[Fixed][GraphicSets] Rename some of Gronkling's styles

[Nepster]

Gronkling wishes that some of "his" styles should not be credited to him, because they are actually not his. The styles are currently named:
gronkling_angelisland
gronkling_chaosangel
gronkling_cybertrack
gronkling_technobase
I am happy to rename them to "sonic_[whatever]", however we have a backwards compatibility problem here: Everyone having used some of the pieces in these styles in their level will have to run a text-replace over their level file, to let it point to the renamed style.
It will probably only concern a very few level designers, because the styles are pretty new and as far as I can tell, not too popular at the moment. However I might be completely mistaken. So I would like to know:
Have you used any of these styles in your levels? If so, are you fine with running a text replace over them?

[GigaLem]

if he wants that, I'll respect his wishes. I'll probably do the same thing with the last sonic set to be converted

[Nepster]

Given that the renaming seems no problem, I have now renamed these styles.

[Strato Incendus]

So, what exactly did you rename these styles to, Nepster? The last update to all the styles folders is from July, i.e. doesn't include your changed names yet.

The reason I didn't object back in August is that those two tilesets actually had already been renamed once - from grnk7_ancient and grnk8_digital to the names above. Naturally, the four tileset names above didn't convey anything to me, that's why I thought "Ah, no issue, I didn't use them". I thought they were entirely new tilesets that had only just been created for New Formats.

Well, turns out I used all three of them.

I have now finally edited my translation table, after having converted grnk7_ancient again for myself, so that all tiles from ancient now get replaced with the proper pieces from angelisland and chaosangel (I deleted my conversion of grnk7_ancient afterwards again to check).

The translation table is attached, because currently nobody who created a level in Old Formats using Ancient, Digital, or Electric can convert these levels at all. I'm also going to post it again in the thread for Gronkling's tilesets. This probably would have come up much earlier, but seems like I'm indeed the only one who ever made use of those three tilesets (including Gronkling himself, perhaps?), despite them having been around for a while. I released Paralems over a year ago, and that one already included several levels with the Ancient tileset.

I guess if you've renamed them to "sonic_angelisland" and "sonic_chaosangel" or whatever, those two can indeed be easily replaced with a text replace command. But I'd need to know, because this would require me to edit the translation table again.

Splitting the tilesets up into two, which had already been done when you opened this topic, was the actual reckless move. I don't know whether this was your decision, or Gronkling's, but it created a lot of unnecessary work and made things pointlessly complicated. We could have renamed the entire thing "sonic_whatever" if it had remained together as one tileset, I also had to rename my style to "strato_instruments". That is indeed just a single text replace command.

But in this case, I had to manually swap out all 80+ terrain, object, and background names in the translation table, plus look in different styles where traps, water, flags, and steel were taken from. There is even one piece of terrain I couldn't replace, because it has been removed from the new selection (terrain 23, that was a black block of terrain with two little indentations - I doubt anyone used it, because it's entirely black, but still).

[IchoTolot]

So, what exactly did you rename these styles to, Nepster? The last update to all the styles folders is from July, i.e. doesn't include your changed names yet.

As this topic is from August and not July, the changes are still to be in included with the next update.

Splitting the tilesets up into two, which had already been done when you opened this topic, was the actual reckless move. I don't know whether this was your decision, or Gronkling's, but it created a lot of unnecessary work and made things pointlessly complicated.

Nobody complained back then, so the reasonable conclusion was that this change is indeed ok. As a result I wouldn't call it reckless.

If you would have involved yourself with converting your stuff at the point of the format change and not half a year later, we could have seen this issue earlier.

But in this case, I had to manually swap out all 80+ terrain, object, and background names in the translation table, plus look in different styles where traps, water, flags, and steel were taken from. There is even one piece of terrain I couldn't replace, because it has been removed from the new selection (terrain 23, that was a black block of terrain with two little indentations - I doubt anyone used it, because it's entirely black, but still).

Conversions take effort. That is unavoidable. Nepster tried to make it as easy as it can get with all the tools he provided and indeed the new format conversion was rather easy compared to some stuff I've been through (the ceiling change was the hardest + simplifying L2 sets took some effort). Still not every special case can be covered and in some cases additional work is needed. Also you seem to be very eager to use every single tileset that existed over the years.


I can sing you sooo many songs about work I needed to do during NL's lifespan.

- Rebuild a bunch of levels from scratch because I had used special Lemmini versions of tilesets and not the original NL ones.
- When tileset mixing was implemented - convert all levels using the "epic" tileset.
- Convert 400+ levels by HAND without tools in the old Lemmix editor in order to bring Lemmini levels to NeoLemmix. The Lemmix editor was much more tedious.
- Creating and maintaining functional replays, packs for everything in every new version.
- Creating all L2 tilesets from scratch.
the list goes on.....

I won't even begin to talk about the massive coding effort that was involved by Nepster.

So yes there can be a quite a bit of work from time to time, it is unavoidable, but we are trying to keep it minimal to most cases and I highly advertise backwards compability where it is easy to achieve. Sadly this was a rather special case, as we thought no-one used these tilesets.

[Strato Incendus]

As this topic is from August and not July, the changes are still to be in included with the next update.

I know, that's what I was hinting at! Nepster only said he renamed the styles, but we have no idea to what. And if I contribute the translation table to enable proper conversion, I need to know how these styles are going to be called from now on.

Nobody complained back then, so the reasonable conclusion was that this change is indeed ok. As a result I wouldn't call it reckless.

Whent this thread was started, the tilesets were split up already. That is my point of objection, not the renaming itself. And I don't remember any threads about whether everyone would be fine with the tilesets being split up. Even if, since a small number of already existing levels using a feature generally wasn't considered an argument for not changing it back then, I doubt my single voice would have made a difference if I'm really the only one who used this tileset...

If you would have involved yourself with converting your stuff at the point of the format change and not half a year later, we could have seen this issue earlier.

I expected that criticism, but it doesn't hold up: We still have an entire subforum worth of unconverted level packs. In fact, there are still more unconverted than converted packs to this date!

That includes not only my preceding packs, but also both packs by nin10doadict, Arty's SubLems, as well as such highly acclaimed packs as Lemmings Stampede. If any of these packs features a single level in one of these styles, conversion is impossible.

So if we want to migrate as much of the old content as possible, including that which is considered high quality by the majority of the forums, we need to make sure the conversion tools keep functioning for quite a while still. Otherwise, we could throw all translation tables in the garbage at this point, thinking that everyone has shifted to New Formats entirely anyway. Yes, the users may have, but the content most definitely has not.

Another graphic set I've just found out about is the brighter version of GigaLem's Tree tileset modification. So I'll probably take care of that one as well.

Also you seem to be very eager to use every single tileset that existed over the years.

Sometimes it's just a tiny little piece I needed from a given tileset, maybe even not to work as a piece itself, but only to erase something with it. To the editor, this doesn't make any difference though. And thus, that one missing piece can determine whether a level can be converted at all. Because when there's no translation table for just one style used in a level, the entire level doesn't get loaded up; it's not just that one piece which goes missing.

Conversions take effort. That is unavoidable.

I'm fine with effort, as long as the consensus remains that every content creator "cleans up after himself" . If everyone converts the stuff he himself created (meaning both graphic sets and level packs), the workload is shared proportionately, and every single graphic set or level pack gets converted by the person who knows most about it.

I didn't convert Paralems and Pit Lems back in the day, because both of them featured so many levels involving radiation, slowfreeze, and anti-splat pads that I'm still not sure to this day whether these packs are suitable for conversion at all.

But of course, I have converted my own graphic sets, and will continue to convert any new ones I create, as soon as they are in their final state. I'm not complaining either about the original graphic sets which I made additions to in Old Formats - I brought that on myself, so I'm going to deal with it myself. Also, Lemmings World Tour will be converted eventually - but as I find out now, a lot of the styles made by other people, which I merely used like any other content creator, aren't available in New Formats yet. So I have to take this detour.

In fact, I also would have been completely fine with converting these styles for Gronkling, i.e. if he simply hadn't converted them yet at all. That actually would have been a lot easier than this half-completed conversion, i.e. making the pieces available for New Formats, but not enabling level conversion.

As we can see, this actively discouraged anyone else from doing the work for him, because only these three tilesets of his got left behind. The other ones (grnk1 - grnk5) are completely functional.

Bottom line, I am probably going to convert the remaining missing graphic sets, too. But I do want to wait for a response from Gronkling whether he has functional translation tables of these styles on his PC. Otherwise, even he himself couldn't convert his own levels. And if even he as the creator - or at least "compiler" - of these graphic sets never made a single level involving them, that would be quite... strange indeed .

[IchoTolot]

I expected that criticism, but it doesn't hold up: We still have an entire subforum worth of unconverted level packs. In fact, there are still more unconverted than converted packs to this date!

That includes not only my preceding packs, but also both packs by nin10doadict, Arty's SubLems, as well as such highly acclaimed packs as Lemmings Stampede.

Of course it holds up and I also would give this criticisism to everyone else who didn't prepare/point out problematic things for the initial conversion when they had the chance and are now having very special problems while calling the process reckless.

Also there are other factors:

- A part of the members are inactive like bulletride who made Lemmings Stampede.
- Quite a few members simply don't care for maintenance. They simply release packs and don't bother with future updates. That's ok and their decision (sometimes they also don't have the time to invest), but it leads to dead packs.

If any of these packs features a single level in one of these styles, conversion is impossible.

This is simply wrong!

A conversion doesn't nessesarily need to be a 100% copy of the pack. Options (this counts for tilesets and features like radiation):

- Remove these levels and only convert the rest.
- Change the levels so that the problematic elements are replaced with other things.
- Rebuild the levels with other elements.

I had to resort to these things quite a bunch of times and I always made the conversion work.

So if we want to migrate as much of the old content as possible, including that which is considered high quality by the majority of the forums, we need to make sure the conversion tools keep functioning for quite a while still. Otherwise, we could throw all translation tables in the garbage at this point, thinking that everyone has shifted to New Formats entirely anyway. Yes, the users may have, but the content most definitely has not.

The tools aren't the big problem here to be honest. It's the general will of the people.
Most packs would already be converted if people cared, but they didn't for a reason and we won't force them. Others simply make new stuff in the new formats and leave the old stuff behind.

Even if we converted the packs for them, the maintenance after the conversion would most likely also be up to the helper.

Sometimes it's just a tiny little piece I needed from a given tileset, maybe even not to work as a piece itself, but only to erase something with it. To the editor, this doesn't make any difference though. And thus, that one missing piece can determine whether a level can be converted at all. Because when there's no translation table for just one style used in a level, the entire level doesn't get loaded up; it's not just that one piece which goes missing

Remove the piece, find a replacement. I recently also did that with some decorational exit tops in a PimoLems level. No big deal.

[Strato Incendus]

Of course it holds up and I also would give this criticisism to everyone else who didn't prepare/point out problematic things for the initial conversion when they had the chance and are now having very special problems while calling the process reckless.

I did point out repeatedly how my packs would be affected - with regards to the objects that would be removed, that is . Since those objections were ignored, I didn't bother looking for further stuff, I admit, because I figured a lot of my levels would get the axe anyway.

This is simply wrong!

A conversion doesn't nessesarily need to be a 100% copy of the pack.

I was refering to the issue of the editor not being able to open the level in the first place. This is basically what you addresse with:

Remove the piece, find a replacement. I recently also did that with some decorational exit tops in a PimoLems level. No big deal.

Easy when it is indeed just a tiny piece; in my case however, sometimes it's a single piece copied and pasted over and over again. Like an entire Titanic worth of black steel pieces from Gronkling's electric tileset.


My Lems will go on

There is no other graphic set that has pitch black steel. So guess what, I'll convert that graphic set just for that single piece .

I do fear that precisely this is going to happen, though:

Even if we converted the packs for them, the maintenance after the conversion would most likely also be up to the helper.

Classical case of "whoever moves first, loses" .

The tools aren't the big problem here to be honest. It's the general will of the people.
Most packs would already be converted if people cared, but they didn't for a reason

Mmh, I wonder what that reason might be...

Well, at least you know in my case. Two of the best levels in Pit Lems are radiation- and slowfreeze-based (the LOTY nominates). I don't see a reason for ripping them out of the pack just to leave the players with the "ruins".

For Lemmings World Tour, I consider a conversion because
a) New Formats was designed with, among others, the purpose to reduce tileset-mixing-based crashes (as I was told by Nepster when I brought up this issue for the first time during one of my earlier releases), and
b) because I already have a couple of ideas for a successor to Lemmings World Tour (which is also going to feature the shimmier, then), and I want both packs to be available on the same platform.

But as I said, quite a couple of tilesets yet to convert until that can be done . Next up on my list is Digital, because it makes up an entire level, and is also a split-up tileset in New Formats.

[IchoTolot]

Since those objections were ignored, I didn't bother looking for further stuff, I admit, because I figured a lot of my levels would get the axe anyway.

Change the level or replace it. As I said I did the same moving from Lemmini to NeoLemmix.

There is no other graphic set that has pitch black steel. So guess what, I'll convert that graphic set just for that single piece .

I would simply scrap the piece, use something else, even if the basic idea needs to change.

To recreate the titanic in this specific case, I would not consider the black steel to be nessesary. Anyway with the next update you should have the piece regardless.

But in general I prefer to stay with the tone of one or only a few tileset/s, as I think too much mixing creates levels with an uneasy tone and quite a few elements don't work that well together (biting colors as an example).

I would also recommend to list all tilesets used in a pack to keep an overview.

Mmh, I wonder what that reason might be...

Yeah and I listed them:

- No time to spare.
- No care for the pack/maintenance.
- General abscence.

Currently you are the only person I know of who is not willing due to culled radiation/slowfreeze and some missing tilesets that weren't really used before.

Two of the best levels in Pit Lems are radiation- and slowfreeze-based (the LOTY nominates). I don't see a reason for ripping them out of the pack just to leave the players with the "ruins".

If you consider the pack as "ruins" without these 2 levels.      

2 levels can be replaced, even if they were nominated for LOTY.

[Proxima]

Lix has black steel (attached). It looks like the Lix steel in general hasn't been made into an NL set yet, but that will probably be done at some point.

[Nepster]

From the first post:

I am happy to rename them to "sonic_[whatever]", [...][/b]

I did exactly that, so they are now called sonic_angelisland, sonic_chaosangel, sonic_cybertrack and sonic_technobase.

PS: I really should release a new NeoLemmix version soon with all the bugfixes that I already have...
PPS: I haven't yet read through the whole discussion yet, but still wanted to answer the main question.

[Strato Incendus]

@Nepster: Thanks, that's what I thought! I'll wait with the change in the translation table then, though. Anyone converting Ancient levels at the moment can use the current translation table, because that already maps the correct pieces to everything. The text replace command will have to be run over the levels again anyway.

Then again, it doesn't seem like anyone but me has made Ancient levels in the first place, so I'll just wait converting mine. The first Lemmings World Tour version for New Formats is probably not going to appear before Arty has cleared the Amateur rank, anyway .

@Proxima: That would certainly be a worthwhile addition! But if it isn't a NeoLemmix tileset yet, I can just as easily convert the electric tileset. The upside is, I think electric hasn't been converted yet at all. So this will be a lot less complex than converting digital into sonic_cybertrack and sonic_technobase.

But in general I prefer to stay with the tone of one or only a few tileset/s, as I think too much mixing creates levels with an uneasy tone and quite a few elements don't work that well together (biting colors as an example).

I would also recommend to list all tilesets used in a pack to keep an overview.

I know what you mean, that's what I'm aiming for in my next pack. Restricting the number of chosen tilesets is something way too few packs do, in my opinion. This is more suitable for abstract level terrain shapes, though. In short: If you limit the number of tilesets you use, you make your pack feel more like "an original, DMA-made Lemmings pack" .

Lemmings World Tour however clearly has different priorities: This was all about "I need to recreate city X as authentically as possible, where can I find a piece of terrain that serves this function the best?" That's why I couldn't even create an overview of all styles used in the pack; I simply threw my entire styles folder into the NXP.

If you consider the pack as "ruins" without these 2 levels.    

There's obviously more than those two, and they're scattered across all ranks, meaning the ranks will end up with uneven level numbers. I have said before that I am not going to create New Formats exclusive surrogate levels unless there is something distinctively unique that can only be done in New Formats. In case of Pit Lems, that would mean throwing shimmier levels in there, once the shimmier is available. Then again, it would be sort of strange if the shimmier appeared in a couple of levels and not at all in the rest.

If I do end up converting Pit Lems eventually, people who insist on playing it in New Formats will simply get a reduced version of the pack.

Currently you are the only person I know of who is not willing due to culled radiation/slowfreeze and some missing tilesets that weren't really used before.

As said before, my main gripe with New Formats at the moment is the level preview screen . And since that is only about placement of text, I think this could easily be customisable.

So if anyone can tell me where in the NeoLemmix player the information for placement of level-preview-screen text (number of lemmings etc.) is stored, maybe I can re-arrange that in my own player so that - kind of like with the aforementioned restriction of the number of tilesets used - it looks and feels more like original Lemmings again.

[IchoTolot]

So if anyone can tell me where in the NeoLemmix player the information for placement of level-preview-screen text (number of lemmings etc.) is stored, maybe I can re-arrange that in my own player so that - kind of like with the aforementioned restriction of the number of tilesets used - it looks and feels more like original Lemmings again.

Good thing the screen is about to change as well.

Also I don't think that this being 100% user customisable will be possible. As I suspect this is engrained in the Delphi code itself, but again that will be up to Nepster to clarify.

[Strato Incendus]

Also I don't think that this being 100% user customisable will be possible. As I suspect this is engrained in the Delphi code itself, but again that will be up to Nepster to clarify.

I'd be willing to fiddle around with the code myself for this purpose, since I think it's probably just some strings that say "XX Lemmings, YY to be saved" etc., plus a couple of values to indicate their position on the screen? Nothing that affects game mechanics themselves.

Also, how can I get back the old replay R and custom skill panels? I like the way that R has the same reflections on it as the rest of the green font above the skill panel. And the skill panel changing colours to match the level tileset also made things more interesting than the standard green .

[IchoTolot]

Also, how can I get back the old replay R and custom skill panels? I like the way that R has the same reflections on it as the rest of the green font above the skill panel. And the skill panel changing colours to match the level tileset also made things more interesting than the standard green

There should be a png with the R in the game files, just look around and change it. (could be in the default folder)

Custom skill panels are still there with every thing around them. Just add the pngs in the toolkit,or look how other packs implemented them (Clammings for example).
Manual way, which is also quite simple: Put the skill panel pngs in the right folders in the pack (again look at other packs as reference) and you have to add a line "(skillpanel" or so) in the packs info textfile. Again check an existing pack with custom skillpanels for the right term.