Graphic-set parallels between Lemmings 2: The Tribes and Lemmings 3D

[Strato Incendus]

It's fairly obvious that not only Lemmings 3 (An All New World of Lemmings) built off of the tribe tilesets introduced in Lemmings 2, but also Lemmings 3D (for which namida is currently developing a level editor) definitely has a lot of overlap with Lemmings 2 with regard to its graphic sets.

Shared styles between Lemmings 2 and Lemmings 3D are:

• Circus
• Classic
• Egyptian
• Medieval
• Outdoor
• Space
• Sports

Both games share the idea of a "classic" tileset, even though those look vastly different, because in L2, it's specifically the Pillar tileset from Classic Lemmings, whereas in L3D, it's just random blocks in all colours.

The "Outdoor" levels in L3D are sometimes also described as "Forest" levels, given the picture of the lemming couple wandering around on the pre-level screen.
The "Sports" levels in L3D are specifically focused on golfing, whereas those in L2 have more of a darts-and-tennis-theme going on, but once we drop the specific name of the single disciplines, it should be clear that these two are equivalent.

"Space" is a little more interesting, because while L3D has the "Alien" tileset, it also contains other spacy levels that actually use other styles, like "Away Team" in the Classic tileset, and "Breakout" in the Computer tileset.

The remaining L2-only styles are:

• Shadow
• Cavelem
• Polar
• Highland
• Beach

The remaining L3D-only styles are:

• Army
• Jelly-Belly
• Computer

But a couple of graphic-set designers here on the forums have already started bridging those gaps!

Now, while it would be obviously astronomic at this point to consider the introduction of additional tilesets into the Lemmings 3D level editor that namida is currently creating, there have been a couple of attempts to bring the remaining L3D tilesets into NeoLemmix:

• The Jelly-Belly tileset has a lot of overlap with namida's Candy tileset, including things like chocolate water, chocolate terrain, sugarcanes etc. There is also Raymanni's food tileset, even though there aren't really any sweets among that "buffet" .
• For the Computer tileset, there have been several cyber / digital / electric graphic sets, but the one most clearly inspired by L3D is Raymanni's Cyber tileset - not only because Raymanni created several other L3D tilesets, like Circus or Snow, but also because the exit is a computer screen.
• Levels in the style of the L3D classic tileset can be easily built using the colourful blocks from e.g. Raymanni's Toys style, namida's Abstract or Psychedelic style, Gronkling's Minimal style, or simply the squares and blocks from L2 Circus.

In other words: The only thing still truly missing is a NeoLemmix Army tileset!

Now, while one could argue that Army is L3D's equivalent to L2's "Polar", given that all the "alpine" levels in L3D are in that tileset, I think there's a clearly visible distinction between the L3D Snow levels (as reflected by Raymanni's Snow tileset) and the "regular" Army levels like "Take a Dive", "Corkscrew Digger", "This is the Army", "Lemhangar" etc.

I've put a recreation of "This is the Army" into my pack Lemmings World Tour, using a combination of the L2 styles Beach, Sports, and Medieval. But obviously, this is only an approximation.


So, do you think NeoLemmix could use such an "Army" style to make the collection of L3D-like tilesets complete?
If so, what should it look like? What pieces should it contain?

The only things obvious to me at this point would be square and rectangular blocks and slopes in various sizes in a camouflage finish, as well as grey stone walls like on "This is the Army", and wooden planks like on "Take a Dive". If we had L2-style trampolins in NeoLemmix, as they appear in "Take a Dive" in L3D, as well, those could also be added; but I guess that those would require tumbler physics, akin to the Jumper skill. Ropes that Climbers and Shimmiers can hold on to could serve as a surrogate for the "rope slide" object in L3D.

The iconic "officer" from the Army tileset, like any other L3D object, is in fact just two-dimensional, merely rotating with the player's camera so that you always look at it from the front.

So I guess that, since namida is currently working on the L3D editor anyway, that graphic could be extracted so that it could be included in NeoLemmix as well as a background object.

[namida]

I can very easily extract graphics from L3D already. I'll collect all the army-related ones (that I know of). I can also explain exactly how L3D cuts the blocks to make diagonal / pyramid / etc pieces if you want to go for that level of accuracy, although that does seem excessive.

One catch: All L3D textures are 64x64 in size. This is fall distance in NeoLemmix. You would have to shrink things down a bit, I think - I think scaling them down to 16x16 would be close to an accurate scale (physics-wise), while still grid-friendly?

Now, while it would be obviously astronomic at this point to consider the introduction of additional tilesets into the Lemmings 3D level editor that namida is currently creating, there have been a couple of attempts to bring the remaining L3D tilesets into NeoLemmix:

Graphic editing is many orders of magnitude easier than level editing in L3D. I probably won't include such a feature with the editor right away, simply because I'd rather we not be bringing custom graphics into the mix during the early days where there's still a lot of bugs to iron out and custom graphics could complicate that; but the editor is almost certianly going to have this feature eventually.



EDIT: Here you go, the Army graphics. Note that these are 32-bit BMP files, ie: they contain transparency info. If there's no transparency when you load them, try using a different graphics program - I know for sure Paint.NET loads them fine (even though it can't save BMP files with transparency, it has no trouble loading them - you'd then want to save them as PNGs).

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks a lot, namida! I'll have a look at the Army graphics when I get home tonight!