Give me some more time with this one, I'll see what I can come up with.
Strictly speaking I prefer the original too, but it's important that the direction is clearly visible on all - or at least, most - frames of the animation. This trumps any "keep the original" preference in this case, as a digger's direction is important. (Now on the other hand, the direction of an exiter or ohnoer for example isn't so important, so I don't really care if they don't clearly show their direction.)
I'll check the new sprites out later.
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Engine Bugs / Suggestions / Re: [BUG][STYLES] Left-facing climber animation missing a few pixels on one frame
« on: Today at 05:56:26 am »Quote
Did you find this bug on your own or someone else pointed it out? Is it natural discovery from the ongoing work on creating/borrowing hi-res lemmings sprites? Either way, good eye!I don't think I'd ever noticed myself.
Yeah, I noticed it while trying to line up the high res sprites correctly with the low res ones.
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Kinda curious now whether we might see the same graphics bug in other ports of the game as well. In the DOS game IIRC they often store separate animation sprites for left vs right, which makes it plausible for someone to forget to apply, say, a last-minute graphics change to one of the two versions of graphics.
DOS has separate left vs right sprites for any graphic that actually has different left vs right appearances. However, I think it's less about a last minute change, and more about the sprite being cut off by the image bounds - they could have adjusted the foot positioning to deal with this (I assume) but didn't.
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Also curious whether this bug remains on ONML and other L1-based games. After all, we know DOS ONML did fix a few things like the ABBA ordering for two-entrance levels. The Xmas lemmings games likely were "fixed" by virtue of having a completely different set of holiday-themed sprites.
I don't know for sure about ONML off-hand, but the Holiday Lemmings MAIN.DAT file has this issue as well.
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In Development / Re: happylemmings not sad
« on: December 13, 2019, 05:48:30 pm »
I think you've done a very good job with the visuals on "Walking Home". The only thing that sticks out to me is the pole near the water (see 1st attached screenshot). I'd do something like place a brick at the end so it doesn't abruptly cut off (see 2nd screenshot) - though at least it's lined up with the edge nicely. Even this, it's very much a "my personal tastes" thing, and many well-known level creators would feel perfectly fine leaving things the way you've done here.
The other two, yeah, I have to say I feel some work is needed on those visually. Don't take this too harshly - my early levels looked a lot like those, too, and I'm sure many other people would say the same about their early levels as well. I think the biggest thing is: With rough-edged styles like Dirt and Snow, the trick is generally that you don't just have pieces lightly touching like that; rather, you make larger clumps by placing multiple copies of the small clumps overlapping each other. (This doesn't mean there's never a situation that calls for using a single copy of a piece on its own, but it's rare compared to the "big clump" setup.)
The other two, yeah, I have to say I feel some work is needed on those visually. Don't take this too harshly - my early levels looked a lot like those, too, and I'm sure many other people would say the same about their early levels as well. I think the biggest thing is: With rough-edged styles like Dirt and Snow, the trick is generally that you don't just have pieces lightly touching like that; rather, you make larger clumps by placing multiple copies of the small clumps overlapping each other. (This doesn't mean there's never a situation that calls for using a single copy of a piece on its own, but it's rare compared to the "big clump" setup.)
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Lemmings Main / Re: Joke ideas for skills and objects
« on: December 13, 2019, 05:34:44 pm »Quote
Thus, your Guitarist and Banana skills would be redundant, because they serve that same purpose (I guess the Librarian would be as well).
I don't see anything suggesting the Banana would stay stationary.
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You'd need to ask Simon whether he'd be fine with Lix sprites being implemented into NeoLemmix in general.I think they're under creative-commons license, anyway.
Apart from that, this is precisely what I meant when I reminded everyone in the opening post that we already have the Cloner for Lemming Reproduction...
NeoLemmix is CC-BY-NC, Lix is public domain. This essentially means that anyone can use Lix sprites for anything they want, including commercial usage, no credit given (at least legally speaking; obviously this would be quite morally questionable). NeoLemmix on the other hand, CC-BY-NC requires that credit be given and forbids commercial usage, but beyond that the code can still be used freely. (Some graphical resources obviously belong to whoever owns the right to Lemmings. Those that don't, but are part of NL itself (rather than a user-made style), would be covered by CC-BY-NC.)
In terms of the actual suggestion; I'd think that the lemming using this skill would hope that reproduction does not occur.
Even if it would, a genetic mix of two parents is a bit different from a straight-up clone of one. Which raises the question - would a Lix-Lemming hybrid be biologically possible? If so, would the offspring be sterile, like most (but not all) cross-species animals are in the real world? What would it look like?10
NeoLemmix Graphic Sets / Re: NeoLemmix 24-bit/Hi-Res Graphics & Sprites
« on: December 13, 2019, 05:05:19 am »
Okay, so I've looked at them in-game.
Fencer - I think this is as good as we're going to get in terms of body / lance horizontal positioning. So we'll go with that. However, I think we need some minor slight changes to the "slash" animation. I think we need to insert a frame between the 3rd and 4th one with the lance even lower. Then, to compensate, we'd need to remove one frame, no earlier than the 7th one (or the 8th, after the new frame is inserted). If you watch the animation frame-by-frame (or even just in slow-motion) in NL, you should be able to see what I mean.
Digger - After actually watching this in-game, I don't feel this is noticable enough, in either resolution. I've attached my attempt at making something that I think should work well (only low-res, though) - what do you think about this? (Replace the files in styles/default/lemmings; the updated scheme is for foot positioning.) It could probably use some tidying up as well, the animation looks a bit weird at certain points, but the general idea is - it's as similar as possible (within my abilities... xD) to the normal one, but the lemming always throws the dirt behind the direction he's facing.
Fencer - I think this is as good as we're going to get in terms of body / lance horizontal positioning. So we'll go with that. However, I think we need some minor slight changes to the "slash" animation. I think we need to insert a frame between the 3rd and 4th one with the lance even lower. Then, to compensate, we'd need to remove one frame, no earlier than the 7th one (or the 8th, after the new frame is inserted). If you watch the animation frame-by-frame (or even just in slow-motion) in NL, you should be able to see what I mean.
Digger - After actually watching this in-game, I don't feel this is noticable enough, in either resolution. I've attached my attempt at making something that I think should work well (only low-res, though) - what do you think about this? (Replace the files in styles/default/lemmings; the updated scheme is for foot positioning.) It could probably use some tidying up as well, the animation looks a bit weird at certain points, but the general idea is - it's as similar as possible (within my abilities... xD) to the normal one, but the lemming always throws the dirt behind the direction he's facing.
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NeoLemmix Graphic Sets / Re: NeoLemmix 24-bit/Hi-Res Graphics & Sprites
« on: December 13, 2019, 02:58:21 am »Quote
1 Leave it as it is, but keep the Lemming's face pointing towards the direction they're facing throughout the animation rather than swishing left to right (I've attached a version of this for each resolution). I'd personally vote for this as the simplest and most elegant idea (similar to the blocker idea), and since it's the closest to the classic Digger sprite we all know and love.
This looks pretty workable to me, at least from looking at the spritesheets. I'll try them out in action later.
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2 Have the Lemming dig with their front paws rabbit-style, tossing the earth out backwards between their legs. A humorous idea that would be fun to animate, but isn't as downwardly-oriented as the motion of the Digger. Maybe this would work as a new diagonally-downwards skill instead...?
That won't happen; it'd essentially just be a duplicate of the miner (even if it has some subtle differences, it's too similar overall). And especially for low-res, I prefer something that remains close to the original sprite.
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Could the Fencer simply be positioned slightly backwards from its current spot? (or is this what you mean by shifting the FOOT_X position?) I've attached another version here with the non-lance arm resting on the Fencer's waist, which allows the entire Lemming to be moved back another 2 pixels within the animation. I also shortened the lance by another pixel. This is a more pleasing result in terms of it's correspondence with the mask, however now the feet are totally off-position! I think it's worth persevering with this though, because the hi-res version of the Fencer is just that bit more... Fencery!
Keeping the feet position - or rather, the overall position of the lemming's body (I've generally lined it up based on the middle pixel of the body, rounded towards the back where applicable) - is quite important too, IMO.
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NeoLemmix Main / Re: EXPERIMENTAL BUILD: High-Resolution Mode
« on: December 13, 2019, 02:09:00 am »
I don't intend to change it in the sense of "replacing with something entirely different". Just some very subtle tweaks to better deal with edge cases.
EDIT: Here you go, a standalone tool that implements NL's upscaling algorithm. (For source code, look under "Tools/Upscaler" in NL repo from commit 7485c05 or later.) This is based on the most up-to-date version of the upscaling algorithm, not specifically the one in the current exp build - though differences should be very minor, at least on the pixel-art upscaler.
EDIT: Here you go, a standalone tool that implements NL's upscaling algorithm. (For source code, look under "Tools/Upscaler" in NL repo from commit 7485c05 or later.) This is based on the most up-to-date version of the upscaling algorithm, not specifically the one in the current exp build - though differences should be very minor, at least on the pixel-art upscaler.
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Engine Bugs / Suggestions / [BUG][STYLES] Left-facing climber animation missing a few pixels on one frame
« on: December 12, 2019, 06:22:59 pm »
This bug is already fixed for V12.8.0, but I'm posting about it because there's a really interesting fact about this one.
One frame of the climber animation is missing a couple of hair pixels on the left-facing graphic, compared to the right.
What makes this interesting - is that these missing pixels are missing even on vanilla Lemmix (and thus, DOS Lemmings too - I have no reason to believe there'd be a Lemmix/DOS difference in play here) - which thus makes this the new record holder for the longest-surviving DOS Lemmings glitch in NeoLemmix, by a long shot (direct drop was eliminated years ago).
One frame of the climber animation is missing a couple of hair pixels on the left-facing graphic, compared to the right.
What makes this interesting - is that these missing pixels are missing even on vanilla Lemmix (and thus, DOS Lemmings too - I have no reason to believe there'd be a Lemmix/DOS difference in play here) - which thus makes this the new record holder for the longest-surviving DOS Lemmings glitch in NeoLemmix, by a long shot (direct drop was eliminated years ago).
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NeoLemmix Graphic Sets / Re: NeoLemmix 24-bit/Hi-Res Graphics & Sprites
« on: December 12, 2019, 06:00:40 pm »
I've tried out these sprites now. The Basher, Digger, Drowner and Shimmier all look great now!
The Fencer is the only one that still doesn't feel right to me. I think that to really get this right, it needs to more closely mimic the pose of the low-res one (lance held by his side, not stretched out in front, in the opposite hand from what the high-res sprite does), but that would be a lot of work. Otherwise, for the lance to be in the correct spot, the feet would have to be way off (indeed, it's possible to make the lance work by instead having the feet really wrong, just by shifting the FOOT_X position in scheme.nxmi). Maybe see if anyone else has any thoughts?
( For those of you who want to see the Fencer sprite in action but don't want to set up the high-res experimental: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=994bev-ukm8 )
In terms of "anything else", I think it's just the digger (and of course the Xmas sprites, if you're still up for doing those). Did you have a specific idea in mind for the digger? Keep in mind we need a low-res sprite too for this one - it's fine if the high-res one has some extra direction indicators that the low-res doesn't (like how the blockers in high-res also have the signs on one side or the other, but both resolutions have the limited head-turning), but there needs to be some clear indicator of direction that's present in both.
The Fencer is the only one that still doesn't feel right to me. I think that to really get this right, it needs to more closely mimic the pose of the low-res one (lance held by his side, not stretched out in front, in the opposite hand from what the high-res sprite does), but that would be a lot of work. Otherwise, for the lance to be in the correct spot, the feet would have to be way off (indeed, it's possible to make the lance work by instead having the feet really wrong, just by shifting the FOOT_X position in scheme.nxmi). Maybe see if anyone else has any thoughts?
( For those of you who want to see the Fencer sprite in action but don't want to set up the high-res experimental: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=994bev-ukm8 )
In terms of "anything else", I think it's just the digger (and of course the Xmas sprites, if you're still up for doing those). Did you have a specific idea in mind for the digger? Keep in mind we need a low-res sprite too for this one - it's fine if the high-res one has some extra direction indicators that the low-res doesn't (like how the blockers in high-res also have the signs on one side or the other, but both resolutions have the limited head-turning), but there needs to be some clear indicator of direction that's present in both.
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NeoLemmix Graphic Sets / Re: NeoLemmix 24-bit/Hi-Res Graphics & Sprites
« on: December 12, 2019, 05:33:56 pm »Quote
That's it for now, the only other thing I've noted is that the swimmer sprite appears a bit too high on certain types of water (most notably the creamy coloured water in the brick set). It looks fine on most of the other water types tho so not sure if it's worth bothering with. EDIT - I suppose it would be a case of reducing the size of the trigger area for that particular water type...?
Yeah, this is an issue that occurs even in low-res. Not all water objects are best suited to Swimmers; that's just how it is, as some of them predate the Swimmer skill. We did recently have a discussion about whether fixes are needed to official object trigger areas, but ultimately only two objects got actual changes (with a couple more receiving graphical, but not physics, changes).
I'm not particularly worried about visual issues if they occur in low-res as well; those can either be left as-is, or addressed at some point in the future for both resolutions at the same time. For now, I'm only worried about high-res-exclusive issues (or if the high-res mode's addition has caused new issues in low-res).