the Lix user feedback thread

[ccexplore]

This sorta belongs to the "community set" thread as well, maybe more so there.  But putting it here so it doesn't get too lost amongst the flood of levels and revisions expected on that thread.

This is inspired by geoo's modified version of Clam's "builder's cracks" level.  The (or "a") solution in a sense involves pixel counting at one part.  In the original games, due to the low resolution of the graphics, pixel counting is for the most part not too hard to do, at least for small distances.  However, with Lix's higher-resolution graphics, I wonder if it will become more difficult for players to learn details like exactly how many pixels makes a step passable vs not passable, and whether we may need some sort of tutorial-style level to help with that sort of thing.

And yes, there's the magnifying glass, but even with that, I'm still unsure if it makes things much easier, because the Lix graphics tend to use smoother gradients of colors that may make it somewhat trickier to see the individual pixels, depending on the terrain you need to do the counting on.

I suppose there are often ways to measure things in-game (for example, matching the height to number of bricks on a build bridge), so the player is not necessarily completely helpless in that regard.  It just seems like a harder to acquire skill in Lix.

[geoo]

I never count individual pixels, and I didn't do in this level either. In blocky levels, I don't find it harder to estimate things than in the original game, I actually have less trouble than in the original if things are 16-aligned.

I usually think in low-res pixels still, the main unit being 16 lo-res pixel blocks. Fall distance is 4 of them minus 1 pixel (a builder's brick), a bomber has a five second timer and during one second he falls a little less than 4 blocks, and walks a little less than one block. Walking up is 6 px like in the original, a bridge is 12 px, so if you build against a block, the remaining step will be 4 px and therefore walkable. Two bridges are 1.5 blocks high, a cuber is half a block, etc. If everything is aligned, you can get very far using just these estimates.
In case of bumpy terrain, just like in the original, it happens that the cursor is about the size of one block (slightly less), so for approximate measurement what I do is using the cursor. The big issue with bumpy terrain is that whether a certain hi-res structure can e.g. be walked up depends on whether it is aligned to the 2-grid or not, so with bumpy terrain one should make sure that things that look walkable are walkable as well, in order not to mislead the player.

In the tutorial levels, I intended to give some of these estimation hints, because I think they are useful and make playing require less trial and error. Once they are done, I'll also try to get some of my friends who aren't into Lemmings try them.

[Nortaneous]

Not sure where to put this, so. Three- and four-way pipe connectors for the abstract set.

[ccexplore]

In blocky levels, I don't find it harder to estimate things than in the original game, I actually have less trouble than in the original if things are 16-aligned.

Agree.  To be clear, what I mean is that someone who's new to Lix and Lemmings may not know that the blocks are usually 16 lo-res pixels and how that relates to some of the other distances.  An interesting wrinkle is that because the Lix diggers dig twice the amount per stroke in Lix, it may be possible for example for someone to initially mistaken 8 rather than 7 (in low-res pixels) as the cutoff point for walkable step.

I'm not too worry though because tutorials should help a little, and I expect plenty of levels that don't require such detailed and precise knowledge to solve.

[ccexplore]

The brazier and torch objects in the sandstone style need to have their transparent pixels sorted out, right now many of the background pixels around the flames are black rather than transparent.  In addition to working against non-black backgrounds, it will also become relevant if support is ever added for objects drawn in front of terrain.

[mobius]

in the graphics department, do we have any very thin pieces like those in the marble set of Original Lemmings? So far all I've found is pipes and thin blocks in a few different sets but none are thin enough. I'm trying to make this level that requires some almost exactly like that, and I can't use eraser pieces either (you'd understand if you saw it). I could make the graphics myself I just need to know the instructions on that topic. Can they be made in paint?

[Proxima]

You're sure you can't use eraser pieces and then use the "background" and "foreground" commands (by default T and G) to layer the pieces as desired? That's what I (rather laboriously) did to build Toccata... (Incidentally, these should really be called "send back" and "bring forward" as that's just what they do -- calling them "background" and "foreground" gives the misleading impression that there are two distinct layers, rather than it being possible to shuffle pieces into any layering sequence.)

Incidentally, regarding the above discussion of pixel counting, I happened to look at my Mac ONML manual last night, and I noticed, on the "Some of the things to look out for" page, this statement: "Lemmings will die if they fall from a height greater than about 160 [hi-res] pixels." This is so far off the correct figure, I can't help wondering what happened. Were they trying to avoid players coming to depend on pixel counting? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/huh.gif" alt="???" title="Huh?" class="smiley" />

[Nortaneous]

All of a sudden, Lix is very slow to redraw the window (as in, usually just doesn't), but only when the window is in focus; when I tab over to something else, it works fine. This started earlier today, and I've already tried deleting the folder and reinstalling. Anyone have any idea how to fix that?

[geoo]

Nortaneous: I have no idea what could cause that issue so suddenly. Perhaps Simon can help you there, he also knows a bit more about how Allegro works I think.

I had actually made triangular pipe pieces in the meantime that could be used as junctions (pretty small ones, so small that the border drawn around them in the editor makes it hard to see how they are oriented), though now that you made these, I can include just these as well, they are probably easier to work with, thanks.

The brazier and torch objects in the sandstone style need to have their transparent pixels sorted out, right now many of the background pixels around the flames are black rather than transparent.  In addition to working against non-black backgrounds, it will also become relevant if support is ever added for objects drawn in front of terrain.

Well the thing here is, as I have no partial transparency, I have to pick a color against which to blend it, which obviously has to be black. So even if I give those pixels that are close enough to black full transparency, those that are somewhat lighter will still stand out against a lighter background, as they were blended against black and not that specific background color (you can see this especially well if you have two overlapping buzzsaws, the one with higher priority looks like it has some black border around it). So thinking I can't fix that anyway, I went the lazy route and just kept even the basically transparent pixels black.
If you think making these full transparent though gives an improvement nevertheless, I can do that though. Same with the steam, etc.

in the graphics department, do we have any very thin pieces like those in the marble set of Original Lemmings? So far all I've found is pipes and thin blocks in a few different sets but none are thin enough. I'm trying to make this level that requires some almost exactly like that, and I can't use eraser pieces either (you'd understand if you saw it). I could make the graphics myself I just need to know the instructions on that topic. Can they be made in paint?

Basically, as Proxima said, using eraser pieces should always work, and usually you can even remedy the effect of things looking cut off using the no-overwrite trick.
Anyway, what will be included in the next version (in the construction set) is something resembling a platformer's platform to some extent (both as normal terrain and steel, just like the staircase in that set), so that's about as thin as it reasonably gets. I attached the bitmap file to this post so you can see what I'm talking about.
That said, you can always make your own tiles and ask them to be included if they look decent enough.

I honestly didn't even know the functionality of moving things to front/high priority and back/low priority were called like that. Yeah, something like Proxima suggested seems more appropriate as a name.

[mobius]

I'd be glad to put my art skills to work for Lix, the only thing is I'd rather devote my time to designing some levels, I don't have time to do both. but I think I'm going to make a few bmps of very thin pieces (not only for myself but for everyone). I'll use your attached file as a guide and upload em here. You or someone will have to do the conversion to whatever and such because I don't how to do that.

The thing is with this level I'm making; using eraser pieces would take more time than it would for me to just make my own terrain. Although, Proxima's level Tocatto, wow, u put a lot of work into that  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />. I just don't have the time for that, and this level would require a lot of it and not a lot of copy/pasting will be possible either.

any color/design preferences? I was thinking of making a striped bar, much like in OL but maybe different colors

[Simon]

You're very welcome to design terrain pieces, even if it'll be just a few. geoo's abstract style is pending for the next Lix release as well.

The best pieces tend to be whichever can be combined with several popular terrain sets. Striped bar sounds like it'd fit best into high-tech or rainbow-style levels, but this'll depend on the colors of course. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" /> Can't tell before I've seen it.

Nortaneous: No good idea how to remedy that. >_> I use RAM bitmaps for everything instead of video memory bitmaps (altering this is a pain at this point). Try setting a smaller resolution. 0 x 0 will use the same as the regular desktop resolution, try 640 x 480.

-- Simon

[Nortaneous]

That didn't work. It lags just the same windowed, by the way. I guess I'll just add this to the list of reasons why I really should switch back to Linux.

[mobius]

here's a set of thin pieces I made quick in paint. there 4 pieces of a 2x8, 16, 64, and 128 pixel long. (bmp files) I also made the same in dark grey to go with the "underworld set". Of course I'm not sure what it will look like up against it if it's no good I can modify it.

EDIT:  a few things I noticed when using these.

-First of all, I didn't know all I had to do was put them in a name folder (I put them in geoo) and they would work. I was thinking there was a whole complicated process invovled.
-A digger can successfully dig down through 2 pixel gaps in this material. He doesn't 'fall'. That is if you stack it as in "Four Lemmings and a Funeral". (while a miner cannot, he falls and continues walking (like original lemmings was)) this is just another by-product of the digger. I was still surprised by it though.
-If anybody uses these; be careful if you have them stacked closely like I mentioned above don't have snap to 16 held or they will shift together. (that goes without saying I guess)

[Nortaneous]

I'm running Archbang now, and when I tried to run Lix, I got the error "error while loading shared libraries: liballeg.so.4.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory", although I managed to get it to work by downgrading allegro to 4.2 and linking the resulting file /usr/lib/liballeg.so to /usr/lib/liballeg.so.4.2.

[Simon]

Yep, I only link the networking lib statically. Allegro 4.x has a weird problem when linking statically, sound will not work. :/

-- Simon