Author Topic: Upcoming Release - NeoLemmix Player V1.47n (Read 11989 times)

namida · « **on:** August 11, 2016, 03:34:12 PM »

So, the decision has been made that a NeoLemmix update will be made, even though the overall new format setup is not ready yet. Instead, this update will for the most part use the older formats, but include all the newer performance improvements, bugfixes and features.

There's honestly too much stuff for me to list it all, without going through the commit history with a fine-toothed comb, so I'll just go over some of the main points.

An entirely new replay format
Instead of the old LRB format, the new version will use the NXRP format, which is one of the few new formats that is going to make it into this release. The main advantage is that this is a text-based format, meaning it can be manually modified or analyzed. It's also easier to expand in the future, if a need arises.

Lemming Highlighting
Need a better way to tell which lemming will be selected when you click? In this version, the prioritized lemming will change to a red color so that he stands out. How about keeping track of lemmings with permanent skills? These lemmings will swap their hair and clothes colors, making them stand out too.

Skill shadows
When you have a destructive or constructive skill selected, and you mouseover a lemming, shadows will appear of what area the skill will cover. While these are not always 100% accurate, they are good enough for most cases and can help aim that miner, or see if that builder will reach.

Graphic set mixing and other new design features
Pending a compatible editor update, it'll be possible to mix and match graphic sets in a single level. In addition to that, objects can now be rotated.

Panning sounds
Sound effects will now pan to the left or right, depending on where in the level they occur relative to the screen position.

Physics bug fixes
There have been far too many fixes to physics bugs - from the glaring well-known ones, to some so obscure they probably would never have been found if the code hadn't been closely analyzed - to even begin listing them.

This release will be compatible with existing content (though re-testing is recommended), as long as it doesn't use any of the features that are being removed. A rebuilding of NXP files with the updated Flexi Toolkit version will be highly recommended, but apart from re-testing levels, no other action should be nessecary. (Based on a quick test, using Lemmings Plus Omega and Lemmings Plus V, it would appear that about 20% to 30% of replays will need redoing for this update. Of course, it depends on the exact nature of your levels and replays.)

Of course I can't give an exact date for the release, but it shouldn't be too far off. If you want, you can turn the "Check for updates" option on in NeoLemmix, then you'll get a notification the next time you run NeoLemmix after the update is released.

To keep things simpler, I'm also going to re-version the Flexi Toolkit and Graphic Set Tool to be in line with the corresponding NeoLemmix versions, similar to how the editor is. So, the next updates for these will also be V1.47n rather than V1.19 and V1.04 respectively.

Experimental version download links
Editor*: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ditkyiemhm93ss7/NeoLemmixEditor.exe?dl=1

The player and the other tools have now had stable V1.47n releases.

* See this post for info on how to set up the editor experimental version

NOTE: In order to use playtest mode with the experimental editor version, you must also use the experimental player version (and vice versa). Playtest mode will not work properly with stable editor + experimental player, or experimental editor + stable player.

namida · « **Reply #1 on:** August 12, 2016, 07:38:08 AM »

If you can think of anything that hasn't been confirmed as changed yet that you'd like to see make it into this release, let me know in this topic and if practical to do so we'll try and get it in.

Some things that probably won't be able to make it into this release:
- Any change from the existing structure of loading one NXP or LVL per execution, or the existing way that data is handled (ie: mostly being built into NXPs)
- Constructs (NL's equivalent of Lix's terrain grouping)
- A fix to the must-go-back-two-frames-to-cancel-action bug
- A fix to the weird windowing system
- Support for more variety of custom lemming sprites
- Any online capability beyond what already exists (ie: auto-downloading graphic sets and checking for updates)

EDIT: See this post in the experimental releases topic for an experimental copy of this update.

namida · « **Reply #2 on:** August 13, 2016, 01:19:57 PM »

From #neolemmix chatlogs:

[12:40:22] <IchoTolot> ok the minimap still seems a bit buggy [12:40:37] <IchoTolot> lemming positions are not smoothly updated [12:41:00] <IchoTolot> sometimes they do not update at all especially with frameskipping

I'll try and look into this when I get a chance (probably in a few days).

Colorful Arty · « **Reply #3 on:** August 13, 2016, 02:51:17 PM »

Will the update have custom background and lemming sprites implemented?

IchoTolot · « **Reply #4 on:** August 13, 2016, 04:20:03 PM »

After fixing up Reunion some bugs I found:

- Now if a OWW is placed on an exit, even if the OWW is not visible there, it deactivates the exit's trigger area causing the lemmings to ignore it. (Needed to patch 02 16 for this)

- I turned off autosteel on 02 13 to patch some tiny holes in the terrain with steel, now the steel was active even with turned off autosteel + no steel areas there. Patched it with normal terrain.

- 01 01 Replay does not find it's level anymore. Manual testing works and solves without problems.
Message: Just dig! Reloaded!.nxrp: CANNOT FIND LEVEL <<I'mTooYoungToDie 01>> (By Position)
I attached the replay + the exp Reunion nxp for investigation.

namida · « **Reply #5 on:** August 13, 2016, 04:28:17 PM »

Quote

- Now if a OWW is placed on an exit, even if the OWW is not visible there, it deactivates the exit's trigger area causing the lemmings to ignore it. (Needed to patch 02 16 for this)

No need to adjust your levels for this; this is a bug that definitely needs to be fixed.

IchoTolot · « **Reply #6 on:** August 13, 2016, 05:12:35 PM »

Quote from: namida on August 13, 2016, 04:28:17 PM

Quote
- Now if a OWW is placed on an exit, even if the OWW is not visible there, it deactivates the exit's trigger area causing the lemmings to ignore it. (Needed to patch 02 16 for this)
No need to adjust your levels for this; this is a bug that definitely needs to be fixed.

Good. I adjusted this one already, but I just noticed some other trap trigger areas not working because of this bug, so a fix would be very appreachiated

EDIT: It seems trigger area stacking in general seems bugged.

IchoTolot · « **Reply #7 on:** August 13, 2016, 08:00:55 PM »

Another thing:

- Noticed in Broad Pit from PimoLems (3 08): The last row of pixels from the bottom seems to not be drawn anymore! I see Lemmings walking on the black bottom, but in fact there is normally a row of well to be seen pixels there. So the lowest pixel is there in the physics, but not visually.

EDIT: Also good visible in 5 24 in Reunion. The lowest tile should be a 2 pixel high tile, but only the upper pixel is visible.

namida · « **Reply #8 on:** August 14, 2016, 02:54:40 AM »

Okay, so it functions properly but isn't drawn. This is probably a relatively minor (in terms of coding needed to fix it) bug then, and shouldn't be hard to sort out.

I'll probably be a bit busy today, but I should be able to look into these issues tomorrow.

IchoTolot · « **Reply #9 on:** August 14, 2016, 10:19:30 AM »

I pm'ed namida about another thing how the exp version handles pre-placed lemmings not right. Several replays broke due to it seems the inner order isn't correctly anymore and then came a weird bug in a level I don't wanna post officially here yet, that had it spawned at a completely different place inside terrain

Just wanted to write this here as well to add it to the list

EDIT: Under further investigation it seems like it is about 8 pixels too low.

IchoTolot · « **Reply #10 on:** August 14, 2016, 06:15:23 PM »

I have one last minute request and I don't know how much of a hassle this would be to implement for the new version.

Audio/music sliders!

Many users, especially the video making kind is wishing for in game audio sliders to easily blance out the sounds. Often the music is a bit too loud and turning down the master windows volume is not the perfect option.

So I really don't know the work this would require, but if it#s not too much it would be nice to have for the next version

namida · « **Reply #11 on:** August 15, 2016, 02:02:47 AM »

I'll see what I can do about those. I should at least be able to do a music one fairly easily.

In regard to the trigger area overwriting - I've found the cause of this now.

namida · « **Reply #12 on:** August 15, 2016, 03:17:15 AM »

Another nice feature I added to Flexi - you can now download graphic sets from the NeoLemmix website in Flexi. I should probably add this functionality to the editor too.

The experimental version that contains this modification is available here; also see this topic for more info on these updates.

namida · « **Reply #13 on:** August 15, 2016, 05:47:26 AM »

Okay, let's take a proper look at the things listed in this topic.

Quote from: Colorful Arty on August 13, 2016, 02:51:17 PM

Will the update have custom background and lemming sprites implemented?

Background colors will be supported, background images currently aren't but I could add support (all the needed internal workings are there, it's just a matter of adding support in the DAT graphic set format).

Custom lemming sprites, I'll see what can be done about those.

Quote

- Now if a OWW is placed on an exit, even if the OWW is not visible there, it deactivates the exit's trigger area causing the lemmings to ignore it. (Needed to patch 02 16 for this)

I've replicated this issue, and tracked down why it's happening. I haven't fixed it yet.

Quote

- I turned off autosteel on 02 13 to patch some tiny holes in the terrain with steel, now the steel was active even with turned off autosteel + no steel areas there. Patched it with normal terrain.

Currently, the option to turn Autosteel off isn't working (I didn't re-implement it in newer code). I'm not sure if we want to continue having this option though... but perhaps that can be deferred to a later time, and for now support maintained.
EDIT: Fixed.

Quote

- 01 01 Replay does not find it's level anymore. Manual testing works and solves without problems.
Message: Just dig! Reloaded!.nxrp: CANNOT FIND LEVEL <<I'mTooYoungToDie 01>> (By Position)
I attached the replay + the exp Reunion nxp for investigation.

Not sure why it would be trying to find by position; NXRP files only support finding by Level ID at the moment. Perhaps the level ID is being generated incorrectly. Can you try loading and re-saving the level in the editor, and re-saving the replay, then let me know if the issue continues to occur? If it does, can you PM me the updated replay and the LVL file?

Quote

- Noticed in Broad Pit from PimoLems (3 08): The last row of pixels from the bottom seems to not be drawn anymore! I see Lemmings walking on the black bottom, but in fact there is normally a row of well to be seen pixels there. So the lowest pixel is there in the physics, but not visually.

There is indeed one pixel missing. I think I know why.
EDIT: Fixed.

Quote

I pm'ed namida about another thing how the exp version handles pre-placed lemmings not right. Several replays broke due to it seems the inner order isn't correctly anymore and then came a weird bug in a level I don't wanna post officially here yet, that had it spawned at a completely different place inside terrain

Haven't properly investigated, but it seems this only occurs with converted-from-Lemmini styles. If this is so, I have an idea of why.
EDIT: Fixed.

I've logged all the ones that aren't already fixed on the issue tracker.

namida · « **Reply #14 on:** August 15, 2016, 10:43:08 AM »

Quote from: IchoTolot on August 14, 2016, 06:15:23 PM

I have one last minute request and I don't know how much of a hassle this would be to implement for the new version.

Audio/music sliders!

Many users, especially the video making kind is wishing for in game audio sliders to easily blance out the sounds. Often the music is a bit too loud and turning down the master windows volume is not the perfect option.

So I really don't know the work this would require, but if it#s not too much it would be nice to have for the next version

Guess what I just added.

Wafflem · « **Reply #15 on:** August 15, 2016, 03:29:36 PM »

The "locked release rate" feature is added too, right?

Also, since mixing graphic sets will become possible, what will happen to levels using the Epic graphic set? Will the tiles convert to the DOS version, or will they stay same as the Lemmini version?

namida · « **Reply #16 on:** August 15, 2016, 03:31:52 PM »

Quote

The "locked release rate" feature is added too, right?

Yes, but no editor support yet. The player has a method of implementing locked RR even in LVL files.

Quote

Also, since mixing graphic sets will become possible, what will happen to levels using the Epic graphic set? Will the tiles convert to the DOS version, or will they stay same as the Lemmini version?

That relies on translation tables, which is part of the new formats (which this doesn't support, aside from the new replay format). So, it'll continue to work as-is. However, once editor support arrives (this will probably lag a bit behind the player update; the highest priority is getting the player and Flexi ready), I'd strongly discourage use of Epic in favor of using a mixture of the standard sets.

mobius · « **Reply #17 on:** August 16, 2016, 09:36:09 PM »

Quote from: namida on August 12, 2016, 07:38:08 AM

If you can think of anything that hasn't been confirmed as changed yet that you'd like to see make it into this release, let me know in this topic and if practical to do so we'll try and get it in.

how about Proxima's Cheapo fire trap? [if I can successfully re-create it from the file he gave me). I plan on implementing this into the fire set for ROTL (where it is needed), but it seems like a thing that should comes standard with the fire set.

namida · « **Reply #18 on:** August 31, 2016, 03:35:22 PM »

In regards to the previously-mentioned things in this topic, all that remains are (a) custom image backgrounds and (b) custom lemming sprites.

The latter is probably not going to get any extra support beyond what V1.43n-F had for this version. I'll look at a way to implement A.

namida · « **Reply #19 on:** August 31, 2016, 03:51:51 PM »

Also, as a heads up: I am very likely going to be dropping support for other engines from this update. (It will remain possible to import content from other engines, but not export to them.) The existing tool versions will remain available, for those who are using them for other engines (most likely SuperLemmini).

This is because the introduction of new features, which aren't supported (or supported in different ways) by other engines makes it more and more complicated to retain support; and of course, properly supporting NeoLemmix is a higher priority than supporting other engines, even if they don't have other editors available (aside from older versions of NL Editor).

CosmicLemming · « **Reply #20 on:** August 31, 2016, 07:21:01 PM »

If you add hardhats to the Lemmings with permanent skills like in Lemmings PSP/PS2 that would be awesome.

Nepster · « **Reply #21 on:** August 31, 2016, 08:16:02 PM »

The experimental versions currently use the L2 Tribes method to distinguish lemmings with and without permanent skills: Lemmings with permanent skills have blue hair and green body. Do you still prefer further changes like the addition of hats, or is the color swap sufficient for you?

PS: I never played PSP/PS2, so I might have completely misunderstood your suggestion. If so, then could you please add a bit more explanations?

Minim · « **Reply #22 on:** August 31, 2016, 09:05:34 PM »

Quote from: Nepster on August 31, 2016, 08:16:02 PM

PS: I never played PSP/PS2, so I might have completely misunderstood your suggestion. If so, then could you please add a bit more explanations?

I think I know what LunarLemming means by this: To change the sprites of lemmings to include hardhats when assigned certain skills.

I have played the PSP version, and I've remembered that lemmings wear a yellow hardhat while mining and a red hardhat when assigned the climber skill. I'm sure the yellow miner one will work, just by modifying the sprite image. The red climber one would probably cause too many headaches for the hardhat to be worn permanently by the lemming.

namida · « **Reply #23 on:** September 01, 2016, 10:47:37 AM »

I've just uploaded a new experimental version of the player. See the Physics Bug Experimentals topic for more info on recent experimentals; but all future updates will be posted in this topic.

Experimental V1.47n:7385764
- Fixes the bug where Save Image in-game only saves the visible area
- Supports background images in graphic sets (try out Lemmings Plus V 1.01 with this version!)
- Supports levels specifying random music; use "*random" as the music name to do this
- Fixes the teleporter bug from the last experimental release

See the first post for download links.

namida · « **Reply #24 on:** September 01, 2016, 01:42:53 PM »

Uploaded a new editor experimental. No support for graphic set mixing yet, sorry. Most, if not all, irrelevant-to-NeoLemmix options have been trimmed out, and only NeoLemmix editing is now supported.

Note that the setup is a bit trickier than just overwriting the EXE from the stable version, rather:
1. Extract the stable version
2. Delete the contents of "<editor path>/styles/", except the "NeoLemmix" folder
3. Move the contents of "<editor path>/styles/NeoLemmix/" to "<editor path>/styles/"
4. Delete the now-empty "NeoLemmix" folder

namida · « **Reply #25 on:** September 01, 2016, 04:57:14 PM »

Made some significant progress towards graphic set mixing in the editor.

It's now possible to edit such levels; I haven't properly tested loading and saving them yet.

namida · « **Reply #26 on:** September 01, 2016, 05:21:58 PM »

Uploaded an experimental editor that supports this.

Whichever graphic set is actually selected in the Level Properties menu will be (a) the level's primary graphic set (the one that determines eg. minimap color, normal vs xmas lemmings, etc), and (b) the one which pieces appear from when adding / changing a terrain or object. However, try placing a piece, then changing to another graphic set.

A single level can currently use pieces from up to 256 graphic sets, whether or not that includes any from its "primary" set.

For those who just want to see it in action, see the attached level. Note that this level WILL NOT WORK on V1.43n-F; it will only work on the recent experimentals. (You don't nessecerially need the very latest one; the player-side support has been there for a while.)

Use this feature wisely.

Things to look out for:
- Any cases where this isn't working properly
- Any remaining artifacts from support for other engines
- Issues with loading levels from other engines - this should still remain possible!

Known issue:
- If you load a LVL file from an older editor version that contained pieces that had been locked, they'll no longer be locked upon opening with this version.

Also, I still haven't added support for rotating objects. I'd also like to add a "Download graphic sets" menu similar to what Flexi Toolkit has / what the player does automatically if enabled.

namida · « **Reply #27 on:** September 01, 2016, 07:30:25 PM »

Uploaded a new player experimental. Fixes a few bugs:
- Countdown digits sometimes appear for 1 frame when assigning Bomber / Stoner
- Highlight icon sometimes disappears after restarts or backwards skips
- Forwards frameskips skip one frame too many

I strongly encourage people to try it out (if you're looking for some content that has been tested against it, try Lemmings Plus V), so that any bugs that are found can be addressed before the stable release.

Simon · « **Reply #28 on:** September 01, 2016, 10:03:06 PM »

Quote

A single level can currently use pieces from up to 256 graphic sets

Any limit here irks me as weird design. I want to understand more. Where do you divert from the following?

A level has a list of tile occurrences.
A tile occurence specifies a tile, and has coordinates, rotation, etc.
A tile comes from a graphic set, or is free file, or something. You fetch the set into memory and the tile occurrence points either to the set, or to the tile into the set.
You can ask the level to load the sets, or for a list of sets from which at least one tile occurs. It can do either on demand by filtering the list of tile occurrences.

-- Simon

namida · « **Reply #29 on:** September 02, 2016, 03:27:48 PM »

LVL format limitation. Level files aren't switching to the text-based format yet, I've simply added more information into the existing LVL file (it is fairly extendable, but it has its limits still).

Once the new format is in use, there will be no limit.

Simon · « **Reply #30 on:** September 02, 2016, 03:39:44 PM »

Awesome, thanks!

-- Simon

namida · « **Reply #31 on:** September 07, 2016, 01:00:21 AM »

Uploaded a new experimental player version, V1.47n:DFAA651.

- Some minor physics tweaks to the basher (seems to affect very few, if any, replays)
- Some performance improvements at the start of a level when music is turned off
- Better title bars for the load / save replay dialogs
- Added a "Pause after backwards frameskip" option
- Fixed some issues with NXRP replays (the worst effect it might have on existing replay files is that they get falsely detected as being for the wrong level; it won't ruin them)
- LRB replays are auto-mass-converted to NXRP when running a mass replay check
- Passwords don't exist anymore

Note that I'd say we're getting very close to a stable release now. I'd definitely suggest making all new content for this version at this point in time.

namida · « **Reply #32 on:** September 07, 2016, 01:56:28 AM »

That experimental release adds a level select menu in place of the password menu.

I've since improved this even futher. It now displays a green checkmark next to levels that you've beaten.

Minim · « **Reply #33 on:** September 07, 2016, 05:07:23 AM »

Love the level select menu!

I hope this menu will work for Original Lemmings. As there are 30 levels per rank, it's impossible for them to appear all together on the same screen. Maybe add a next-page tab on the bottom?

namida · « **Reply #34 on:** September 07, 2016, 12:10:43 PM »

Quote from: Minim on September 07, 2016, 05:07:23 AM

Love the level select menu!

I hope this menu will work for Original Lemmings. As there are 30 levels per rank, it's impossible for them to appear all together on the same screen. Maybe add a next-page tab on the bottom?

It does indeed work. Rather than multiple pages, as you move down the list it scrolls. The first or last displayed entry will show "......" to indicate that there's more.

There's some issues with the Orig NXP on this version (I suspect the problems might be related to the pack still using oddtabling; which V1.47n no longer supports), but here's a screenshot from Lemmings Plus I (which also has 30 levels per rank).

namida · « **Reply #35 on:** September 07, 2016, 01:39:36 PM »

Uploaded experimental player V1.47n:E573C5B.

Support for older-format VGASPECs has been reinstated, and it has those checkmarks on the level select menu.

namida · « **Reply #36 on:** September 07, 2016, 01:52:04 PM »

Uploaded a new exp Flexi Toolkit:

- Removed options that are no longer relevant to V1.47n (if a pack is built as being V1.43n-F / V1.47n dual compatible, it will have these options set to whatever V1.47n's hardcoded behaviour for that option is) such as "Unlock All", level codes, etc
- Added a menu option to quickly set all levels' filenames from their titles; useful if you've got an old pack that has the filenames as "0101.lvl" etc
- Removed the "Advanced Options" button on the Settings tab, as there's so few options now that they can all fit on the main menu. Also redesigned the text editing part to make more use of the newly available space.
- The issue checker can now detect some (but not all) cases where a level uses a feature that's no longer supported

namida · « **Reply #37 on:** September 07, 2016, 02:02:17 PM »

At this point, the only known things left to do before a release is possible (besides some further testing, maybe) are:

Player
~~Some performance improvements for the level select screen~~

Editor
Adding support for object rotation
Adding support for obtaining graphic sets from the online server
Possibly implementing some of the smaller, easier-to-do suggestions

Flexi
no further work needed

GSTool
no further work needed

Since we're so close, I'd like to encourage everyone to try out these new versions and let me know of any issues you find / suggestions I've missed (feel free to mention them even if you mentioned them before, I may have forgotten; even if not, the worst that can happen is that I say "I don't plan to implement that" or "I'll do that eventually but not for this release"). Chances are very little is going to change between the current EXP versions and the eventual stable releases.

namida · « **Reply #38 on:** September 07, 2016, 05:48:29 PM »

Player, Flexi and GSTool have now had stable releases. This topic will remain because there's no stable editor release yet (and might not be for a few days or so, maybe more, really depends on when / how much I feel like working on it).

namida · « **Reply #39 on:** September 15, 2016, 04:40:25 AM »

Uploaded an updated experimental editor.

No in-editor support for backgrounds yet, which is why it's still not a stable release.

However, it does now support rotating objects (note: this does not work properly on V1.47n or V1.47n-B in practice, even though it should in theory; I'm going to release a V1.47n-C update soon that fixes this), and can also download styles from the NeoLemmix website directly into the editor.

namida · « **Reply #40 on:** September 18, 2016, 01:17:20 AM »

Uploaded an update to the experimental editor. This version now shows background images / colors.

I need to investigate some of the recently-reported bugs before making any stable release.

(EDIT: Discovered some very nasty bugs with No Overwrite in this version after posting. Re-uploaded to fix these.)

namida · « **Reply #41 on:** September 18, 2016, 03:19:02 AM »

Just uploaded yet another experimental editor update (V1.47n:96C2ADE) that should fix the disappearing objects when switching graphic sets and the issues with window order editing.

Let me know if you discover any bugs (ie: NOT just that I haven't implemented a requested feature, no matter how simple - the editor update is very overdue and so I'm not going to implement any more requests until there's been a stable release).

Inability to load Lemmini / SuperLemmini levels is a known issue. This will be fixed before any stable release.

namida · « **Reply #42 on:** September 18, 2016, 05:06:24 AM »

Updated the experimental editor again (V1.47n:1174957).

Loading Lemmini and SuperLemmini levels should now be working again; although do note that (a) I didn't test this very extensively, and (b) I only tested it with SuperLemmini levels. Since they're now working again, I restored the "Mass Convert" option.

Assuming no (major) bugs are found, this will become the stable release.

namida · « **Reply #43 on:** September 18, 2016, 10:23:49 PM »

Uploaded editor V1.47n:182F3BE which should fix an issue where many NeoLemmix levels give an oddtabling error when loading. (Typical huh... fix Lemmini / SuperLemmini loading, and bam, NeoLemmix loading breaks. No idea whether Lemmix loading was working or not.)

I've tested loading Lemmix, NeoLemmix and SuperLemmini with V1.47n:182F3BE. I didn't test regular Lemmini, but I'd be very surprised if it doesn't work while SuperLemmini does.