Experimental Releases for Physics Bugs

[Nepster]

The bug is, that NeoLemmix still wanted to display the "type" (e.g. walker, shrugger, athlete, ...) of the lemming, even though he wasn't available any longer.
This should be fixed in version Exp 1.44-B, downloadable here:
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/ut1lnjhfa4saqe5/NeoLemmix_Exp%201.44-B.exe?dl=1

[Nepster]

Here a new experimental release:
1) Fixed bug "glider fall through thin floors": There are now stricter terrain checks in place.
2) Foreshadowing of builders, platformers and stackers: Whenever a builder-type skill is selected and the cursor hovers over a lemming who can receive this skill, a dark gray shadow will appear where the terrain will be added.
Warning: The game does not (yet) take sourrounding terrain in account! So even if a builder will hit his head after placing four bricks, the shadow will still display the full 12 bricks.

Download link for Exp V1.44-C:
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/ws399r13rsw7mux/NeoLemmix_Exp%201.44-C.exe?dl=1

Edit: This experimental version just crashed for some reason. I removed the download until this is fixed.
Edit 2: Next try...
Edit 3: WARNING: The crashing bug is still there. Please redownload version Exp V1.44-C2.

[Nepster]

I fixed a bit and I haven't seen anything wrong while using the experimental version for the last hour. I am still not sure, what caused the crash or that my changes really fixed the bug, so please let me know if you see something amiss.

[Nepster]

Ok, the previous bug-fix did not solve the game-crashing issue. Please redownload version Exp 1.44-C2, where in theory the bug can no longer occur:
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/nh2l49s6gkr8ajj/NeoLemmix_Exp%201.44-C2.exe?dl=1

[Nepster]

Given the lively discussions during the last few days, here an experimental version to test some of the suggestions:
1) Bug-fix for miner-blocker interaction glitch: I implemented proposal 3) for now, until it turns out that this introuces further problems.
2) Lots of minor changes in lemming selection and prioritization, as discussed here and here: The most important change is, that selected lemmings now have a red body and are drawn on top of all the other lemmings. Moreover, as discussed, detailed informations are now given always for the lemming that would receive the skill.
3) Shadows for bashers, miners and diggers: Similar to the ones for builders, platformers and stackers introduced in the previous experimental release.
4) Music and talismans should now work properly again.
5) Loading the preview screen is faster now. Not all of this is due to real behind-the-scenes improvements though, because I tuned up the fading speed, too.

Download the new experimental version here:
  https://www.dropbox.com/s/29zxv1iis02n358/NeoLemmix_Exp%201.44-D.exe?dl=1

Note that this experimental version does not yet support namida's new file formats, different background colors, ...

[Wafflem]

Two things to point out:
1. When a lemming floats/glides down, they disappear until they touch the ground again. I think this glitch has occurred before in some of namida's NepsterLems videos.
2. Santa Lemmings don't change color when they are under the cursor, because they are already dressed in red. They should turn maybe blue or green when under the cursor.

[namida]

I'm questioning whether or not to keep Santa lemmings in future, now that we have a lot of features based on recoloring the lemming (it's easy enough to make a one-off special handling for Santa Lemmings, but if we're going to allow one different set of sprites, it makes no sense not to allow custom ones). If such a feature is kept, it's going to be nessecary to either duplicate animations or have a file that defines how to recolor a set of sprites.

In regards to the disappearing lemmings, it's probably just a missing or incorrect sprite for those. Nepster modified these sprites a while back; and we've often messed up with actually including the modified sprites in compiled copies; if a version is compiled with the old sprites but the new code (or vice versa), weird stuff happens. I won't go into the technical details here, but I had thought the required compiled data file was being synced along with the rest of the code now, though... I'll double check this when I get a chance.

[Nepster]

Regarding recoloring of custom sprites: It is not impossible to get this working. Currently the colors to change are hardcoded (mainly because I forgot about the santa sprites), but one could get them alternatively by looking at certain pixels in the first walker sprite: The pixel 5 pixels above the foot position should usually have the body color and the one 9 pixels above has a high chance to be a hair pixel (the actual values are guesswork for the moment!). Then one could use this information to determine the replacement color and apply it.
This would however assume two properties of lemming sprites:
a) Body and hair have a uniform color instead of using many different shades. At least in theory, different shades could be dealt with as well, but that would make stuff much more complicated.
b) The body and hair color aren't used elsewhere in lemming sprites. If they would for example be used in the builder backpack, then the builder backpack would change color too, which will very likely look ugly. This might be a much bigger problem regarding the santa sprites, which I don't really know how to solve.


There are two more little bugs I noticed. I describe them here just to make sure, I don't forget about them:
- Trap sprites that are killing a lemming with a permanent skill are not yet recolored.
- If a level does not give you any skill, the game crashes when hovering the cursor over a lemming (likely due to creating garbled input for the GetPriorityLem method). This only happens if the skillbar is completely empty, i.e. if not even one skill is depicted. Even having one skill with zero uses is enough for NeoLemmix to work fine.

[namida]

If such a feature is kept, it's going to be nessecary to either duplicate animations or have a file that defines how to recolor a set of sprites.

Of course, the latter is preferable, which is why I've now added support for this (since I'm currently working on moving lemming rendering from TLemmingGame to TRenderer anyway, it was a good time to make this change).

b) The body and hair color aren't used elsewhere in lemming sprites. If they would for example be used in the builder backpack, then the builder backpack would change color too, which will very likely look ugly. This might be a much bigger problem regarding the santa sprites, which I don't really know how to solve.

Easy - modify the sprites so the shade of whatever you don't want to have change is ever so slightly different.

[namida]

I've put together this experimental release, which uses new formats to some extent (uses new graphic set format exclusively, uses external sprite files, works with both old and new level files). It has some new features beyond the last Physics Bug fixes, such as indicators on trapdoors and teleporters.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/exhwhwdbzr94s29/NeoLemmix_VExNf145n_Experimental.zip?dl=0

Please note:
- It will probably run slightly slow. Performance issues are known, but are low-priority until it's closer to time for a stable release.
- Only levels using the Orig, OhNo, Xmas, LPII or LPIII graphic sets will be playable in this. The Sega, Horror, LPIV and all custom-made graphic sets are not.
- VGASPEC levels are not playable.
- There's probably a fairly large amount of graphical glitches, especially with lemming sprites.
- Circuit levels might use the Santa lemmings. I changed it to do so while testing and not sure if I changed back before uploading.

It is compatible with LVL files and NXPs, as long as they only use the above graphic sets.

Also, try out the attached level in the stable version, then in this version.

[IchoTolot]

The test level totally confuses me.
It seems to auto complete/delete exits, but in the new version the exits arent working anymore   This seems like a bug.

Hotkey to toggle the display of hatches etc is still missing, but it seems that this is on the to-do list still.

And the glider animation seems to be glitchy as well (as mentioned )

General things:

- The slight yellow background of the pillar tileset is too yellow for my taste + maybe even the fire one. For tilesets where it isn't 100% nessesary I would be a bit more conservative with the bg color. But a little bit of bg color would still be good to highlight the playing area. The marble one seems to be alright.

- The rock tileset seems to be missing, I'll get an error trying to load a rock level. (Lemdiana  Jones attached as a test)
  EDIT: All OhNo tilesets seem to be missing!

- Escape from Lemlab (marble with teleporters) causes an Access Violation when "entering" the level. Level attached.

[Wafflem]

The same issue with the Oh No styles also happens to the LPII styles.

The background colors...hmm, I have mixed feelings about those. They suit the Marble, Crystal and Sky styles fairly well, but they can be distracting sometimes (e.g. Icho's comment about the yellow/red in the Pillar/Fire tilesets).

[namida]

The non-working exit is because I forgot to adjust the trigger area downwards to account for the larger size. >_> You can fix it by modifying "exit.nxob" (in the "styles/dirt" folder) with a text editor and increasing the trigger area's Y position by 8 pixels.

As for the non-working Ohno / LPII styles, try deleting their "translation.nxmi" files (note: the Orig-Dirt style also has such a file, do not delete this one, there's nothing wrong with it).

Assuming that it's not another translation.nxmi issue (which it shouldn't be), I'll look into the issue with Escape from Lemlab. I haven't noticed issues with teleporters, but I've only tried the ones in the Circuit, Martian and Psychedelic sets.

I'll look into these issues in more depth at some point soon and, if the solutions are anything more complex than what's listed above, I'll release an updated experimental version.


In regards to the glitchy animations, this is known and it's something I'm working on at the moment. In particular, many arise because due to the animations being difficult to resize under the old code, some kludges had to be used to position some of them correctly; with resizing them now much easier, I can make proper fixes to the graphics themself; and doing so is currently WIP. The glider is more likely that it's using the old graphic though, rather than Nepster's improved one, which should be as simple to fix as replacing a few files...

[namida]

Here's one that should hopefully work better:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e1j3of0o8yuz5kc/NeoLemmix_VExNf1.45n-B_Experimental.zip?dl=0

Lemming animations should be fixed now for standard lemmings, so let me know if you see any that are problematic. The Santa lemmings have not been fixed yet, so there will probably be issues with them.

The non-working minimap is a known issue.
There's another vaguely known issue that affects for example IchoTolot's "Escape from LemLab". Suspected (but not confirmed) cause is teleporters that don't have a proper corresponding receiver.

Note that only the Orig, OhNo and Xmas sets, as well as two of the LPIII sets (Circuit and Martian) and the Epic set, will work with this release. NXPs will, as long as they don't use any graphic sets other than those ones. So, try packs such as the official games (aside from Extra since it uses Genesis styles; also be aware that VGASPEC levels won't work), Lemmings Plus I, GeoffLems, NepsterLems or the various Lemmix conversions to test this out; most (but not all) levels of GigaLems and Lemmings Reunion should be fine too. (Do be aware that most of these have not specifically been tested against this version, so some levels may not be possible.)

As you might notice if you examine the files, the Xmas set doesn't actually have duplicates of all the pieces it shares with the Snow set now. Rather, it'll make use of the new version's ability to mix sets, and just use those pieces from the Snow set. The trap is a special case, due to the need to display Santa lemmings as part of its animation. Similarly, some recurring objects (for example, preplaced lemmings, or the flags) have been put in a "default" set, and when loading levels that use them, it'll redirect to the "default" set for them. Exits and their tops have been merged for all sets except Circuit, where they've been kept seperately so that the top can animate constantly while the body unlocks (it has however been reconfigured to always just use the lockable version - if a level has no buttons, it simply acts like a normal exit).

If you want to try messing around, you can modify the "translation.nxmi" files in each graphic set's folder.

Do note - levels using the Epic set might look a bit weird, as the actual Epic set contains the Lemmini graphics (which NeoLemmix then downscales); whereas this version actually uses the respective pieces from the standard sets, thus using the native NL pieces.

If you downloaded this before I added Epic tileset support, just download the attached file, and place it in a subfolder of the styles folder called "epic".

[namida]

Here's a new one.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7v75rirno6wsnpe/NeoLemmix_VExNf1.45n-C_Experimental.zip?dl=0

Most of the improvements from before are behind-the-scenes stuff. There's a few minor fixes (eg. the glider in 1px wide updraft bug is fixed, scrolling is no longer glitchy when done by clicking the minimap; savestate frame is no longer visible for a split second when backwards framestepping). Try playing the included NXLV file if you dare.

Also, for those interested in the behind the scenes stuff, take a look at the one-way arrows' data files in any sets that use the standard ones (ie: any L1 set except Fire / Crystal or any OhNo set). If you're lost, check the translation table files for a hint. Pickup skills might be interesting too.

For the record, this copy includes translation tables (and the required pieces themself) for:
- All Orig sets
- All OhNo sets
- All LPII sets
- All LPIII sets
- The Xmas set
- The Sega set
- The Horror set
- All Orig VGASPECs
- The Covox / Prima VGASPECs
- The "Epic" set

LPIV sets or any that are only auto-downloadable (not fully included) are *not* supported by this copy, nor are any of the unofficial / non-DOS-version VGASPECs.