2.00 Screen resolution for NeoLemmix V2.00n

[GigaLem]

oh i likey does this mean LPI and beyond will be windowed?
Also did you make this level?

[namida]

Nope, that level isn't one of my own. I just happened to need a hi-res level image for something I was testing, and that was the first one I had in my NeoLemmix Editor folder. I forget who it's by, but the name of the level is "Lemming Sold Seperately". (As I mentioned; that's not the actual level's skillset / etc in the image; in fact, the skill panel comes from an entirely different screenshot, specifically "Lemming It The Hard Way" (Breezy 30 of Lemmings Plus Omega), apart from the three hi-res panels that I manually edited in for the sake of creating that image.)

As I mentioned numerous times; I plan to support both fullscreen and windowed in V2.00n. Here's a shot of the same thing full-screen (unfiltered; though supporting filtered display will be very easy to do - in fact, the downsizing to 1x zoom does already use it).

[namida]

So, I tried actually adding some lemming icons to the skill panels, and the result is... not too impressive, even at 640x400. It's not too bad at full-screen. As such, I decided to trial two alternative options that might make the type of skill a bit more visible - one is adding a black outline, which doesn't help too much at 320x200 but works pretty well at 640x400. The other was to change the background color of a panel button; while this is quite clear even at 320x200, I don't really know how I feel about the idea in general...

The outline idea can be seen on the Climber, while the changed background color can be seen on the Floater. The Walker uses neither.

Any thoughts?

I'll also mention - since no one seems to be objecting to the idea of not supporting 320x200 display (low-res would still be supported, but only at a minimum of 2x zoom), am I safe to assume no one has a problem with this? It'll greatly simplify handling of the skill panel this way.

(Note that the fullscreen pic doesn't have any smoother of any kind applied to it, and is a 2.5x zoom from the base resolution of 640x400, which is why it appears distorted. Integer zoom factors wouldn't have this issue; an alternative option is using a smoother of some kind, which is very simple to do. Heck, here, I'll attach another screenshot with a smoother applied to it.) (Yes, I am aware that "smoother" is probably the wrong terminology to be using here.)

[mobius]

I don't know why you said it's not too impressive. I think all those pics look great 

the climber looks a little better imo because of the black outline.

[Simon]

I'll also mention - since no one seems to be objecting to the idea of not supporting 320x200 display (low-res would still be supported, but only at a minimum of 2x zoom), am I safe to assume no one has a problem with this? It'll greatly simplify handling of the skill panel this way.

If someone can't display at least 640x400, chances are they can't run your 32-bit binaries in the first place. ;-) Tablets have a larger resolution.

-- Simon

[namida]

I don't know why you said it's not too impressive. I think all those pics look great 

the climber looks a little better imo because of the black outline.

I was meaning as in, it's hard (at low zooms) to see what the skills actually are; more than that the images themself don't look too great.

I'll also mention - since no one seems to be objecting to the idea of not supporting 320x200 display (low-res would still be supported, but only at a minimum of 2x zoom), am I safe to assume no one has a problem with this? It'll greatly simplify handling of the skill panel this way.

If someone can't display at least 640x400, chances are they can't run your 32-bit binaries in the first place. ;-) Tablets have a larger resolution.

-- Simon

I figured "can't" won't be an issue, but the possibility is more of someone who might want to (for whatever reason) run it at low-res 1x zoom. (Perhaps someone who actually uses a low-resolution like 640x480 or 800x600; or maybe a huge screen, might find such a setup reasonable.)

[namida]

So, I decided to try something else. I didn't really like the alternate colors (see the floater in the previous pics), but I thought the outline didn't stand out enough. But what if I doubled the thickness of it? Well, that looked a tad messy... so then I thought, what if I do that, but make the "doubled" outline semitransparent? The result looks quite nice at all zoom levels, IMO!

Also, I added some game font text to the mockup "screenshot". Notice that unlike the other elements, it hasn't been increased in size, which allows fitting far more of it. I find it to still be very readable at 640x400, while readable with some effort (or with already having a general idea of what it might say, which is probably the case 99% of the time) even at 320x200.

(If anyone's wondering, the skill count font is one of the standard Windows ones (Calibri, I think), the game text font is the standard DOS one just without the resizing, the "blank slate" skill panels are custom made, while the icons on them are made mostly from WinLemm's high-resolution lemming sprites, apart from Bomber, Pause and Nuke (which come from the WinLemm skill panel, with minor modifications) and the Release Rate ones (made from scratch). I haven't made icons for most of the NeoLemmix skills yet, though I have for Walker, Disarmer and Cloner. The remainder, I need to make high-resolution sprites first; in particular, I'm hoping to differentiate Platformer, Stacker and Glider a bit more from Builders and Floaters than they currently are.)

I'm thinking that 1x Zoom Low-Res probably can be enabled, but perhaps with a warning message notifying the user that it might make things harder to see and that a higher zoom is recommended.

EDIT: I made the Glider sprites (though I still need to do the pulling-out-the-glider ones), and as such also made a Glider skill panel icon to go with it. But it does look very similar to Floater. Players who are familiar with them could tell them apart due to the lemmings facing different directions, while those who look closely can see the difference even if they were facing the same way (the different shape of a glider compared to an umbrella, and if you look really closely, you can notice the lemming is actually hanging off a bar with two hands, rather than holding onto a handle with one). Would simply differentiating them in color (which would by extension also apply to the actual lemming sprites) be enough, you think? And if so, what color would go well - I'm thinking red might be the best option (and have included a possible red version in the attached image), since blue or green wouldn't stand out as much from the lemming itself.

EDIT: Here you go. Glider!

Making it into a GIF was done with a kinda shitty online GIF generator, so the animation timing is a bit faster than it should be and the lemming jumps upwards slightly between the "pull out glider" (first 4 frames) and the "gliding" (the rest).

[namida]

Here's another thought - should mixed resolutions be supported? Obviously they'd have to be resized to all ultimately match up, but the idea here is (aside from simply user preferences) - some things such as terrain and the skill panel only need to be drawn once, which means that the level might load a bit slower in higher resolutions, but it'll have little effect while playing (not none at all, but it'll be a relatively small difference). Other things such as objects and lemmings need to be redrawn every frame, which could result in slowdown especially on slower PCs.

(Although, I am strongly leaning towards only supporting a single resolution for the menus and skill panel anyway; with only the gameplay area being configurable.)

[namida]

Doesn't seem to be much feedback coming on this anymore. So, here's my final thoughts, and I'll probably close this topic soon if no one expresses a desire to have something else supported:

Zoom
Zooming can be done at integer multiples (for low-res) or half-integer multiples (for hi-res; including 50%). Whatever resolution the player is using, it'll be resized to fit the zoom level.

Rendering
Rendering will be supported at 320x200 or 640x400 initially; with possible support for higher resolutions at a later point in time. The user can choose either low-res or hi-res; but certain elements (such as the skill bar) will *always* be drawn at hi-res. In fact, I'm leaning strongly towards having only the level's graphics (terrain, objects) drawn with variable resolution, since this is the only part where low-res will offer any significant advantage (unless there's too much of a performance hit elsewhere). This is basically to avoid having to have two versions of lemming sprites, skill panel graphics, etc, which may be important if someone wishes to use custom ones in their pack. I may even consider having only hi-res even there, simply with an option that sacrifices graphic quality to a small degree in favor of being extremely clear about what is or isn't solid (since, keep in mind, the internal physics will still be running at 320x200 resolution).