Hi-Res support for NeoLemmix? Bring back SuperLemmini?

[ccexplore]

But does anybody really want lo-res physics with hi-res rendering? I still believe that WillLem wants hi-res physics.

I actually disagree, from my reading of this posts it seems his primary concern is with the visuals of WinLemm.  It is unclear whether he cares about the physics, though you do have to also consider how that plays into the framerate you would run all the game's animations on.  Lo-res physics with hi-res rendering does already exist in Mac Lemmings, so at least in one case the developers deemed it a reasonable compromise.  I don't remember how WinLemm handles hi-res, though it would not surprise me at all if it took the same approach as Mac, since doubling the framerate for hi-res (well, if you want the lemmings to walk at visually the same speed as low-res, rather than twice as slow) may simply not be feasible in all levels with the hardware of the time.  Though I suppose they could maybe cheat a little by only rendering every other frame so that it doesn't have to actually render twice as frequently as lo-res, even though the physics might actually be updated twice as frequently.  Maybe.

Keeping the physics lo-res also makes it potentially possible to support rendering the same level with either lo-res or hi-res graphics without affecting the gameplay and solution of the level at all, assuming care has been taken to ensure the two versions of terrain graphics resolve identically in terms of physics (and similarly, all the terrain changes performed by skills behave likewise).  I don't have anything personally against leaving to the level author to pick lo-res vs hi-res, but I feel like if we do that, inevitably someone like WillLem will next be pushing for some way to override that preset choice anyway and ask to be able to play a level authored lo-res with the hi-res graphics counterparts instead (and vice versa for the mirror-universe version of WillLem, so to speak).  [To clarify, I'm primarily talking about styles like the ones based on the original game's, that would presumably come in both lo-res and hi-res versions.  For custom content it will be up to the content creator whether to bother creating both vs just one of the two.]

Don't get me wrong, it's probably more natural to have hi-res physics with the hi-res graphics.  But I suspect doing that will make it even less likely to happen for NeoLemmix.

[namida]

Or keep lo-res, and optionally pipe the output through a pixel art scaler. They're a massive improvement over blurred bilinear scaling.

But does anybody really want lo-res physics with hi-res rendering? I still believe that WillLem wants hi-res physics.

-- Simon

I assume then, they'd also be far more CPU-intensive. Especially on larger levels, this can be a bit of a limiting factor even on powerful PCs as it is, let alone with a more demanding algorithm.

[WillLem]

I would like to note that I don't consider a fear of change to be my reasoning for preferring the low-res graphics to the high-res graphics (sorry, you're the one who said "we fear change!").

Some modernized ports of various games have decent graphical face-lifts, but WinLemm's, in my opinion, aren't very good from an aesthetic point of view. They're certainly higher res, and therefore more "technically impressive" but that doesn't mean they actually look better due to the actual quality of the art direction. I find the terrain of the DOS versions more believable because the shading is such that everything looks like it's actually made of the material it's trying to look like, but the WinLemm graphics are too shiny (especially on the dirt set), which makes everything appear much more metallic than it should. Higher resolution, lower quality.

It's an interesting point; advancement of technical visuals doesn't necessarily make things better. I still prefer 80s & 90s movies to modern-day CGI-fests. You can't beat model making and visible tape editing SFX. So yeah, I totally agree with you that higher resolution doesn't necessarily mean higher quality.

The graphics sets in DOS are just fine tbh, it's mainly the Lemmings themselves that I think look better in WinLemm.

(Oh yeah, and I was joking when I said "we fear change!", it's a quote from Wayne's World. Just put it in there for giggles)

[WillLem]

That way, users who prefer the DOS graphics ("we fear change!")

I know you're half-kidding here, but let's be crystal clear that if anyone prefers the DOS graphics it probably has nothing to do with "fear of change".  NeoLemmix already changed in many, many ways from original Lemmings.  Just like most of the people who bought NES Classic Edition are probably not also avoiding all the newest generations of Nintendo consoles.

Given that Lix started off from inception with higher resolution graphics and people hadn't been complaining about that, I'd say most people here are actually pretty neutral when it comes to graphics resolution.  That said, I think the record here with NeoLemmix at least, also looks pretty clear that higher resolution graphics support has never been amongst the more frequently requested feature; we had been seeing far more requests (well, so far anyway) for things like new skills for example.

Lix consciously avoids borrowing any graphics from the original games to steer clear of any copyright issues.  So the game in the official repository can never include the WinLemm graphics for example.  But there's nothing preventing you or anyone else (well, other than time and effort) to port the WinLemm styles over to Lix, and provide the files for other people to put into their copy of Lix.  Lix doesn't currently support a level customizing the lix animations, but there's also nothing preventing you from changing the graphics in your own copy of the game to use WinLemm's (though you'll have to make your own version of animations for the lix skills that are not the classic 8, and some of the lix skills have deviated a little from lemmings so it might not look quite right to directly use WinLemm's animations in Lix without some tweaks), in other words modding them globally to look like lemmings than lixes.  AFAIK most if not all graphics in Lix are in PNG files that you can mod yourself without changing any of the game's programming.

Yeah, I was joking. Everyone has different preferences, and there can be something particularly nice about playing games in their original format. Retro gaming is a big thing, after all.

And indeed, NeoLemmix is superb as a platform for the game of Lemmings. The emphasis on puzzle-solving is a welcome development, as is the ability to reverse an action if you make a mistake rather than having to do the whole level again! (Hunt the Nessy & X marks the spot come to mind here...!)

Nice idea about modding Lix, I didn't realise that would be possible from an end-user POV. I'll see if I can figure out how to do it...

[WillLem]

Okay, so for starters - we wouldn't need recolored sprites. NeoLemmix recolors them via code, not via alternate spritesheets.

What we would need graphically, is (a) high res Xmas lemming sprites, and (b) high res original lemming sprites for 8 of the 10 new skills in NeoLemmix (the Walker and Cloner don't need sprites).

However, as mentioned, this is going to be very low priority on the coding side, and likely, any creation of them at this stage will be a wasted effort. If anything, it would make more sense for the code to be there first, perhaps using quick and dirty upscaled sprites as placeholders during development, and swapping in proper ones later.

A more immediately useful effort might be to recreate the graphic sets in higher quality. Same resolution, but full 24 bit color (alpha blending would need to be avoided to prevent physics breaks on existing levels). NeoLemmix already supports this, as you'll see if you look at graphic sets like those from Lemmings Plus IV onwards.

With that being said, some people may be averse to such a change, so it would need to exist as a mod rather than a change to NL's standard copies of these sets.

Hmmm yes, my inexperience with coding/game development is probably very apparent in the midst of this discussion! I'm primarily an artist rather than an engineer; I make music and cartoon art.

That being the case, I would be more than happy to make the new sprites needed for the 8 new skills. If you can send me over the frame-by-frame sprites as they are currently, that would be very handy as a guide for what's needed.

As for the Xmas sprites, I'm pretty sure these already exist in WinLemm style (they feature in both Lemmini and SuperLemmini, so someone must have them somewhere, or maybe they're extractable from the Lemmini directories?)

Just so I'm clear as to what you mean by "graphics sets", are you referring to the individual components that make up a level such as terrain, objects, liquid, etc? Or the buttons, text, menus, etc? Or both?

[WillLem]

I suppose you want hi-res physics where 1 pixel equals 1 physics unit.

Namida has already expressed in no uncertain terms that the physics will remain lo-res as long as he's developing NL. I guess an upscaling of the graphics is the main thing I'd personally be interested in, but that's only because I don't know the first thing about coding video game physics and I'm very happy to regard Namida's expertise on that point!

Given the complexity involved in a physics change, I'd think any change to high-res in NL would need to take one of these two approaches:

1. Physics stay as close as possible to current. The "is pixel solid?" check, instead of checking a single pixel, checks a 2x2 area (which may start at an odd offset). This would still need significant changes, as we could likely no longer pre-determine each individual pixel's solidity in cases of alpha blending, but would instead have to do so on-the-fly during runtime due to the different ways the pixel could be included in a 2x2 chunk. As such, even this approach would be pretty complicated.

2. Physics don't change at all, and the higher-resolution is a purely visual element. Terrain pieces, objects, etc can only be placed on 2 pixel boundaries, and a low-resolution physics map is generated for them, probably again using some 2x2 area rule (but based on the terrain piece's standalone graphic, not the overall level physics map).

Approach 2 seems like the best compromise.

Or keep lo-res, and optionally pipe the output through a pixel art scaler. They're a massive improvement over blurred bilinear scaling.

Good shout. Pixel art scalers might be a great solution, I'd certainly consider using them to modify the individual sprites & graphics sets. But...would there be away to apply them to an entire game's output?

But does anybody really want lo-res physics with hi-res rendering? I still believe that WillLem wants hi-res physics.

Not so much, as mentioned above I'm more concerned with the visuals than the physics. Leave that to the coding geniuses!

But does anybody really want lo-res physics with hi-res rendering? I still believe that WillLem wants hi-res physics.

I actually disagree, from my reading of this posts it seems his primary concern is with the visuals of WinLemm.  It is unclear whether he cares about the physics, though you do have to also consider how that plays into the framerate you would run all the game's animations on.  Lo-res physics with hi-res rendering does already exist in Mac Lemmings, so at least in one case the developers deemed it a reasonable compromise.  I don't remember how WinLemm handles hi-res, though it would not surprise me at all if it took the same approach as Mac, since doubling the framerate for hi-res (well, if you want the lemmings to walk at visually the same speed as low-res, rather than twice as slow) may simply not be feasible in all levels with the hardware of the time.  Though I suppose they could maybe cheat a little by only rendering every other frame so that it doesn't have to actually render twice as frequently as lo-res, even though the physics might actually be updated twice as frequently.  Maybe.

Keeping the physics lo-res also makes it potentially possible to support rendering the same level with either lo-res or hi-res graphics without affecting the gameplay and solution of the level at all, assuming care has been taken to ensure the two versions of terrain graphics resolve identically in terms of physics (and similarly, all the terrain changes performed by skills behave likewise).  I don't have anything personally against leaving to the level author to pick lo-res vs hi-res, but I feel like if we do that, inevitably someone like WillLem will next be pushing for some way to override that preset choice anyway and ask to be able to play a level authored lo-res with the hi-res graphics counterparts instead (and vice versa for the mirror-universe version of WillLem, so to speak).  [To clarify, I'm primarily talking about styles like the ones based on the original game's, that would presumably come in both lo-res and hi-res versions.  For custom content it will be up to the content creator whether to bother creating both vs just one of the two.]

Don't get me wrong, it's probably more natural to have hi-res physics with the hi-res graphics.  But I suspect doing that will make it even less likely to happen for NeoLemmix.

Yeah, exactly. What ccexplore said

[namida]

That being the case, I would be more than happy to make the new sprites needed for the 8 new skills. If you can send me over the frame-by-frame sprites as they are currently, that would be very handy as a guide for what's needed.

If you have NeoLemmix V12.0.0 or higher (ideally, V12.6.0 or higher, as these include a couple of new sprites for the Shimmier skill), then look in styles\default\lemmings and styles\xmas\lemmings for the standard and xmas sprites respectively. The "scheme.nxmi" file is a text-based file, and describes the recoloring for certain states as well as the hotspot and frame counts for each graphic. (Note that these frame counts are purely for visuals; the physics frame count for actions where this matters is hardcoded and cannot be changed short of hacking the EXE or a source code modification.)

If you haven't already, you might want to try out the new skills in-game too, either by playing content that contains it (Lemmings Plus VI is a good one that's not too hard, although it doesn't use the Shimmier skill - the Shimmier is a very recent addition and wasn't in NL yet when LPVI came out, and was only included in a stable release about a month ago; I don't really think there is much content that does use it yet). It might be easier to think about how such sprites should look after seeing them in action.

The Disarmer currently has a graphic nearly identical to the Digger. We need a unique sprite for it even at low-res, but no one has made one yet.

As for the Xmas sprites, I'm pretty sure these already exist in WinLemm style (they feature in both Lemmini and SuperLemmini, so someone must have them somewhere, or maybe they're extractable from the Lemmini directories?)

They definitely don't exist officially. If SuperLemmini has them, Tsyu may have created them himself, or found them as part of some Lemmini fan-created content. They also could be direct upscales of the low-res sprites, or direct recolors of the non-xmas sprites.

Just so I'm clear as to what you mean by "graphics sets", are you referring to the individual components that make up a level such as terrain, objects, liquid, etc?

Ah, "graphic set" is a bit of an outdated term now, we usually call them "styles", but old habits die hard. Anyway, a graphic set or a style refers to the collection of components - objects, terrain, backgrounds, lemming sprites, etc; some styles might not have all of these elements. In the case of the official DOS Lemmings games, we have 10 graphic sets - from Orig, "Dirt", "Fire", "Marble", "Pillar" and "Crystal"; from OhNo, "Brick", "Rock", "Snow" and "Bubble", and then the Xmas style from Holiday Lemmings. (One thing to note here is that Xmas mostly has the same terrain pieces as Snow; and as such, NeoLemmix has merged the terrain pieces from it into the Snow style; so NL's Xmas style only has objects and lemming sprites.)

[ccexplore]

As for the Xmas sprites, I'm pretty sure these already exist in WinLemm style (they feature in both Lemmini and SuperLemmini, so someone must have them somewhere, or maybe they're extractable from the Lemmini directories?)

They definitely don't exist officially. If SuperLemmini has them, Tsyu may have created them himself, or found them as part of some Lemmini fan-created content. They also could be direct upscales of the low-res sprites, or direct recolors of the non-xmas sprites.

AFAIK WinLemm only ever has Lemmings and ONML levels, it never featured any of the Xmas levels let alone having custom Xmas lemmings sprites.  The Xmas lemmings sprites (at least in the official Lemmings games; no idea about SuperLemmini) are not just recolors, they also each wear a festive Santa-like cap.

Now, Mac Lemmings is hi-res and Mac does have Xmas Lemmings, so it might be possible to try taking the sprites there (I believe I already extracted and uploaded them all here somewhere; do a search and see.  If not, let me see if I can do anything about it soon.), although they might be subtly different enough from WinLemm's that I don't know how well they'd mesh with WinLemm's hi-res regular ones.  At a minimum you might need to tweak the palette slightly.

[namida]

Now, Mac Lemmings is hi-res and Mac does have Xmas Lemmings, so it might be possible to try taking the sprites there (I believe I already extracted and uploaded them all here somewhere; do a search and see.  If not, let me see if I can do anything about it soon.), although they might be subtly different enough from WinLemm's that I don't know how well they'd mesh with WinLemm's hi-res regular ones.  At a minimum you might need to tweak the palette slightly.

This last part shouldn't be a particularly huge problem, as any single level is only going to feature one set of lemming sprites on-screen at a time. As long as they look good in and of themself, they should be fine.

If it is too inconsistent to the point that even over several levels it feels awkward, perhaps the Mac version could also be used as the source of the high-res regular lemming sprites.

An edge case to consider: What happens in the case of a style that specifies custom lemming sprites, and the user is in high-res mode, but that style lacks high-res custom lemming sprites. Is the preferred behaviour here to use the low-res custom sprites, or the high-res default sprites?

I would also like to stress again that this is all theoretical at this stage. I'm not making any definite promises of implementing high-res support - although of course, as stated, I'm absolutely happy to integrate code if it gets written. And I'm not saying for sure I'll never implement the support, just that it's not currently a priority.

[WillLem]

As for the Xmas sprites, I'm pretty sure these already exist in WinLemm style (they feature in both Lemmini and SuperLemmini, so someone must have them somewhere, or maybe they're extractable from the Lemmini directories?)

They definitely don't exist officially. If SuperLemmini has them, Tsyu may have created them himself, or found them as part of some Lemmini fan-created content. They also could be direct upscales of the low-res sprites, or direct recolors of the non-xmas sprites.

OK, I have managed to extract the Xmas sprites & all graphics sets from SuperLemmini. At the very least I can use these as a guide/template to help create my own.

If you haven't already, you might want to try out the new skills in-game too, either by playing content that contains it (Lemmings Plus VI is a good one that's not too hard, although it doesn't use the Shimmier skill - the Shimmier is a very recent addition and wasn't in NL yet when LPVI came out, and was only included in a stable release about a month ago; I don't really think there is much content that does use it yet). It might be easier to think about how such sprites should look after seeing them in action.

The Disarmer currently has a graphic nearly identical to the Digger. We need a unique sprite for it even at low-res, but no one has made one yet.

I've given most of the new skills a try now, I'll get to work on some upscales of those using the WinLemm sprites as a guide. Also happy to look at doing a low & hi-res sprite set for the Disarmer, however I've played my way through the sane Lemmings Plus VI levels and haven't yet seen the Disarmer skill in action. Can you point me to a level which features this skill?

(As an aside, I've downloaded the NeoLemmix Introduction level pack and placed it into the 'levels' directory, but it doesn't appear in the level select list. I tried "Add Content To List" but it doesn't appear as a supported file...)

Now, Mac Lemmings is hi-res and Mac does have Xmas Lemmings, so it might be possible to try taking the sprites there (I believe I already extracted and uploaded them all here somewhere; do a search and see.  If not, let me see if I can do anything about it soon.), although they might be subtly different enough from WinLemm's that I don't know how well they'd mesh with WinLemm's hi-res regular ones.  At a minimum you might need to tweak the palette slightly.

This last part shouldn't be a particularly huge problem, as any single level is only going to feature one set of lemming sprites on-screen at a time. As long as they look good in and of themself, they should be fine.

If it is too inconsistent to the point that even over several levels it feels awkward, perhaps the Mac version could also be used as the source of the high-res regular lemming sprites.

An edge case to consider: What happens in the case of a style that specifies custom lemming sprites, and the user is in high-res mode, but that style lacks high-res custom lemming sprites. Is the preferred behaviour here to use the low-res custom sprites, or the high-res default sprites?

I would also like to stress again that this is all theoretical at this stage. I'm not making any definite promises of implementing high-res support - although of course, as stated, I'm absolutely happy to integrate code if it gets written. And I'm not saying for sure I'll never implement the support, just that it's not currently a priority.

None of this should be a problem - as mentioned, I now have all sprites & graphics from SL including the Xmas set (these are all great, as long as they work with low-res physics we should be good to go!), and I'm happy to create anything that doesn't yet exist by closely mimicking this style. (Furthermore, I also have all of the Mac graphics as uploaded by ccexplore, just in case!)

I understand that hi-res support isn't a priority btw, but I am happy to at least get the basic graphics together. It would then be up to you if you wanted to do anything with them as I have no coding experience at all. I'd be willing to learn though if it's just a few simple commands/tweaks to existing code.

Nice to be talking about it, anyways. It's refreshing to know that, as a developer, you're listening to feedback and at least discussing it.

[IchoTolot]

I don't really care for high-res graphics, but I don't oppose them being an option. I would most likely stay with the lower res as I like to be able to see, control and analyse every pixel of a level to be able to precisely form the solution, may it be when creating levels or solve other people's content. When I want better graphics and eye candy I don't turn to lemmings (although I would still consider some tilesets eye candy ).

I would strongly oppose high-res graphics if they mean any change to existing physics though. Even if they are only an option they should be only a visual change and having 2 sets physics in an engine would be chaos. My main concern was and is always the user created content as that it stays as stable as possible. An engine without functional content is nothing after all and I don't think slightly higher res graphics are worth any sort of physics overhaul and broken level/replays. I rather have 100% functional content in the form of thousands of quality puzzles.

[Proxima]

As I grew up with the Mac version, I miss its gorgeous high-res graphics (particularly the skill panel) and would love to use them in my own packs. Lix is great, but it doesn't have the original Lemmings graphics (or music) because Simon prefers to avoid copyright infringement.

Considering the various options, I think it's far better for this to happen as part of NL rather than a separate program, because NL has many quality-of-life features that I would miss if they were not present (e.g. framestepping, replays, excellent editor UI). And there's all the new skills and objects, which I don't use much myself, but they mean that HNE (hypothetical new engine) would not be able to load most NL content, so I'd have to maintain copies of three separate engines and content for each. Alternatively, HNE could adopt the NL features, but then I don't see much difference between this and option 1, except that whoever programs HNE would be redoing a lot of already-done work.

I'm definitely against reviving SuperLemmini, because again, it doesn't have the quality-of-life features, and it doesn't feel right for someone else to "adopt" SL and add features to it when the project has an owner who is currently inactive. If he came back and gave permission, that would be a different story.

I don't have anything personally against leaving to the level author to pick lo-res vs hi-res, but I feel like if we do that, inevitably someone like WillLem will next be pushing for some way to override that preset choice anyway and ask to be able to play a level authored lo-res with the hi-res graphics counterparts instead

It's not just about "overriding" people's choices; don't forget there is at the moment a huge wealth of content created by authors who are no longer active and cannot express a preference for how their levels should be played.

* * *

If NL does add support for high-res graphics, I would agree with Will and Icho that physics should remain low-res. Firstly, this was heavily supported by a poll at the time of the proposed "NL 2.0" revamp, so it's clear this is what the fanbase wants. Keeping low-res physics would allow playing existing content with high-res graphics, without the level authors having to do any maintenance -- as well as keeping things simple for designers of new content (which includes myself, as I have two packs currently in progress).

[WillLem]

As I grew up with the Mac version, I miss its gorgeous high-res graphics (particularly the skill panel) and would love to use them in my own packs. Lix is great, but it doesn't have the original Lemmings graphics (or music) because Simon prefers to avoid copyright infringement.

Considering the various options, I think it's far better for this to happen as part of NL rather than a separate program, because NL has many quality-of-life features that I would miss if they were not present (e.g. framestepping, replays, excellent editor UI). And there's all the new skills and objects, which I don't use much myself, but they mean that HNE (hypothetical new engine) would not be able to load most NL content, so I'd have to maintain copies of three separate engines and content for each. Alternatively, HNE could adopt the NL features, but then I don't see much difference between this and option 1, except that whoever programs HNE would be redoing a lot of already-done work.

I'm definitely against reviving SuperLemmini, because again, it doesn't have the quality-of-life features, and it doesn't feel right for someone else to "adopt" SL and add features to it when the project has an owner who is currently inactive. If he came back and gave permission, that would be a different story.

Totally agree with all of this. Lix, whilst a good alternative, just isn't the Lemmings we know and love.

And, NL is a fantastic engine. Better to adapt it slightly than build a totally new one.

The only thing I would say is that SuperLemmini is a great platform for the game, and remains faithful to the original in terms of its emphasis on execution as well as puzzle solving. It's not perfect, but it doesn't deserve to fall by the wayside completely. I would suggest that adding its sprites & graphics to NL (it could even be called "Lemmini Mode") and allowing the user to customize the in-game control panel to suit their playing style may be a way to keep what's good about it without having to continue maintaining it as a separate platform.

[WillLem]

I would strongly oppose high-res graphics if they mean any change to existing physics though. Even if they are only an option they should be only a visual change and having 2 sets physics in an engine would be chaos. My main concern was and is always the user created content as that it stays as stable as possible. An engine without functional content is nothing after all and I don't think slightly higher res graphics are worth any sort of physics overhaul and broken level/replays. I rather have 100% functional content in the form of thousands of quality puzzles.

If NL does add support for high-res graphics, I would agree with Will and Icho that physics should remain low-res. Firstly, this was heavily supported by a poll at the time of the proposed "NL 2.0" revamp, so it's clear this is what the fanbase wants. Keeping low-res physics would allow playing existing content with high-res graphics, without the level authors having to do any maintenance -- as well as keeping things simple for designers of new content (which includes myself, as I have two packs currently in progress).

I think we can all agree that the physics should remain the same. Namida has already made it very clear that he's opposed to changing the physics of the game. If it's possible to overlay hi-res sprites & graphics without altering the physics, great! And tbh by hi-res I basically mean the SuperLemmini/WinLemm graphics sets, which mostly already exist and are already very familiar with everyone on the forum. I see no reason why those graphics couldn't be used, even for user-created content.

I guess if there's an instance where a user has made custom backgrounds & graphics in low-res, the hi-res Lemmings sprites might look out of place. But a simple fix to this would be to allow the user to specify whether they want to create in hi or low-res, and whether they want the level to be playable by others in hi or low-res. That way, everyone has the luxury of choice, and if a creator want to put out low-res-only content (or vice versa), they can! Their levels would always exist in the intended format.

[WillLem]

By way of bringing a bit of action to all this, @Namida - here are the completed hi-res custom sprites for Ascender, Reacher, Stoner and Swimmer. These were the easiest to get started with, if you like these then I'll keep going with the others and get a full gfx/sprites/styles pack together as soon as I can.

Let me know what you think!

-WillLem

EDIT: I have now moved these to the NeoLemmix Graphics Sets message board. Seemed more appropriate