Level 7:<snip>

Let me look at the level again later tonight.  The fact that you are talking about making some of the steps 8-pixel tall should help me figure out what you intended solution is, so that I can determine what level of details to discuss with you.  I just need to make sure what I'm thinking works with the modification.

Just hope that ccexplore doesn't read the hint... (He has stated before he doesn't want to read the hints. And if I could solve it after seeing the hint, well, he would get it in 5 seconds )

Isu has edited his post before I read it, so you're safe for now.  Just as well, I wouldn't want to have accidentally read it.

Good job on #2 and #10. I guess poetic justice for my earlier comment on #7 eh?    Incidentally, is #10 very tricky to execute? (not figuring out, just the executing part)  I was trying it again last night and almost gotten it to work, but the execution wasn't quite right yet.  Doing the left side of the 100% Wicked 6 solution would've been easier.

I haven't tried #2 again after about the 2nd day after the initial release of the set.  I can't help but wonder if what Isu was trying to do was similar to the one solution that couldn't work because I need one more exploder to release the crowd (because I needed to control the crowd by blocking).  I don't think that approach can be adapted to the given skills though, so it should be something else.  Guess I should look at it again later tonight.

A quick update on level 7:  at this point I have 4 solutions for that level, some saving 22/25, some 23/25, some requiring timing and some doesn't.  All have been playtested to work.

I have PM geoo89 two selected solution, neither of which is my very first solution which I probably won't reveal for a while.

I did however point out to geoo89 a simple, no-timing 23/25 solution that leaves the floater and blocker unused.  It is simple enough that even Shvegait should be able to do it.  

Some of the other animations (mining, basing, exploding?) require more planes. (possibly different dimensions, 8x10?)

I would expect them to be larger, not smaller......

One thing I've planned in mind (but will probably take some time to implement, if ever) currently is an app that helps explore this sea of uncharted bits.  I envision it to be like this:  There are 5 columns:  one that interprets the bits as just monochrome bitmaps (in effect, displaying the planes individually), next column interprets them as 2 bpp, the next as 3 bpp, another as 4 bpp, and yet another as 5 bpp (4 bpp+mask, in essense).  You can set the program to start interpreting from a particular offset, and also to set the width.  The program will then go thru a certain number of scanlines (say, 300) assuming that you have a sequence of bitmaps of the specified width.  If you guess right, then you'll get something legible, otherwise you get garbage and should try another width.

This should hopefully help with figuring out how exactly the bitmap are laid out.

Hmm? I'm numbering the data sections from 0 to 6, so section 5 decompressed is 758 bytes.

I was just venturing a wild guess for the section you listed as "unknown".  Well, 758 bytes is clearly not the intro graphics.

What happens when you modify the data of that section?  Where the game messes up/crashes/changes should give us a clue about that section

On a similar note, it's interesting that the shadow behind the Lemmings logo and the Lemmings holding signs is dynamic,

Wow, didn't think the programmers/Mike would pull something that fancy (well okay, it's not that hard, but still).  Cool.

Cool!  B)  The final missing piece of information finally falls into place.

Did you figure this out by examining the data in the actual file, or did you ask Mike for help?

If possible, I'd love for you to give us the offsets to the various bitmaps you found in main.dat.  I presume the format should be either some version of a planar bitmap.  Most likely a 3-bit one, possibly with an additional mask.

Is section #5 (decompressed) large?  If so it's most likely the intro screen (main menu) as a single bitmap.

Thanks!  B)

P.S.  Oh, and don't forget to do it for the Xmas Lemmings, which have different graphics in particular the lemmings animations.

Lucky you. I already have the bitmaps for the DOS version of the special graphics, extracted directly from the game and converted to Windows BMP format.  You can convert them yourself to whatever format you plan to use:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/myvgaspec/original_vgaspec_bitmaps.zip

Although of course, you could probably have gotten something similar if you download an SNES/Genesis emulator and a suitable copy of the Lemmings ROM, then take screenshots.

And yes, those 4 levels are missing in the Windows version.