Object markers when cursor hovered over [SUGGESTION] [PLAYER]

[Wafflem]

Much like how hovering a cursor over a trapdoor indicates which direction a lemming goes out and if they are preassigned permanent skills, would it also be possible if hovering a cursor over a disarmed trap will show an indicator? This indicator can come in the form of a wrench.

[Nepster]

ccexplore suggested similar indicators for other objects as well. So I implemented the following indicators:
- Hatches kept their current indicators: The left/right arrow for the lemming direction and the exclamation mark for preassigned skills.
- Exits have the word "EXIT".
- Traps have the word "TRAP". This is not displayed for water, but for all other triggered or continuous traps.
- Disabled traps have the word "TRAP" but crossed out.
- Radiation objects have a small yellow radiation symbol.
- Slowfreeze objects have a small snowflake symbol.
- Flippers have the word "FLIP".
- Teleporters kept the letter to indicate what the corresponding receiver is. In addition they got an upwards arrow now.
- Receivers kept the same letter as the corresponding teleporter. But the new additional arrow faces downwards.

Some of the symbols might not yet perfect (especially given my mediocre graphical skills). So any suggestions for improvements are welcome. If you want further indicators, please tell me.

Currently the helper icons are in a few rare cases (mostly exits and traps) placed rather far above the actual object. The reason is that these objects have large sprites with lots of empty space at the top, which the game does not yet recognize.

[Simon]

Gist from chat:

Disarmed trap marks state that's not visible otherwise. Excellent to mark this. This seems important enough to mark it all the time, not only on mouse-over or on clear-physics.

• You can X out the disarmed trap. Can be ugly, I'd have to see it.
• You can draw an extra broken sprite for every gadget.
• You can draw one generic sprite with lots of cracks, and only transparency between the cracks, and lay that over every disarmed trap.

Markers for live traps, fire, exit, ..., these become unnecessary when you've learned the set. My hunch is that these belong to clear-physics, not into mouseover. Always-on is bad, always-off irritates at least Nepster. The remaining choices are on-mouse-over and in-clear-physics. I don't think this warrants an option, and it fits into clear-physics's semantics perfectly.

Trap and fire are different enough to warrant different labels.

-- Simon

[namida]

Another one that needs different labels: Single-use traps (eg. the mines in lpiv_wasteland, the bee traps in lpv_honeycomb) vs infinite-use traps. While there are few levels so far that actually make use of this distinction, there are some, and no doubt there will be more in the future when the potential of single-use traps is better explored.

[ccexplore]

I have not played such levels yet so my opinion may not be very informed.  I actually would've thought disarmed traps would just disappear from the level, though I suppose if a level has so many of them scattered throughout, I suppose it's conceivable sometimes one can lost track of where they were and don't want to have to rely on rewind/fast-forward to remind yourself.

Clearly an extra broken sprite is the right thing to do (or potentially even an entire looping animation sequence, if the designer wants to depict a smoldering wreck for example), but perhaps should be optional even if highly recommended for the style designer.

X-ing out the trap or other such indicator seems like a reasonable fallback.  I suppose it can be ugly but at the same time, I think you'll find it difficult to come up with something generic that will work satisfactorily across the variety of sizes you may come across for triggered traps.  (But hey, do try to prove me wrong on that.)  I mean, there's a bit of diversity just looking at L1's traps already.  And besides, isn't the whole point of a lemmings game to vandalize the level in order to rescue the lemmings?   How important is it really that the level remains absolutely free of ugliness at the end of it all, when the terrain has probably already been bashed, mined, and blown to bits and unnatural cubes, platforms and staircases (some of which are probably also bashed/mined/blown/...) scattered all about? 

Maybe an option to simply hide disarmed traps if ugliness is such a bother to some (note: I'm assuming there is no re-arming or anything of that sort currently in NeoLemmix).  I also suspect some users can keep track directly in their head of where the likely-few traps they spent effort figuring out how (and which ones) to disarm, without a constant visual reminder, so might not be that crazy to allow them to hide the disarmed traps if that's what they prefer.

Displaying with translucency or grayscale could also be potential alternatives that may be less ugly, though presumably may sometimes be too subtle.

[namida]

There is no re-arming.

A disarmed trap looks no different from an idle trap. On the other hand, a single-use trap that has been activated does indeed take on a different appearance from a live one.

See attached images. In both cases, the trap closest to the lemming(s) is the one that has been activated (the dead lemming in the bee one is part of the actual inactive graphic for the trap, and is not any kind of special lemming sprite).

[Simon]

Clearly an extra broken sprite is the right thing to do (or potentially even an entire looping animation sequence, if the designer wants to depict a smoldering wreck for example), but perhaps should be optional even if highly recommended for the style designer.

I like this looping animation. A still image will be an animation of length 1.

With an idling animation, this gives a total of 3 loops that a trap can support:

• The standard killing animation. The killing animation's length determines how soon the trap will be hungry again.
• The idle animation. This loops while the trap is hungry. It should be a subtle animation, but enough to stand out against terrain. 1.47 has a still image for hungry traps, this still image will be an idling animation of length 1.
• The disarmed animation.
  

With a fallback for traps that don't support the disarmed animation.

ccx suggests solutions to hide the no-effect gadgets if desired. That is probably wise. I haven't made up my mind how this plays with decoration, exit tops, etc.

-- Simon

[mobius]

Gist from chat:

Disarmed trap marks state that's not visible otherwise. Excellent to mark this. This seems important enough to mark it all the time, not only on mouse-over or on clear-physics.

• You can X out the disarmed trap. Can be ugly, I'd have to see it.
• You can draw an extra broken sprite for every gadget.
• You can draw one generic sprite with lots of cracks, and only transparency between the cracks, and lay that over every disarmed trap.

-- Simon

1. I don't like
2. This is something I may try doing myself for an original set in the coming days. I'll see how much work it is/how doable it is.
3. This is a good idea but sounds difficult to implement since many traps are various shapes and sizes.

[Nepster]

I just had my first contact with yet another new style. This added another few types to my current to-do-list for object markers:
- Distinguish single-use traps, multiple-use traps and continuous traps (see previous posts)
- Buttons
- Force-Fields
- (Anti)Splat wires (assuming I find some way I like)

[namida]

I remember some discussion on IRC related to whether people want these always visible.

IIRC (no pun intended ), most people seemed to like the idea of only having these helpers show up when Clear Physics Mode is active. There was some, but not much, interest in keeping the current system or even "always on" as alternative settings.

[namida]

In Nepster's latest code, the indicators only appear in Clear Physics Mode. They still require a mouseover in addition to being in clear physics mode. Is this the preferred behaviour, or should they auto-appear when clear physics mode is activated?

[Wafflem]

They should auto-appear when Clear Physics mode is enabled. You get all the useful information of a level in front of you right away, and it helps clear vagueness on what is a trap and what is radiation, etc. in tiilesets that people are not familiar with.

[Nepster]

I see two problems with "always-visible" in clear physics mode:
- If multiple similar objects are stacked (which may very will happen in case of force fields, some types of fire traps, ...) the object markers get written on top of each other, which reduces or completely eliminates their readability. Examples: LP IV, Smooth 5 or Smooth 9.
- Object markers write both over air and over terrain. So always displaying them makes it impossible to determine solid vs. non-solid in the clear physics mode for such pixels. But wasn't that one of the main reasons why the clear physics mode was introduced in the first place?

[Proxima]

I agree with requiring mouseover in addition to clear physics mode, that way you can easily check any object but they don't clutter the screen.

[namida]

That makes a lot of sense.