Raymanni's Gore, Lab, Toys improvements

[Ryemanni]

Nice to see my tilesest being used. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

I was actually thinking about adding some more stuff to the Lix versions of Gore, Toys and Lab sets so they wouldn't feel inferior compared to the Neolemmix versions.

[Simon]

Always welcome to enhance the sets.

The format for triggered traps changed for 0.8: First row of frames defines the idle animation, second row of frames defines the eating animation. If one row is shorter than the other, fill the shorter row with the frame-dividing color.

I've drawn gentle idling animations for your traps. Look at them as examples. (And rage if they're not up to your standards. ) These are already in Lix 0.8.





Everything else should work as before.

-- Simon

[geoo]

Raymanni said he'd do some updates to his tilesets, so I wanted to post some comments and suggestions before they go in.
I think visually they are really great, and it's quite impressive especially what the Gore tileset can do with just 14 terrain pieces. It's very versatile. My comments are mostly suggestions about usability.

Lab tileset
When building the remake of Let's Block and Blow (Lovely 13 I think), I needed some chopping and grouping to piece some of the pipes together. I think for the small ones it's not really an issue, but for the thicker ones some extra pieces would come in handy. In particular, what would be nice additions is corner pieces (90 degree angle), junction pieces (this actually works best as a regular pipe piece with a triangular ending), and end pieces so you can make the pipe just end somewhere. What might also be nice is a piece joining a big with a small pipe piece, i.e. getting very narrow. Btw, you don't really need vertical and horizontal pipe pieces as in Lix you can rotate pieces.
Maybe one or two bigger blocks when you need to fill up a big chunk of solid terrain, though the square blocks that you got already work quite well.
The animation of the water could maybe be improved a little bit, or maybe you've already done that.
And the upward elevator is a bit useless right now, as the lix get stuck at the top. Maybe a top part moving the lixes to the side (or two, so they get moved to both sides, depending on where they enter the elevator) could help here. The downward elevator could also do with this kind of piece.

Gore tileset
Don't have much to say here, actually. It works really well.
Maybe a few smaller pieces of goop to put onto terrain in a more subtle way?
Again, the water animation could be a bit more fluid maybe, and somehow a bigger visual distinction between the trap and the exit eater would be nice. I'm not sure how to achieve the latter; the exit eater could maybe have a somewhat more friendly look (big googly eyes? lips?)? Or the trap eater blood on its teeth? Not sure.

Toy tileset
I think it'd be nice to have a few more different block sizes. I could make use of a wooden block that's half the size of the letter blocks, and maybe a block double the size of the letter blocks?
The chalk pieces are a bit annoying to use. They are all very small, and in particular I don't quite see the use of the tile linking two chalk pieces. I think just having a central piece (4 times as long as the current piece), one or two end pieces for each side, and then two or three ready-made chalk platforms of different lengths would work better. Also you don't need vertical and horizontal versions again as in Lix you can rotate pieces.

It's actually an interesting question what's better to provide: platform pieces that you can stick together, or ready-made platforms, that if necessary you can chop apart with grouping if you need a platform of a different size. I suggested both because I don't know what's best.

[Ryemanni]

Thank you very much for the feedback geoo. You have some good sugegstions there, I will take everything you mentioned into account and you will see the results later.

[Simon]

Moved Raymanni's development to a fresh topic, apart from the Lix 0.8 releases.

I'm planning to release 0.9 later this week, that will be a physics update (x.Y.z). Do you have new tiles already that can go into this release? Or tiles that you would like removed? It's really short notice though...

Don't rush it, and take your time if you need it. There will probably be another physics update in 1-3 months. If you have really awesome changes, I can make a physics version bump just for you.

Recolorings that don't change solidity can go into any bugfix release (x.y.Z)

-- Simon

[Ryemanni]

Thank you Simon! I will be working on last minute changes and some additions today, so I should be able to upload the new versions later this week.

[mobius]

I've played around with these tilesets a little bit so I can offer some feedback: I agree with some of geoo's comments. A few small additions could go a long way.

LAB:
I like it a lot. But some new pieces with a few other colors would really make it stand out. Atm it feels almost a little too monochrome.

GORE:
In gore, a couple more shapes, maybe some small ones, of different shapes (not always just round or square but oblong, or odd shaped) could be really helpful.

TOY:
Again I really love it. Some other sized pieces would be nice. If you had lots of time, I thought of a few other things that could go with the theme like a toy train/tracks.

[Ryemanni]

Here it is for now! Hope I didn't forget anything.

Notable changes:
-Better animations for different traps and water objects
-Various new terrain pieces and steel for gore
-"Bonesaw" trap for gore
-New block pieces and more pipes for lab
-Launchers for lab so that the elevators can be utilized more
-A few new terrain pieces for toy
-Removed horizontal/vertical dublicates of various pipe-like tiles, because rotating is possible

[geoo]

Attached is a junction piece (which before I made via grouping).

Just had a quick glance at the tilesets so far, one thing I noticed is that the toy steel pieces also could do with a somewhat longer piece for convenience, and the chalk_3 could maybe be split into two end pieces (and made a bit longer, like the already existing end piece)?
The lab steel block could look a bit more like steel by adding some shine?
Love the vertical water btw.

EDIT: Would be nice to have one or two small goop pieces, that you can fit between the big ones or on small terrain pieces. Something like attached or even a bit smaller, just a bit prettier...

[Proxima]

Let's Block and Blow? and Over My Head updated to use the new pieces.

[Ryemanni]

Thank you for the junction piece, now I understand what you mean.

the chalk_3 could maybe be split into two end pieces (and made a bit longer, like the already existing end piece)?

chalk_3 is actually supposed to be a decorative piece simulating gnaw marks or something similar. chalk_2 is the actual end piece.

Just had a quick glance at the tilesets so far, one thing I noticed is that the toy steel pieces also could do with a somewhat longer piece for convenience
The lab steel block could look a bit more like steel by adding some shine?

Will do!

[Simon]

Already gave feedback in IRC, great additions. Love the new lab water. Thanks a lot!

The puzzle pieces seem strange because mirror kills their shading, yet there are no mirrored versions. I'll still include them, will see what people make from them! (If I were to design them, I might let the nubs on each color stick out on different sides. No need to design 5x5 puzzle tiles, we would still get by perfectly with 5.)

Proxima: Got your files. Moved the pipe_3 in Let's Block and Blow into the background. If you order me things in IRC and I don't respond soon, please post your orders on the topic, too. Or reattach the corrected files, then I can't screw up getting the latest version. Or learn git and request pulls on github, that'll even sort the latest version into the tree for me. Make it hard for me to fail!

geoo: Toying around and the Selective Rescues broke from Raymanni's sets (chalk, and repurposed pipe pieces). Please take a look!

-- Simon

[Ryemanni]

Here is a quick update before the physics update.
Everything that was mentioned in the chat earlier should be there. This includes junction pipes, some little colour changes, long beam pieces for the toy set... and everything else I have already forgotten.

I also removed the horizontal bone from gore which might cause some breaking.

[Simon]

Raymanni: Thanks! I've replaced your entire directory with v2.2. The gore set has more detailed shading, I like it a lot. It's a subtle change, and I would've even argued against chaning its looks radically.

I'll have a go at puzzle pieces with different nubs, you can help me decide tonight/tomorrow what will go into the 0.9 release.

geoo: I've fixed your Selective Rescues (sed was perfect). You merely have to fix the chalk in Toying Around.

Proxima: I'm still waiting for your multiplayer levels. You wanted to change them somehow? If you need more time, they can still go into 0.9.1.

Anybody: If you'd like to play a couple test games with the 0.9 physics before I release it these days, find me in IRC (irc.quakenet.org #lix). mobius has scheduled a session for tomorrow, Sunday 23rd at 14:00 UTC. If the 0.9 physics are good, I can release even before the session.

-- Simon

[Simon]

The shading in Raymanni's blocks consistenly has the light coming from the "wrong" direction, from the top-right. Other sets have the light coming from the top-left.

This makes it unnecessarily hard to combine Raymanni's pieces with other sets. It's fine in Gore, only the vertical bone and the tentacles have this, whereas the ball-shaped terrain is still fine with the lighting. But in Toys and Lab, almost every tile has the top-right lighting, and it stands out far more.

Fix lighting or keep lighting? If we fix it now, the breakage is minimal, and purely aesthetic too (only looks would be off, no physical breakage). In particular, the new tiles with zero usage -- e.g., the tentacles in the Gore set -- could be mirrored without any breakage.

Raymanni likes to keep vertical beams when the horz beam would look identical modulo rotation. Since Lix editor rotates clockwise, rotating a vertical beam takes 1 rotation in the fixed shading, but 3 rotations in the "wrong" shading, to make it properly horizontal. It's a small advantage again to fixing, but it tips the scales for me.

Opinions welcome. If we fix, I'd help recoloring pieces.

-- Simon