[BUG][EXP-CONTENT] Missing Shimmier sprites in most lemming spritesets

namida · May 13, 2019, 12:43:13 AM

I might fix this myself for the Xmas style, though it's up to the content creators (or other devs) for everything else. More than anything else though, I'm noting it here so it doesn't get forgotten before a stable release.

Anyway, no lemming sprites other than "default" contain Reacher and Shimmier sprites. This needs to be addressed before a stable release, especially for the Xmas set as that's considered an official style. Maybe a fallback should be added here - if a specific sprite doesn't exist in a custom spriteset, fall back to the default style for that animation. Might be ugly, but probably preferable to crashing or displaying nothing. Alternatively, if any animation is missing, fall back to the default sprites altogether.

Strato Incendus · May 13, 2019, 08:41:36 AM

QuoteAnyway, no lemming sprites other than "default" contain Reacher and Shimmier sprites.

This is not true; I have already updated my Beach and Egyptian lemmings with Reacher and Shimmier sprites several months ago and shared them in the thread where all the other custom sprites (Highland, Shadow, and Machine) are uploaded as well.

It might just be that the Beach and Egyptian lemmings aren't part of the regular NeoLemmix download yet - but then again, I think this applies to the other three custom sprites as well?

Highland, Shadow, and Machine are still missing, which is why I raised attention for that in the respective thread recently. I can try to recolor the Reacher and Shimmier sprites for those three as I did for Beach and Egyptian, only using Paint.Net this time because I don't have a fixed Photoshop Scheme containing the appropriate Hue/Saturation/Lightness changes for Highland, Shadow, and Machine.

But of course, these sprites were created by Nessy, so if he can find the time to update them himself, I wouldn't mind.

The same applies to Arty's Water Lemmings and the all-black sprites for his Silhouette tileset, I believe. (I haven't used either of them yet.)

namida · May 19, 2019, 11:00:55 PM

The custom lemmings for those styles are not included in the NL download.

Are they actual sprites from L2 (with additions for the NL-specific skills, of course) - or at least close to their color scheme - or are they just "here's some lemming sprites that work well with that style"? If it's the former, I suggest we look at integrating them into the NL download. Otherwise, they should be made part of a custom style (at which point they could, in that form, be added to the download). I can say now that I do not want custom lemming sprites for my styles, so the Machine ones would need to be added to a custom style if they're to make it in.

We have six sets of lemmings sprites in the default styles download:
- default
- xmas
- plom_halayangube
- plom_festiveshangtu
- arty_underwater
- arty_silhouette

Of these, "default" and "xmas" have Shimmier sprites (I've just done the latter), the other four do not. Arty's styles' sprites appear to just be recolors of the default sprites, but plom's look like they'll need a bit more work.

GigaLem · May 20, 2019, 06:37:50 AM

Which reminds me that the Milla themed lemmings will need shimmiers as well

namida · May 20, 2019, 09:25:52 AM

Commit 02a13ce implements a fallback behaviour: If an exception is raised during the loading of lemming sprites, NeoLemmix will make one attempt to load the default lemming sprites intead (one attempt only, to avoid an infinite loop if the default sprites are broken for any reason). The exception message will be displayed, which will in the case of a non-updated set of lemming sprites, be a file-not-found error; but the popup will also mention that it's falling back to default lemming sprites.

Nessy · May 20, 2019, 11:46:31 PM

Quote from: namida
Are they actual sprites from L2 (with additions for the NL-specific skills, of course) - or at least close to their color scheme - or are they just "here's some lemming sprites that work well with that style"? If it's the former, I suggest we look at integrating them into the NL download. Otherwise, they should be made part of a custom style (at which point they could, in that form, be added to the download). I can say now that I do not want custom lemming sprites for my styles, so the Machine ones would need to be added to a custom style if they're to make it in.

The custom sprites for L2 Shadow and Highland were meant to match the sprites from the original L2 game exactly (it seems that L2 Beach is also meant to do this) so I think it would be safe and possible to integrate them into the NL download. I'll get to work on updating them with the Shimmier if there are no objections

namida · May 21, 2019, 05:58:12 AM

Sure, go for it. Please send the full spritesets to myself and/or Nepster when you're done so they can be added to the NL Git repo. Don't forget to test the recoloring (athlete, selected, zombie, and combinations thereof).

Strato Incendus · May 21, 2019, 10:04:38 AM

@Nessy: Ah, so you mean you want to exchange my Beach lemmings shimmiers for the original L2 ones as well? I wouldn't have any issues with it, I'm just not sure whether the "tan" I've picked for the lemmings is precisely that of the original Beach lemmings - I picked the colour from a screenshot of Lemmings 2, but of course, screenshots can vary in brightness.

That said, I wouldn't mind either to simply have the default shimmier sprite recoloured in each sprites' colour theme. Some original L2 sprites can look really rough and pixel-y. The NeoLemmix sprites have always seemed cleaner, almost like higher resolution for me

.

namida · May 21, 2019, 07:04:46 PM

I think it would make more sense to use a sprite based off the existing NL sprites, yeah. If the Beach lemmings in general are direct recolors of the default lemming sprites, then the Shimmier should be an equivalent recolor of the default NL Shimmier sprite.

Strato Incendus · May 22, 2019, 08:44:26 AM

Indeed, that's precisely what I've done for my Beach and Egyptian sprites!

namida · May 24, 2019, 08:22:59 PM

Sounds good. These should, in my opinion, be added to the styles download, and used by the respective styles' themes - does anyone disagree (ie: would prefer to keep the L1 lemming sprites in the respective L2 styles)?

Nessy · May 28, 2019, 01:59:40 PM

Quote from: namidaSounds good. These should, in my opinion, be added to the styles download, and used by the respective styles' themes - does anyone disagree (ie: would prefer to keep the L1 lemming sprites in the respective L2 styles)?

Alright so since it's been more or less a week and no one has rejected this proposal during that time then I think it's safe to say that we can proceed with this. I'll go ahead and send all the L2 sprites later on today when I get home

As a reminder they will be the following as these are merely recolors of the L1 sprites to match the palette of their respective L2 look:
- L2 Shadow
- L2 Highland
- L2 Beach

Strato Incendus · May 28, 2019, 06:22:16 PM

Right, because the Egyptian sprites in L2 were about the same colour as regular lemmings (just slightly more teal, similarly to the Sports tribe). So my Egyptian lemmings with the yellow shirts are completely "custom".

namida · June 01, 2019, 05:00:53 AM

Just pushed a commit with Reacher / Shimmier sprites for Arty's tilesets. This just leaves Plom's.

namida · June 02, 2019, 06:57:28 PM

Have spoken a bit with Plom (and GigaLem, who's also involved with these sets) via Discord. Have explained that I'm willing to do a recolor, if they don't have time to do proper sprites. A recolor could match the colors, but not the rest of the appearance details, of the sprites in general - which may be enough to at least look decent during gameplay unless / until one of them update the sprites.