[NeoLemmix][DISC] Iindependent tiles in hi-res mode for official styles

[Proxima]

I am not familiar with the WinLemm tiles. Personally, I would love to use the Mac tiles, which would just need a bit of tidying-up work as there are some pixels that do not exactly match the low-res tiles (which is why, most infamously, the Mac's version of Steel Mines of Kessel has issues). I think the tiles have been ripped and are somewhere on the forum; it shouldn't be too hard to locate them. I'm happy to help out with the work involved.

To forestall an obvious reply: no, this does not mean I want to use the Mac's dreadful version of the Fire exit. We can easily do better than that, either by taking this exit from another version or maybe by editing the graphics to get the best version of the exit we can. But my main concern is the terrain graphics, so let's sort those out first and worry about objects afterwards.

[The Tomato Watcher]

I'm a bit split on this. I personally don't think WinLemm tiles (the ones for terrain, anyway) look that great, not to mention that the crystal tileset (and maybe another one) doesn't even have specific hi-res terrain graphics, but since they all have edges that line up exactly with low-res pixel boundaries, they wouldn't result in any added ambiguity. Plus, WinLemm has fully hi-res objects which generally look pretty good, and personally, I feel that there is no negative with including them no matter what broader option is chosen (except for maybe the double-size low-res option).

As for terrain, both WinLemm tiles and upscaled tiles have their pros and cons for me. WinLemm tiles have some finer detail (if only on the interior of terrain pieces) but they also look kinda dark and murky, generally. Upscaled tiles are fuzzier with less detail, but they are, pretty much by definition, just as bright and colorful as the low-res tiles. I think it really depends on how important physics pixels being visible without CPM is to people.

[Will]

I am not familiar with the WinLemm tiles

(Super)Lemmini uses them, albeit with a corrected version of the Fire exit. They basically look exactly like the DOS/Amiga tiles but with more detail (since they're twice the resolution per tile); however, the colours are very bold which some people don't like.

Personally, I would love to use the Mac tiles, which would just need a bit of tidying-up work as there are some pixels that do not exactly match the low-res tiles

My main concern with the Mac tiles is the work that would need to be done to make them the same shape as the DOS ones; in some ways, this would be even more cumbersome a task than creating them from scratch using shape masks.

Having said that, I could be totally wrong about how much work this would actually be. If someone is happy to locate the graphics and either PM them to me or attach them to a reply post, I'll definitely take a look at them.

WinLemm tiles ... crystal tileset (and maybe another one) doesn't even have specific hi-res terrain graphics

Yes, they do. All official styles are hi-res in WinLemm's resources. I get your point about the colours, though. I'm not sure how big a task it would be to correct this for all tiles, but it's a possibility.

[The Tomato Watcher]

WinLemm tiles ... crystal tileset (and maybe another one) doesn't even have specific hi-res terrain graphics

Yes, they do. All official styles are hi-res in WinLemm's resources.

Ah, sorry, I should have been more clear. What I really meant was that the hi-res terrain graphics for the crystal tileset are just the low-res ones but doubled in size, as in, they are technically hi-res, but they don't have any more detail than the low-res ones. The objects have unique hi-res graphics though.

[Will]

What I really meant was that the hi-res terrain graphics for the crystal tileset are just the low-res ones but doubled in size, as in, they are technically hi-res, but they don't have any more detail than the low-res ones. The objects have unique hi-res graphics though.

Confirmed! I hadn't realised this before, well spotted!

I guess this shows though that simply doubling the low-res graphics in size could be a decent enough solution...

[Dullstar]

Personally, I'd likely continue to use low-res mode most or all of the time - ultimately even if proper tiles were created (which would make it look a lot better if done right), the skill destruction masks themselves, particularly the miner (and I assume the fencer likely looks bad fort the same reasons but I haven't actually checked) look pretty bad in high-res mode in my personal opinion.

That said: I think the best options are to use the Mac tiles, or to create entirely new ones (I only specified the "other" vote in the poll). One potential issue that hasn't been brought up with the Mac tiles that were posted earlier today is that the OhNo tiles are missing: I don't know if they're simply yet to be posted or if there was never actually a Mac version of OhNo. If OhNo is missing, that would tilt things in favor of creating entirely new ones in my opinion.

I think I've posted my thoughts on the WinLemm tiles before, but since that's probably super buried, I'll reiterate. It is my opinion that the WinLemm tiles have bad texturing: overall, most of them are too shiny, which gives everything a rather metallic look, even though steel is the only metallic tile in the game - dirt and pillar being some of the worst sets from what I recall. Other than Dirt, which is a bit of a wash because it doesn't upscale that well but the WinLemm ones also look very much unlike dirt, I do think the upscaled graphics look better than the WinLemm ones, not because I like the upscaled graphics, but because I really don't like the WinLemm ones. The lemming sprites are okay, but the tiles suck.

[namida]

One way around this would be to resize every piece by x2 so that, even in hi-res, the tiles appear exactly as they would in low-res.

There is also no reason to take the time to do this instead of just using upscaling.nxmi to set the upscaler mode to "zoom".

(I am not at this stage going to change what NL defaults to for styles that don't specify anything, but I'm open to adding an explicitly-set setting for the official styles if there's enough demand.)

[Will]

the skill destruction masks themselves, particularly the miner (and I assume the fencer likely looks bad fort the same reasons but I haven't actually checked) look pretty bad in high-res mode in my personal opinion

Can you elaborate on this please? I took great pains to ensure that every frame of these sprites matched with the destruction mask. The Miner, in particular, should have absolutely no problems. The Fencer was trickier to get right, but even this matches up perfectly.

One potential issue that hasn't been brought up with the Mac tiles that were posted earlier today is that the OhNo tiles are missing: I don't know if they're simply yet to be posted or if there was never actually a Mac version of OhNo. If OhNo is missing, that would tilt things in favor of creating entirely new ones in my opinion

Hmm. Good shout. I suppose we could use WinLemm or x2 for ONML styles, and use Mac for the Origs.

I've had a look at the Mac tiles and they really do look amazing. We could absolutely use these for orig, but in some ways I think it might be better to just include them as new styles (i.e. mac_dirt, mac_pillar, etc). That would mean we don't have to go through editing them (obviously, the exits and water graphics would need to be combined into single graphics rather than being split, and the Fire exit can be made-over as Proxima has already suggested).

Of course, if the consensus is to use these as the officials, then I'll help with the conversion work wherever I can.

There is also no reason to take the time to do this instead of just using upscaling.nxmi to set the upscaler mode to "zoom"

Yes, tbh I forgot about this option.

The upscaling.nxmi file allows everyone to have the best of both worlds, at least in terms of being able to make the hi-res graphics look identical to low-res and/or being able to use the Pixelart upscaler. However, there are very probably users who are unaware that they can set this themselves - could it be a menu option, perhaps? (If this falls into "no new suggestions" territory then ignore this, obvs)

I'm guessing that NeoLemmix will continue to keep this ability even if new graphics are introduced, so... really, all options remain available to us, which is great!

[Proxima]

Hmm. Good shout. I suppose we could use WinLemm or x2 for ONML styles, and use Mac for the Origs.

I've had a look at the Mac tiles and they really do look amazing. We could absolutely use these for orig, but in some ways I think it might be better to just include them as new styles (i.e. mac_dirt, mac_pillar, etc). That would mean we don't have to go through editing them (obviously, the exits and water graphics would need to be combined into single graphics rather than being split, and the Fire exit can be made-over as Proxima has already suggested).

By the same process of searching through the forums, I found the Mac ONML graphics as well.

I don't think they should be included as separate styles, for a few different reasons:

* All styles are required to have low-res terrain, with high-res being optional. Since the Mac graphics are high-res only, we'd have to scale them down for low-res. Then we have the complication that the "Kessel root" and the normal root both exist in different styles and could both be used on the same level!

* High-res users wouldn't get to have the tiles when playing the original levels or usermade levels using the original styles, which was the main draw of ripping the graphics in the first place. Knowledgeable users could merge the styles on their own copies, but this is tedious busywork that has to be done over with every new NL installation, and won't help to make high-res more attractive to new users.

* It's very unlikely that anyone would bother to use the styles in preference to the default styles when making new levels.

* No matter what happens regarding the official styles, I am absolutely going to do the editing work purely for myself and my own copy of NL. So the question of how much work is involved shouldn't even come into play -- it is going to happen anyway.

[Proxima]

For those who haven't looked at the Mac graphics yet, here's a demonstration:

I've started work on formatting the Mac graphics so NL can recognise them, so two of the tiles in this screenshot are Mac graphics; the rest are the low-res graphics with NL's default upscaler. The difference is quite dramatic

[Proxima]

Still more, but not all, of the tiles replaced with the Mac graphics:

[Proxima]

Sorry for the quadruple post, but I figured people might want to take a look at this and test it out.

This zip contains all the Mac terrain for orig_pillar, formatted so that NL recognises it as counterparts of the original pieces. Simply unzip this folder into orig_pillar so that you have a "terrain-hr" folder containing all the tiles, set NL to high-res mode, and you can play any pillar level with Mac graphics!

Caveats:

* I have not yet thoroughly gone over the pieces to check that pixel solidity is as it should be. There will be no problems with rectangular terrain (blocks, pillars and wood) but there may be issues with other pieces. I'll make looking over these my next task, before moving on to the next style.
* There is no high-res counterpart for pieces that didn't exist in the original style: block_09, wood_16 and the diagonal wood pieces (17 through 25). No problem for the original levels -- but for the sake of custom levels, I intend to make high-res counterparts for these (or maybe outsource the task )

[Dullstar]

the skill destruction masks themselves, particularly the miner (and I assume the fencer likely looks bad fort the same reasons but I haven't actually checked) look pretty bad in high-res mode in my personal opinion

Can you elaborate on this please? I took great pains to ensure that every frame of these sprites matched with the destruction mask. The Miner, in particular, should have absolutely no problems. The Fencer was trickier to get right, but even this matches up perfectly.

As far as the goal of matching the physics goes, it does that pretty much perfectly. I just don't like how it looks. But of course with high-res graphics operating with low-res physics, there's a trade-off between how good it looks and how good it matches the physics.

Image transcription (click to show/hide)

Top left: NL high-res: As it appears to simply be the low-res mask upscaled x2 nearest neighbor, it accurately matches the physics, but it also looks a bit awkward in my opinion as a result of the fact that it's low-res while everything around it is high-res.
Top right: NL low-res for reference
Bottom left: Lix - Only has high-res. Tunnel is smooth.

[Will]

By the same process of searching through the forums, I found the Mac ONML graphics as well

Nice find! It's good to know we have all of these now

All styles are required to have low-res terrain, with high-res being optional. Since the Mac graphics are high-res only, we'd have to scale them down for low-res

Sure, good point.

Maybe once the tilesets are ready (I'm happy to help with the conversions wherever I can), we can have a poll to see if people prefer the Mac graphics vs. zoomed or upscaled DOS/Amiga graphics for hi-res. Sure, they're similar, but there are enough differences in the details that the tiles create quite a different look and feel which people may not prefer.

I myself am not 100% sure I'd want these all the time, hence my suggestion to include them as separate styles. Since I use hi-res exclusively, it's of particular interest to me that we get this right; whilst I'm savvy enough to be able to mod the official styles for my own copy of NL, other users may not be.

They do look amazing though, and you're doing a grand job so far with the conversion. Be assured that the Mac graphics have my support, FWIW.

No matter what happens regarding the official styles, I am absolutely going to do the editing work purely for myself and my own copy of NL. So the question of how much work is involved shouldn't even come into play -- it is going to happen anyway.

Great! Don't feel like you have to do everything though. By all means give me a shout if you need any help.

As far as the goal of matching the physics goes, it does that pretty much perfectly. I just don't like how it looks. But of course with high-res graphics operating with low-res physics, there's a trade-off between how good it looks and how good it matches the physics

As a hi-res user, I don't mind the way it looks at all. And, it's far more helpful to have the mask show what's actually going on physics-wise (which has always been the point, as I understand it). It means I never have to use CPM for this sort of thing (incidentally, I only ever use CPM for trigger points and to see what's what in new styles).

Frankly, I'm baffled that this is even a problem for some people. Lemmings is a pixellated game. "Hi-res" is something of a misnomer, in all honesty; sure, it's double the resolution, but we're still only dealing with tens of pixels even for quite large pieces.

I'm not saying your point is invalid, but it's hardly a comprehensive reason not to use the hi-res mode. You have stated that it's a matter of personal preference though, so... fair enough.

[The Tomato Watcher]

As far as the goal of matching the physics goes, it does that pretty much perfectly. I just don't like how it looks. But of course with high-res graphics operating with low-res physics, there's a trade-off between how good it looks and how good it matches the physics

Frankly, I'm baffled that this is even a problem for some people. Lemmings is a pixellated game. "Hi-res" is something of a misnomer, in all honesty; sure, it's double the resolution, but we're still only dealing with tens of pixels even for quite large pieces.

I think his problem is less about the absolute resolution, and more about how the lower resolution of the masks and the higher resolution of the terrain clash with each other, and I'd have to agree with him. Being able to see the pixels, even in hi-res, is fine. The problem arises because the low-res masks look blocky compared to the hi-res terrain. Diagonal edges that are implied to be smooth in low-res look jagged in hi-res, simply because there is more detail around it to compare it to. It's all about context. This is, in fact, the main reason I don't much care for the Windows version graphics. All diagonal edges look jagged because there's more detail on the interior of terrain to compare it to. Now, of course, Mac terrain pieces and NL upscaled terrain pieces don't have this issue, but the destruction masks still do.