Zemmings Complete Version 3: A complete collection of all my current Lemmings levels. Version 3 introduces 8 new levels featuring a new style: zanzindorf_cloud. Additionally, it included three new zanzindorf_agony themed levels and a special glitch themed level. It also includes a few back route fixes for previously released levels.

IMPORTANT - Version 3.4: See post below for change log. This version is bug fixes only, no new content.

IMPORTANT - Regarding the new style, check out it's development thread. When possible, make sure to download the cloud style, or any other style, through the NeoLemmix style manager.

IMPORTANT - Have a good day

Level Pack Contents:

Zemmings Volume 1: 8 Levels - zanzindorf_glacier
Zemmings Volume 2: 8 Levels - zanzindorf_kiwi
New! Zemmings Volume 3: 8 Levels - zanzindorf_cloud
Bonus: 2 Special Level Contest submissions (Kiwi Knight and Fish)
Amiga: 6 Levels using Gronklings Menacing and Beast styles
New! Amiga: 3 Levels using my own zanzindorf_agony style
New! Replays of all levels (See "Replay" folder).
New! One final bonus level: Modeye

3.4 Downloads:

Levels + Music: https://zanzindorf.com/downloads/Zemmings%20Complete%20V3.4%20(Basic).zip
Preview All Levels: https://zanzindorf.com/zemmings.html

Level Previews:



















Let's Plays:

kaywhyn V3.3 (+Some V3.4 Edits)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbp2m4KlFpJsLa7oq6l5BVk_03WYpCwmT

IchoTolot  (Volumes I + II)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKR1N9oJTTlJntd-MSI_kvtth8PbC7UvW

ericderkovits (Volumes I + II Super Lemmini Version)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZZlEJhdyoAPnEv9Y5wj1CST4qkyi0m-q

Colorful Arty (Volume II)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew5lneDY6Is

Turrican Lemm (Rising Stream and Hug the Clouds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EkJLuOLVCk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9gviGd0YuY

(Message me if you'd like to be included on this list)

Quote from: namida on October 28, 2020, 11:55:14 PM
RC4 update. A few bugfixes, a couple of minor quality-of-life features, one cosmetic tweak.

Attached ZIP can be used to upgrade from any version V12.10.0-RC1 or higher. Otherwise, see first post for full download (and detailed changelog).

I like the spacing on the level preview screen, and I also like the little pop out window for the talisman requirement. Looks good

Quote from: WillLem on October 25, 2020, 09:33:18 PM
Regarding the fonts, I really like Chicle! Please can you send me a copy of those so I can use that for my version? Also, if you still have copies of the cards without text at all, that'd be swish.

Glad you like it Here's a link to everything: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1t8hcPGjmiq7xbMWM2gyoXntT_KIosCQS?usp=sharing

(I figured it'd be a good idea to have this in a google drive folder as we're making changes.)

There's three folders here: "Italic Cooper - Dark Shading" contains the default images, "Menu Layers" contains the individual layers of each image, and "Chicle - Light Shading" contains the chicle font buttons just for you

The font files are also included in the "Menu Layers" folder in the "Font" folder.

Quote from: WillLem on October 25, 2020, 09:33:18 PM
The one on the left could still do with a bit more hair I think - the feet are huge, so the hair needs to match up.
EDIT - which program are you using to make these graphics? How are you able to make fine adjustments when the paint is anti-aliased? I'm so used to working with solid pixels, it would take me hours to edit these!

I'll take another look at the hair. The problem I'm running into with the logo is the height. For this draft, I reduced the amount of shadow for the letters at the bottom to get more canvas real estate for more hair at the top. It might need a bit more.

I'm working in an old version of Photoshop, a version from just before they switched to the subscription model. A lot of the shading for the letters is from a series of filters, so working with letters is really fast. The lemmings are drawn from scratch with a messy combination of layer masks, soft brushes, and a little bit of anti-aliasing by hand, so they take a bit longer. Sometimes I'll use Blender to do stuff like the background.

Quote from: IchoTolot on October 25, 2020, 04:45:45 PM
I must say I still find the original cooper font with the old shading the best one.

Quote from: namida on October 25, 2020, 07:28:12 PM
Yeah, I like the current one too.

Awesome, that makes it easy for me

If we like the current font and shading, then the logo and settings button are probably the only things updated. (I redid hair and eyes for the logo and fixed some anti-aliasing on the settings button).

Here's some more variations of the button text.

Example 1: Chicle
Example 2: Non-Italic Cooper
Example 3: Showcard Gothic

All three examples have had their shading tweaked from the last menu draft. Let me know which everyone prefers, and I'll finish the rest of the rank texts and post a public download

Here's a draft I made today. I still want to do a non-italic Cooper draft, and a draft for Showcard, but for now, here's a draft that shows off a new font I found: Chicle. It doesn't have a handwritten feel like the original DOS text, but it kinda has it's own charm in a different way. Still very rounded and bubbly like cooper. I also toned down the shading on the text. Let me know what you think. I'll probably work on the other drafts for Cooper non-italic and Showcard tomorrow. (Or any other fonts anyone can suggest )

https://www.1001fonts.com/chicle-font.html

Also pictured is my rework of the logo. I redid their hair and eyes. Is this any better?

Whilst working on the logo, I noticed something about the menu in-game. I just noticed that in fullscreen mode, on a 1920x1080 screen, the menu elements aren't being rendered pixel perfect (i.e. the pixels are not stretched uniformly, meaning some pixels might render as 2x2 blocks while others render as 2x3 or 3x2 blocks). I have smooth menus turned off and the level of zoom doesn't seem to fix it.

How big of a pain would it be to ask for a "pixel perfect menu" settings for full screen mode? Or, at least, have the menu elements be scaled by x2 evenly when the render view is at 1920x1080? Right now, my guess is that the menu is being scaled by x2.123 at this resolution, which is causing the lack of pixel accuracy. Rendering the menu at x2 evenly at 1920x1080, you probably would not notice a difference at all in terms of size. However, rendering the menu at x2 evenly would make the menu much more crisp at this resolution.

Note this is probably a small issue, so keep that in mind when evaluating if it's worth fixing, depending on how hard it would be to implement a solution. Pixel accuracy does matter quite a bit to some players, but I really don't think most players would even notice, so it's not too big a deal.

The third attachment on this post is a zoom of the logo as rendered in-game with certain pixels highlighted which are being rendered as 2x3 blocks rather than 2x2 blocks like the pixels around them.

Quote from: WillLem on October 22, 2020, 10:47:11 PM
I'm having a look at the RC build this evening. The new menu looks amazing. Just a few things I'd suggest to improve the gfx:

Logo - I've made the Lemmings' hair bigger. This version I've made is intended as a mockup/template - zanzindorf, if you agree that the hair is a better shape now, maybe you can work your magic with the colour shading.

Card Text - The size and proportion of these is now much better, but I really don't like the font on the cards; I'd suggest Showcard Gothic instead (or, go back to the "spray painted letters" effect). I've attached a very rough mockup of the LEVEL SELECT card using the Showcard Gothic font for reference (note that I had to remove the text so the shading has gone, the image is purely to showcase the font itself in relation to the card graphic).

EDIT: As a general suggestion, it might be good if the cards and text are separate graphics, so that players can easily customise the text to their own liking, if they so wish.

I agree with the feedback on the Logo. The lemmings holding the buttons underwent several iterations, but the lemmings in the logo were never updated with the same look. I need to fix that. Their hair could definitely use an update. Same with their eyes.

I'm not sure I'm sold on Showcard Gothic though. It's a nice font, and I did consider it while exploring different fonts, but I went with Cooper ultimately because it matched the Logo font (which is supposed to be similar to the original logo), and Cooper also goes well with the blue sprite font in my opinion. The logo and the sprite font have a rounded, organic feel, and Showcard is very sharp and angular. For me, the contrast between Showcard and the other fonts is kinda jarring. I searched for something that had a hand painted or spray painted look like the original, but unfortunately, Cooper was the closest I could find. I could try painting the text up by hand from scratch to try to match the look of the original text better, but that's kinda a time consuming option, and I'm not much of a font-smith, so I'm not even sure I could pull that off.

I'll work on it over the weekend, and I'll try a draft with Showcard just so we can see how it looks.

Regarding separate graphics for text and buttons, I do have the separated menu graphics available for download in a previous post (See attachment in this post: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5158.msg86352#msg86352 in "Menu Redesign 20201017.zip"), so if users wanted empty panels without text, that's definitely a thing one could do. Adding to your suggestion, after V12.10.0 is released, it might be neat to have a "Custom Menu Art" board added to the NeoLemmix forum board, as a place where users could post custom menu designs. (Something like this might already exists? Or perhaps it could be a child board in "NeoLemmix Graphic Sets"?)

I reworked my background a little. There were a few formations that were noticeably tiling, and the color I think needed a little more tweaking. Attached are my examples.

Draft 1: Already shown in my last post, included for quick comparison. 540x540

Draft 2: Tweaked color and tiling, also increased to 640x640 to match the default width for backgrounds.

Draft 2 with Logo: Here's an alternate idea that turned out kinda interesting, kinda a mashup of the original background and Lemmings 3D which has a diagonally tiling logo.

(Any feedback is cool, I'd be happy to rework these if needed.)

A minor bug I found: The cursor seems to change sizes depending on if you have "High Resolution" active. If you turn on "High Resolution" then navigate to the level preview menu, then navigate back to the main menu, your cursor will be super chonky (See 1st attachment).

Regarding the background: If we're looking for alternatives, I could try to throw something together. Here's a quick draft I did: (see 2nd and 3rd attachments).

Looks great The spacing and layout look really good to me, and I really like the outline effect.

Quote from: namida on October 17, 2020, 06:12:22 PM
Yes, it has the same effect as clicking the Up button on the rank panel.

Nice, that makes sense.

Quote from: namida on October 16, 2020, 12:48:26 AM
^ Ah yep - I definitely like those, though the rank one cannot be directly used as-is - to properly work with the clickable UI (and in particular the highlight around the elements), the rank sign needs to be split into three graphics (as in the example ones attached to Reply #5) - the panel, and the seperate Up and Down buttons.

Attached is the rank sign split into three graphics. I think that should work, but let me know if it doesn't.

The smaller buttons aren't cropped because I wasn't entirely sure how to crop them to get them to align properly with the new code. The buttons for your new menu design are 21x16, and mine are 21x12. If that's a problem, let me know and I can rework my buttons to use your size.

Also note that the base rank panel is unchanged from my last upload. I left it this way because it shows where the smaller buttons should be and also retains the drop shadows between the smaller buttons and the rank panel. I figured it would be a problem if the drop shadow was included with the smaller buttons themselves because I assume your outline effect requires a crisp, pixel outline on the source graphic to render properly. Again, let me know if it needs more work.

On a side note: The mouse support features to the new menu look fantastic in the video! The only feedback I have is (more of a question really): does the rank panel itself do anything when clicked? I know the smaller buttons change the difficulty, but does clicking on the panel outside the smaller buttons do anything? If not, having it highlight when the mouse hovers over it may be confusing. Players might try to click the rank panel itself rather than the smaller buttons expecting it to work like the other panels.

Quote from: Dullstar on September 15, 2020, 02:28:34 AM
I'm not sure of any packs off the top of my head that use this feature.

WillLem's Amiga Lemmings Project uses that feature I think: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4947.0

It's organized like this:
-Original Lemmings
        -The Original Ranks, and a rank for the 2P levels
-Oh No Lemmings
        -Oh No Ranks, and a rank for the 2P levels

For me, for this pack, the player handles this on the menu by cycling through the original ranks if "Original Lemmings" is selected in the level selector menu, and cycles through the Oh No ranks if the "Oh No Lemmings" is selected in the level selector menu. It kinda acts like two level packs nested into a single level pack, which you pick via the level selector menu.

Changes:
* Changed eyes, hopefully less soul piercing
* Fine tuned anti-aliasing in a few places.
* Swapped the gold talisman to the front.
* Adjusted text, made it a little more bold, hopefully easier to read.

Attached are the following:
* Menu images which can work in the current version (tested in V12.9.4)
* The first five rank text images in gfx/menu are padded with empty pixels to force it to work in the current version (as Namida suggested ), but also included are the unpadded versions in the "Unpadded Steps 1-5" folder.
* Alternate rank images for "Rank 1-5" (as suggested by Simon), "Oh No: Crazy - Wild", "Original: Fun - Mayhem", and "Redux: Gentle - Lunatic". All of these haven't been tested thoroughly, so if you notice anything off, let me know. All of these alternates are in the gfx/menu folder.
* Separated layers of each graphic, including the logo. This is good for testing out your own font or text on the existing buttons.

Also, just noting, by submitting these, I'm not saying this is the finished product, or that more alternate ideas shouldn't be posted, I'm just posting these source files in case anyone wants to mess around with them, or try and fine tune things on their own. I'm still happy to continue making changes if needed. Having all the layers separated out makes collaboration easier and faster, so I thought It'd be good to throw it out there. I'm still thinking of alternate logo ideas like WillLem suggested, I just haven't come up with anything.

One idea I had was "NeoLemmix" text in the style of the Psygnosis logo:



I really like it's 80s rock band ascetic, and it's retro computing vibe, though such a design might require a completely different set of menu buttons as well, which is interesting to think about.

Another thought I had was something that incorporates the blue "home" sprite that's currently used for the NeoLemmix Editor executable, the one that's themed after the marble style home sprite. I'm not entirely sure how to incorporate that though.

Quote from: namida on September 12, 2020, 08:01:12 PM
I too really like your designs here.

Yay! I'm glad you like it The feedback I've been getting has helped a lot.

Here's another mockup. This one is to test a different size for the buttons. I went with Namida's estimate instead of the full 200%, and I think that's the right choice. Now the graphics are 87 pixels tall I think. I added back a more subtle texture on the buttons. The rank graphic is still the same size, just on a larger panel.  I also redrew the lemmings for the new aspect ratio, though, they may need more work. Any feedback is appreciated!

Quote from: WillLem on September 11, 2020, 09:35:50 PM
Showcard Gothic

That's a good shout, I'll look into that font and others. Regarding alternate logo concepts, I've been thinking about other designs, but I can't seem to come up with anything, other than a redesign of the original DOS one. I'm open to suggestions, and would also totally love to see designs from others.

Regarding backwards compatibility:

Taller buttons look good, I'm in favor of it, and I don't think it will really interfere with the shorter buttons from older level packs. The mock up seen above is displaying in V12.9.4 without any modifications, other than the rank graphic placement. The placement of the rank is the only thing that will need adjusting after switching to this new size, if we decide to go this route. Currently, the rank displays over the new, taller button like this in game:



To fix this placement and also account for the older buttons without breaking them, maybe it's position could be calculated based on the height of the graphic, so it's always roughly centered?

The only other modification that might be needed, is maybe all the buttons need to be shifted up closer to the logo and further away from the bottom text (If we keep the two rows, if we do one row, this wouldn't matter.)