Thanks for making the thread!

According to Wikipedia on alpha compositing: Let α_bottom be the alpha component of the target image (real number between 0 and 1 inclusive, with 0 = fully transparent, 1 = fully opaque). Let α_top be the image that's blitted on top the bottom image.

Then, rule of alpha composition: α_result = α_top + α_bottom (1 − α_top).

Corollary: We have both α_result ≥ α_top and α_result ≥ α_bottom. So, when we stack images, the opaqueness per pixel may only increase.

Air/solid threshold: This is a rule to determine which pixels are solid, and which are air. Fix a threshold value. Whenever a pixel has opaqueness under that value, we make that pixel fully transparent instead. Otherwise, we leave it alone. The fully transparent pixels become air, all others become solid.

The corollary guarantees that, with the air/solid threshold, we can't punch holes into terrain by adding more pieces. (We would have to use eraser pieces.) This is very desirable, level designers can't screw up mistakenly by adding decoration.
 
A problem arises when the bottom tile is steel, and the top tile is normal terrain. The rule in NL and Lix has been: It's steel iff it looks like steel. This has worked for α = 0, 1 only. Anything here needs study of the full formula for colors in dependence of the alphas, not only for the alphas themselves.

-- Simon

Resolved bug #15, basher always left relics.

Everybody: The basher starts faster by 2 frames than in C++ Lix, and the basher mask reaches further by 2 hi-res pixels = 1 lo-res pixel. What do you think? The faster it starts, the better it feels, but maybe it's getting too overpowered in multiplayer. On the other hand, the miner is absurdly strong in multiplayer still.

Note to self: Make topics from (namida's recommendations in IRC) either here, or on github.

-- Simon

Hi folks,

This topic is outdated. Download the newest Lix at lixgame.com!

This is a test release, with singleplayer mostly complete. This port is not finished yet -- it lacks a level editor, and it lacks multiplayer. Physics are unstable and may change between bugfixes.

Minim has designed several scaled-up versions of the internal graphics. They're visible whenever the game's resolution is at least 1.5 times as big as the old 640x480. Many thanks to Minim for this work!

Levels and terrain graphics are the same as in old C++ Lix.

I'm cross-compiling to Windows from Linux now. Let me know of any problems. Report bugs here, or open issues on github.

-- Simon

Tested it in Wine, 1.38 crashes/segfaults/gives the standard Wine segfault error, "has encountered a serious problem and needs to close." Closing that, another popup comes: Runtime error 216 at 008041CE. The shell is a little more informative:

Backtrace:
=>0 0x005c5774 (0x0100ea68)
  1 0x7bc71d88 call_thread_func+0xb() in ntdll (0x0100ea78)
  2 0x7bc71f60 call_thread_entry_point+0x6f(entry=0x5e0fc6, arg=0x0(nil)) [/home/simon/c/notown/wine-1.3.17/dlls/ntdll/signal_i386.c:2499] in ntdll (0x0100eb48)
  3 0x7bc7bad9 start_thread+0xe8(info=0x7ffd0fb8) [/home/simon/c/notown/wine-1.3.17/dlls/ntdll/thread.c:404] in ntdll (0x0100f398)
  4 0xf75aa955 start_thread+0xb4() in libpthread.so.0 (0x0100f498)

-- Simon

Smart. Now I have tried Tab = pause, and it fails here, too. With Tab = pause and backspace = pause, only backspace pauses the game.

-- Simon

Problem that has come up occasionally: New forum users send a private message, instead of asking publicly for help on tech or levels. Don't send a private message. Find/make a topic, and ask in public.

Tech: Ask publicly! Level editors, handling files, Python scripting, programming, ... if you try new technology, don't have fear of looking stupid. We're extremely happy that somebody is diving into something new and exciting for them. Other people might run into the same problem later. If you ask publicly, they benefit, too.

Level solutions: Ask publicly! You will get the answer publicly, in a spoiler tag. Both level authors and level players like to share their solutions with people who're ready to read the spoiler. Don't have fear of looking stupid! Authors are happy that somebody is showing interest in their work!

Split off the new postings to a fresh thread: Object-oriented design with Simon.

-- Simon

There was at least one No-CD crack that even worked with the developers' patch. I don't have either.

-- Simon

Change the default function key behavior in the Bios. That was how it worked 10 years ago. >_>

If stuck, google.

-- Simon