Author Topic: A new Lemmings remake for Windows  (Read 8502 times)

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A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« on: March 18, 2008, 10:45:51 AM »
Go here: http://www.retroremakes.com/forum2/showthread.php?t=10878

It's in development but plays fine already.

zennehoy

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2008, 06:50:59 PM »
Am I blind, or is there no download link? Difficult to try out without one :)
Zen


Offline Ron_Stard

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2008, 05:31:48 PM »

I played the game and it's O.K. for me, very funny & comfortable: it's a relief you can pause the game & choose the tasks with the mouse, in contrast to the MS-DOS port (although can choose also the Lemmings within the paused game, as in Lemmings 2, would be an inprovement). Also, it's very colorful (and I don't say this only for the nice two-color umbrellas...  :XD:). But the game goes very slow when a lot of lemmings are walking on the screen, and some Lemmings frames (i.e., diggers frames) seems not to be very smooth and accurate to the terrain in the screen. Except for this two points, I've found it very good. Keep It Up!

P.S. Can this version support custom levels?

0xdeadbeef

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2008, 06:45:57 PM »
Is it the BlitzBasic clone that steals all the resources from Lemmini while its author claimed he found out how to extract the resources "by browsing the internet"? In the first versions you could even find the "Lemmini" comment from all the "borrowed" ini files. And of course it used all of my modified graphics (e.g. the Hell exit with horns and my rescaled Lemmings font, the scaled special levels and so on) . Most probably it still does although the author promised to remove at least "my" graphics.

Besides, even though I explained that Geoff guy how to implement the animated "one way" arrows on destroyable objects as a sign of good will, it seems he wasn't able to implement that. Indeed, he told me that the static part of the level is loaded as one big bitmap since creating the level inside the game took him too long.

Well, maybe in the mean time he fixed some issues, but I don't really care. I severly doubt that this ripp-off will ever get near the 100% playable mark. And since he used my level files, he also copied lots of patches that only work for Lemmini.

BTW: I was banned from the RetroRemakes forums after I complained that they deleted my posts regarding this issue. Autocratic admins who censor all criticism. Yeah, that's great.

Offline Mindless

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2008, 11:40:17 PM »
in that case, I won't even bother trying to make it work in wine

Offline DragonsLover

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2008, 07:44:36 AM »
And I think I won't try it AT ALL!!! :laugh:
I like dragons! They're the center of my life! I'll never forget them...

0xdeadbeef

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2008, 04:19:15 PM »
in that case, I won't even bother trying to make it work in wine

Well, don't let my opinion influence you too much. BTW: when ripping all the resource from Lemmini, he also ripped the MODs that you kindly provided. Just search for "Mindless" in the exe.

Offline Geoff

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2008, 04:57:48 PM »
You won't find mindless in the exe all the mod files have been removed and replaced with midi files that someone kindly sent me, and your ini files have been removed, I thought we had settled this.

Not all the gfx where yours, if you do a search for blitz lemmings that has been floating about on the net for about 6 years, long before your lemmini.

Has for the animated arrows i haven't implemented that, because blitz is just not upto it.

anyway are we not all lemmings fans.  :thumbsup:

Offline Geoff

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2008, 05:29:07 PM »
And where did you nick your resources from? what ever was ripped (stolen) was from the original owners. Psygnosis

0xdeadbeef

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2008, 05:46:07 PM »
Firstly Lemmini extracts the resources during the first start from a WINLEMM directory. So I don't have to include the resources and therefore don't "steal" them from Psygnosis/Sony.

Secondly, Lemmini patches lots of the resources after extraction. I spent quite a lot of time to improve and fix the resources and to write and maintain the patch engine. Not mentioning the fact that it was me who analyzed the SPR format in the first place to make extraction possible. And while you claimed the opposite, at least he last versions that I checked contained quite a lot of "my" patched, improved or even reconstructed resources. E.g. I spent hours to reconstruct and scale the Amiga lemmings font. No other clone ever used it - yours does.

As a side note,  while you removed the Lemmini comments, you still use the tile/object location/size info from Lemminis level INI files. Since I patched lots of them to fit the Lemmini engine better and others to correct bugs in WinLemm, chances are that lots of my fixes make your clone unplayable or at least behave strangely.

And come on, the animated arrows should be not Sweat in BlitzBasic.

Offline Geoff

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2008, 07:05:43 PM »
I had to alter most of the level data and collision images to get it work for me.  I praise you for your work on the spr extraction. (credit is given to you and mindless) in the updated version) regarding the mod files (even tho i removed them)  if you do a search on http://isohunt.com/ you will find many lemmings related stuff including mindless's mod files.

For the arrows, things take to long to load in blitz, i was finding it hard to remove unwanted parts of the arrows, without delaying the loading time. some levels took up-to 5 seconds or more to load. (if i find a better way it will be done)

Did you know there is a clone floating about written in visual basic.

The fonts can be found easy enough your not the first to use them, they are easy ripped from the Amiga version and altered in paint shop pro.

Offline Geoff

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2008, 11:10:20 PM »


I would like to be able to create the mask in the 3rd image of the picture, but coding in blitz would cause a big delay.

hmmmm


zennehoy

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2008, 07:10:23 AM »
I'm not familiar with Blitz, is it a game creation toolkit? Does it give you direct access to the frame buffer? If so you can either manually create the bitmask, or write your own drawing routine that doesn't display the object on black pixels (this is how it's done in Pocket Lemmings).
Cheers,
Zen

Offline Geoff

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2008, 11:00:44 AM »
Hi, zennehoy No its not a toolkit, it does give you direct access to the frame buffer.

Here is a bit of sample code for drawing the arrows on terrain only.

For x1=0 To ImageWidth(ob\image)-1 ; arrow image
        For y1=0 To ImageHeight(ob\image)-1 ; arrow image
           SetBuffer ImageBuffer(ob\image)
           LockBuffer ImageBuffer(ob\image)
           rgb=ReadPixelFast(x1,y1) And $FFFFFF
           r=rgb Shr 16 And 255
           g=rgb Shr 8 And 255
           b=rgb And 255
           pix=r+g+b
           UnlockBuffer ImageBuffer(ob\image)
           SetBuffer ImageBuffer(level_image)
           LockBuffer ImageBuffer(level_image)
           p=ReadPixelFast(ob\x+x1,ob\y+y1) And $FFFFFF
           If p And rgb WritePixelFast ob\x+x1,ob\y+y1,rgb
           UnlockBuffer ImageBuffer(level_image)
        Next
        Next
        SetBuffer BackBuffer()

But its very slow. maybe i should use it to create the masks before gameplay.

zennehoy

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #15 on: March 31, 2008, 12:24:59 PM »
The most obvious problem I see is that you lock the image(s) much more often than you need to... try locking them once, then do the loop, and unlock when you're done.
Cheers,
Zen

0xdeadbeef

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #16 on: March 31, 2008, 04:55:35 PM »
Well, this most probably doesn't help, but this is how I do it in Lemmini:

Code: [Select]
// remove invisible pixels from all object frames that are "in front"
// for upside down objects, just create the upside down copy
if (o.upsideDown || inFront) {
    for (int frame = 0; frame < spr.frames; frame++) {                        
        imgSpr = ToolBox.createImage(spr.width,spr.height, Transparency.BITMASK);                // get flipped or normal version
        if (o.upsideDown) {
            // flip the image vertically
            imgSpr = op.filter(spr.img[frame], imgSpr);
        } else {
            WritableRaster rImgSpr = imgSpr.getRaster();                            
            rImgSpr.setRect(spr.img[frame].getRaster()); // just copy
        }
        // for "in front" objects the really drawn pixels have to be determined
        if (inFront) {
            for (int y = 0; y < spr.height; y++) {
                if (y + spr.y < 0 || y + spr.y >= bgHeight)
                    continue;
                int yLineStencil = (y + spr.y) * bgWidth;
                for (int x = 0; x < spr.width; x++) {
                    if (x + spr.x < 0 || x + spr.x >= bgWidth)
                        continue;
                    // now read stencil
                    int stencilVal = stencil.get(yLineStencil + spr.x+ x);
                    int stencilValMasked = stencilVal & Stencil.MSK_WALK_ON;
                    boolean paint =
                        drawFull || (stencilValMasked != 0 && drawOnVis) || (stencilValMasked == 0 && noOverwrite);
                    // hack for overlap:
                    int id = Stencil.getObjectID(stencilVal);
                    // check if a different interactive object was already entered at this pixel position
                    // however: exits must always be painted
                    // also: passive objects will always be painted
                    if ( inFront && spr.type != SpriteObject.TYPE_PASSIVE && spr.type != SpriteObject.TYPE_EXIT && id!=0 && id != n)
                        paint = false;
                    // sprite screenBuffer  pixel
                    int imgCol = imgSpr.getRGB(x,y);
                    if ((imgCol & 0xff000000) == 0)
                        continue;
                    if (!paint)
                        imgSpr.setRGB(x,y,imgCol&0xffffff); // set transparent
                }
            }                
        }
        spr.img[frame] = imgSpr;
    }
}

In short: I create an instance for each arrow object ("inFront") and remove each pixel (by making it transparent) that is not set in the underlying background stencil.

Offline Geoff

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Re: A new Lemmings remake for Windows
« Reply #17 on: March 31, 2008, 11:08:22 PM »
Zenn your right about that, according to blitz you can only lock one buffer at a time, so i tried it and they are wrong. Much faster.

The arrows are sorted now.  :thumbsup:

Thanks for that piece of code Volker, I'm not that clued up on c++/Java

I did programme the old Atari 800XL in 6502 machine code in the 80's/90's had a couple of games marketed "Air rescue" and "Dawn raider" Atlantis software. I written the code raw, very time consuming.  :laugh: