Lemmins-to-NeoLemmix level and graphic set converter?

[Wafflem]

Will there ever be any tool to convert all the levels and their graphic sets from Geoff's Lemmins game into NeoLemmix?

I'd like to see such a thing, as a lot of these levels were originally from Lemmini. The only other place these levels could be downloaded would have been Lemmings Heaven, but that site was not very well-maintained and all the files as a result were lost. It's a shame that these levels can only be accessed from that fangame, which is lacking a lot of extremely useful features that NeoLemmix has. It might be easy to make such a tool (or at least add it as a feature onto the existing Graphic Set and Level Converter in the experimental version), seeing as the level format looks similar to Lemmini's, and namida is already familiar with the Lemmins level format.

[namida]

I believe I already intended to do so at one point, but never got around to it. I should be able to add code to NeoLemmix to be able to load such levels (which by extension will allow Nepster's editor to load them as well, as from the next release it just gets NeoLemmix itself to attempt to convert any unknown format files to NXLV).

[namida]

I've added support for loading Lemmini levels to NeoLemmix, and will add Lemmins next. Regarding graphic sets, I'll look into it - we're just concerned about those already included with it, right? If so, it might be simpler if I just put together some tool to quickly convert them to the current (.DAT) format, which we can then run through the regular graphic set convertor - especially considering that further touchups are probably needed (trigger areas might be Lemmini-positioned (ie: at the lemming's center) rather than normal positioning (ie: at the lemming's foot), steel pieces aren't marked as such, etc).

[namida]

I've just added code to load Lemmins levels. It works, though currently does not load level titles (due to them being stored in a different file, and the level loading code currently not directly interacting with files, but rather outside code loads the level file to memory and then the loading code just loads it from there. Either a workaround or a significant change to level loading code would be nessecary to fix this).

Are there any other formats that might be worth including? Cheapo will not be practical due to how Cheapo levels work (in particular, storing the terrain layout as one large bitmap rather than a list of pieces) - while this doesn't make conversion outright impossible, it does make it a bit more complicated than I want to integrate into NeoLemmix itself (now maybe into a dedicated content converting tool, is more practical). Off the top of my head, I believe Lemmings DS uses a traditional-like format so could probably be done. At this stage, it might even be possible to eventually allow NeoLemmix to load Lix content (provided the levels in question don't use skills that don't exist in NL).

Currently (as in, in the current source code; not nessecerially in the latest EXP build yet), new-formats NeoLemmix can convert levels from:
- DOS Lemmings (and anything else that uses the same format; eg. Win95 Lemmings, Lemmix, Amiga Lemmings)
- Old NeoLemmix formats
- Lemmini
- SuperLemmini
- Lemmins

One engine I can think of that may at least be worth looking at is Lemmings DS. I don't know if any original content was ever made for it, but if it was it would be good to be able to load it into NL. However, it uses a binary format (and a very complicated one by the looks of things, considering Tightrope City is a 17KB file), and I'm not too great with understanding C code, so this might be tricky to achieve.

[namida]

The issue with being unable to load the title / music track is fixed for the next update (as you can probably guess, via the workaround rather than via the overhaul).

[Wafflem]

Thanks for adding support for conversion!

I've added support for loading Lemmini levels to NeoLemmix, and will add Lemmins next. Regarding graphic sets, I'll look into it - we're just concerned about those already included with it, right? If so, it might be simpler if I just put together some tool to quickly convert them to the current (.DAT) format, which we can then run through the regular graphic set convertor - especially considering that further touchups are probably needed (trigger areas might be Lemmini-positioned (ie: at the lemming's center) rather than normal positioning (ie: at the lemming's foot), steel pieces aren't marked as such, etc).

Indeed, the focus for graphic sets should be on the ones that already come with Lemmins. I really like the tool idea.

One engine I can think of that may at least be worth looking at is Lemmings DS. I don't know if any original content was ever made for it, but if it was it would be good to be able to load it into NL. However, it uses a binary format (and a very complicated one by the looks of things, considering Tightrope City is a 17KB file), and I'm not too great with understanding C code, so this might be tricky to achieve.

There has indeed been a lot of original content made for Lemmings DS. Though, you can disregard the " lem_custom_pack_v01_..>" link, as that link also contains the regular Lemmix versions of the levels, and Nepster and I have already converted those to NeoLemmix.

There's also oskar12345's levels, which he made for his Lemmings game using C#.

[namida]

Okay, I should try and figure out the Lemmings DS file format then. We at least have some C experts around, so between me and them we should be able to figure this out.

First though, I'll try a possible easier approach on the offchance it works: I'll email the creator of Lemmings DS and ask if he has a description of the file format somewhere.