Shadow phone box





(12 frames, horizontal alignment)

This looks already really great

As most of you know there are quite a few objects in the L2 tilesets that can fool the player, so that he thinks they are solid.
An easy solution would be creating little animations for those objects, but as i mentioned a few times I am not very talented in drawing and animating stuff.

So I will make a "job-list" of objects that could use an animation + my proposals for a fitting animation.
Everyone can help! Everything can be done "easily" even in MS paint
Sent it back in png format and post it here into the topic so that other people can see it.
Opinions on these are welcome!

Please notice:

- Sending me an animation does not mean I will automatically accept and use it. I will look at it, decide if it is good-looking and fitting, then finally decide if I put it in. Also if multiple people send in animations for the same object, I also will have to decide which one to take.
- You don't need to 100% follow my proposals! If you can think of sth better try it out and we will see if it fits.
- Some pictures are in Lemmini heights/lenghts (Shadow/Egyptian). It will be half as big in the actual game. So single pixels in the game will appear as 2x2 brackets in your editing-program.
- Please tell me how many frames your final animation does include!

How to make an animation + some tipps:

- Take one of the attached pics in the 2nd post.
- Increase the height of the picture by a multiple >1 of the original height. The multiplyer depends on how many frames your animation should have (2 times ori height = 2 frame animation , 10 times ori height = 10 frame animation.....).
-Example: For a 32 pixel high picture the first 32 pixels of the animation should include the original picture. The next 32 pixels will have your first animation frame and so on.
                 An easy start would be to copy-paste the current frame (starting with the original picture) below itself so that you start with a copy of the last frame to work on the next.
- Notice! The last picture of your animation should go fluent into the original picture, or even be the original picture!
- The pink color means that this will be a transparent area. Please use for everything that should be transparent this pink color (color mix is 255 0 255 as I recall)
- If your animation shall be stagnant for a few frames: Copy-paste the same frame a few times under itself.

Edit: namida informed me via IRC that the animation can also go horizontally:

<namida42>IchoTolot: two things in regard to that topic:
<IchoTolot>yes
<namida42>1. transparent color doesn't have to be 255,0,255. it can be anything (just click on a pixel of that color when importing)
<namida42>also, for 32-bit PNG files, they can also use the alpha channel directly, rather than a key color
<IchoTolot>yes but i already used that color
<namida42>2. it also supports importing strips that are arranged horizontally rather than vertically; i don't know if some people might feel more comfortable working this way
<IchoTolot>I never worked horizontally before
<namida42>i find it particularly useful when creating the one-way-down arrows from one of hte other directions
<namida42>no need to rearrange; just rotate the entire image them import as a horizontal strip
<IchoTolot>currently preparing the 2nd post
<IchoTolot>will mention it

Also you can make a experimental version of the tileset you are working on using the Graphic-set-tool from namida, to see your animation in action inside the game!
Get it here, load the tileset with it and replace the object with your full animation + save under a different name: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2098.0

As I remember   Here's some feedback with SuperLemmini on Linux:

I've actually gotten SuperLemmini to work on ubuntu (on my laptop), but with some problems with the file extration/custom levels.

Ubuntu seems to be very sensetive about upper/lower case letters and therefore fails to find certain files.

At some point it searches for sth like "BUBBLES.dat", but finds "Bubbles.dat"   I cant remember the failure exactly so it can be the other way round or so, but nevertheless I had to do some manual renaming in order to make it find the files.
Custom levels:
The editor for example writes tileset: "Bubble" into a ini file of a level, but the tileset acually is named "bubble" ---> manual renaming required
I didn't test the official levels there, but it could be that the error also accours.

from IRC:

<IchoTolot>I just wanted to stop the 30+ level per rank thing before it gets too clumsy. With the current implementation it is hard to go through 30+ level batches.  That why a rank-levels-list at the side of the screen will be nessesary
<Proxima>We need to slow down and finish looking at the list of levels first before deciding anything about ranks. That should have been obvious.
.....
<IchoTolot>Proxima is 100% right

I'm guessing this is why levels designers have multiple people test levels before releasing the pack proper. I feel like such an idiot.

Here is my way of doing things :

I create solving replays for every level I create.

I maintain a replay database with solving replays for my packs + single levels and if the NeoLemmix version changes I check if the replays are still solving. We've got an automatic replay checker for packs for this case which can check ~ 150 replays in 3 mins + saves the result in a txt with detailed information.

If I find a broken replay, I will try to make it solvable again. Mostly this is usually just a skill assignment that goes wrong by a few pixels ---> fail, but if the level itself broke ----> hotfix.

@ Colorful Arty: Can you send me a solving replay to Taxing 28 "POOR WEE CREATURES"?

I think I found something

I'm very surprised to hear this; I wouldn't expect as much problems with the ceiling as with the sides.
When you reference holding pits which are restricted through the ceiling; do you mean a pit that reaches the ceiling and the ceiling stops the climbers? I think of maybe one PimoLems level like this... When referring to lemmings walking near the ceiling, so that most of their body is not visible, I would agree that I think whether solid or not, this should be allowed, but I say I personally don't like a level mandating this kind of thing in the first place [might I reference a certain level called Technoir...]

I would vote for letting all this be on option, simply for the benefit of existing levels.

Mostly it are climber walls, but a lot of them and I mean even the walls which are not needed, but could cause the player trouble, because I don't want to punish the player for using a climber ever so slightly different especially in the early ranks.

Obviously I vote for deadly, as it prevents backroutes from happening + doesn't make it nessesary to stratch out a level as much to keep the player from abusing the walls + using the sides actively in a intended solution is kinda dirty.
But here I have to say even with deadly walls they should not actively be used as a "deadly wall" as I mentioned in another thread. They should interfere as little as possible in a level. If the player tries to build a bridge out of the main area they should still punish him, but using them to compress the level size to a minimum is not the correct way here I think.

Also making your levels independent from the solid sides isn't much work I can assure you, möbius 

Example from "Return of the tribes" currently the sides are solid, but as I know Nepster this will change:


Here sth like a little water pit left and right would indicate directly that the climber cannot go to the sides, instead of relying on the deadly sides. This would make the level slightly bigger, but I think it is worth it.

And now an example from my single levels to show the opposite case:

 
Here I originally planned to use the solid side, but Simon convinced me that a steel wall is much more honest.

This is still one of the most inconsistant behaviors across all Lemnming games and as a designer you should not rely on them regulary as part of the solution.

I originally wanted to make a "level design" topic about the not using the sides stuff and I still may do so, but for now this should work

You're a miracle worker IchoTolot!

I would ideally like to give those special levels the SuperLemmini look though, the levels themselves don't look as good as they should, but I'm having trouble getting NeoLemmix Editor to load the beast 1 and 2 levels. I had no problem loading the menace and awesome levels though...

Well, I will play on with this fix for now. The special tilesets are often a hassle. Nepster can sing a song about this converting all of the old Lemmix archive.

Gronkling even made complete NeoLemmix tilesets out of menace and BeastII:  http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2457.0