Now that graphic sets can be mixed, is there any reason to retain VGASPECs?

[namida]

My thought here is that you could simply have a graphic set that contains the special graphic as a terrain piece, or even mix more than one special graphic in a single set rather than having multiple ones. As such, is there any real need to keep the dedicated VGASPEC function that anyone can think of? (Excluding backwards compatibility, of course.)

Getting rid of them would simplify things a lot.

[GigaLem]

If anything, It's nice to have that kind of function around for any of those "one of" levels that you can't turn into tilesets.
I mean i've used em (Hypothermic level 14) Flopsy used em (The seb western and Know when to fold em)
It's a neat feature that i'd like to mess around more with, like if they were removed, nobody wants to use tileset mixing just to use that big of an image as a loophole,
That and it'll be standing there in your editor (as a choice of tileset that you can use) with all those fully made tilesets and you rather not have them there nor do you want to delete them if any updates arose.
That and i don't want pieces of lemmings history to be removed from neolemmix (Yeah im a sucker for those special levels)

[namida]

The levels that already exist would not be removed. They'd be modified to work via graphic set mixing rather than a VGASPEC.

Essentially, if this change were made, nothing that is possible now would become impossible. It would just be done a different way.

[ccexplore]

That and it'll be standing there in your editor (as a choice of tileset that you can use) with all those fully made tilesets and you rather not have them there nor do you want to delete them if any updates arose.

That's an interesting point.  Sounds like the editor should provide a way to manually hide tilesets.  It may also be a good idea to define a special filename convention that indicates a tileset is really a vgaspec (maybe a better term would be "full-level tileset"), and as such should be hidden in the editor by default unless explicitly overridden by user choice or similar.

[GigaLem]

That and it'll be standing there in your editor (as a choice of tileset that you can use) with all those fully made tilesets and you rather not have them there nor do you want to delete them if any updates arose.

That's an interesting point.  Sounds like the editor should provide a way to manually hide tilesets.  It may also be a good idea to define a special filename convention that indicates a tileset is really a vgaspec (maybe a better term would be "full-level tileset"), and as such should be hidden in the editor by default unless explicitly overridden by user choice or similar.

A "Neolemmix - VGASPEC" folder perhaps

[namida]

A way to hide certain styles in the editor seems like a good enough idea.

I'm going to go ahead with removing the VGASPEC feature for the next major update. Levels using the default VGASPECs (including the Genesis ones, Prima and Covox) will be backwards-compatible; those that use custom ones will need manual updating.

[Dullstar]

Perhaps a bit late, but I only support this if the conversion process is simple and straightforward (don't care whether it's an external tool or through the editor though), or the number of existing vgaspec levels is so small that they can easily be updated.

[namida]

or the number of existing vgaspec levels is so small that they can easily be updated.

Excluding Cheapo conversions (which have plenty of other compatibility issues anyway), the number is very small indeed.

[namida]

I've introduced, as temporary measures to give some time to transition, some degree of backwards compatibility:

- Levels using official VGASPECs - that is, the four from Orig-DOS, the five from Orig-Genesis, the one each from Covox and Prima, and "The Apple Computer Level" and "Sixes Not" - will be auto-converted at runtime to use the new system
- Levels using custom VGASPECs, in NeoLemmix format, will work via a very kludgy workaround. The solution to any bugs: Update to the new method of handling special graphics (ie: via graphic set mixing).
- Levels using custom VGASPECs, in DOS format, will not work. At all. Unless they're official ones, but that's only because they're autoconverted to use the new system and so the DOS VGASPEC file doesn't actually get used.

Note that in regards to the official sets, this doesn't mean the exact levels; any level that uses these official VGASPECs will work.

These backwards compatibility measures WILL eventually be removed, so switch over to the new system as soon as possible.