What made SuperLemmini good could make NeoLemmix great!

[WillLem]

OK... I've decided to move on from SuperLemmini. Clearly, it's not very well looked after any more, there are no decent tutorials for how to use it more extensively, create levels packs, etc, and generally speaking, nobody seems to care about it except me!

So, here's what I particularly like about SuperLemmini that, if incorporated into NeoLemmix, may help to improve it:

- Firstly, and most importantly (to me, at least)... I think it looks great. It's a lot smoother, everything looks more rounded and well-defined, and this just makes for a more enjoyable gaming experience, in my humble opinion. It's great that a Hi-Res facelift for NL is being considered/in production: I am happy to continue providing graphics/help with this wherever I can.
  - The control panel has "clickable" buttons, rounded edges and cartoon icons; all of which adds texture and provides a more tactile interface (I'm currently working on one that could be used in the Hi-Res mod, if needs be).
  - The main menu/level screen text & images are in the correct aspect ratio rather than being stretched, as they are in NL. This may seem a minor point to most people, but it just adds to the overall aesthetic when everything is taken into consideration.

- You can double click the release rate to get to 01 or 99 quickly. This is mainly just convenient, but it can also help with certain level solutions as well.

- The level selection window automatically saves level stats upon successful completion of a level, which is great for reviewing/trying to beat your time/skill count/% saved etc.

All of this said, there are some things about NeoLemmix which are wayyy better than SuperLemmini, and here they are (I like to give a balanced view of things wherever possible ):

- Being able to frame-step forwards and backwards, and hotkey these actions - VERY nice!

- Savestates and replays more integral/accessible, which can be of help.

- Being able to view the trigger points in-game.

- Knowing exactly which Lemming is being selected, and being able to see which ones have had climber/floater skills assigned to them.

- The emphasis on tactics rather than technique is quite refreshing; the guide lines for builders, diggers, etc are very handy.

Thoughts? Discussion? Agreements/disagreements?

-WillLem

[IchoTolot]

Thanks, that's valuable feedback!

- You can double click the release rate to get to 01 or 99 quickly. This is mainly just convenient, but it can also help with certain level solutions as well.

NL has the same thing, but here it's the right mouse button rather than a double click.

- The control panel has "clickable" buttons, rounded edges and cartoon icons; all of which adds texture and provides a more tactile interface (I'm currently working on one that could be used in the Hi-Res mod, if needs be).

This is a problem you or another user needs to tackle most likely: If a good replacement is made by someone you can simply swap out the default ones with your preferred choice.

Most graphics in NL are swappable/customisable. They just need to be created and be the same size.

- The main menu/level screen text & images are in the correct aspect ratio rather than being stretched, as they are in NL. This may seem a minor point to most people, but it just adds to the overall aesthetic when everything is taken into consideration.

Could the window mode in the right size fix that at least partly for you? NL has a windowed mode with several window sizes.

- The level selection window automatically saves level stats upon successful completion of a level, which is great for reviewing/trying to beat your time/skill count/% saved etc.

Stats are certainly something the F2 level selection screen could display. Consider making a suggestion topic!

[namida]

- Firstly, and most importantly (to me, at least)... I think it looks great. It's a lot smoother, everything looks more rounded and well-defined, and this just makes for a more enjoyable gaming experience, in my humble opinion. It's great that a Hi-Res facelift for NL is being considered/in production: I am happy to continue providing graphics/help with this wherever I can.

High-res mode is likely to be the "major" feature for V12.8, in the same way eg. the Shimmier was for 12.6. I suspect at first, high-res mode will be limited to the lemming sprites and the official styles, but over time this will expand.

- The control panel has "clickable" buttons, rounded edges and cartoon icons; all of which adds texture and provides a more tactile interface (I'm currently working on one that could be used in the Hi-Res mod, if needs be).

NL will never use native Windows GUI buttons on this, but I'm open to graphics that simulate such buttons. EDIT: To be clear, this would need to be widely agreed on, not just "one person wants it" - but if that consensus is there, sure, it can be done.

- The main menu/level screen text & images are in the correct aspect ratio rather than being stretched, as they are in NL. This may seem a minor point to most people, but it just adds to the overall aesthetic when everything is taken into consideration.

NL keeps a consistent aspect ratio, specifically 8:5 (as the internal rendering resolution of the menu screens is 640x400). It stretches it to fill the screen, but keeps it proportional, adding blank space at the sides if need be. There's currently no option to avoid non-integer resizing of these screens; but you could use windowed mode with a window size of 640x400 (or a multiple thereof).

The alternative option for full-screen mode is to limit it to integer resizes, and add blank space on all sides. The main problem here is that this will look very awkward on some screen sizes - for example, 1366x768, there isn't enough room to zoom it to even 2x, leaving a situation like in the attachment (white = preview screen area, black = border). 1366x768 is in fact a screen resolution that's frequently lead to awkward situations with zoom / etc, but is critical to consider because it's the most common resolution out there. 1920x1080 is also very important to consider, but it rarely causes difficult situations, and this is no exception (see attachment; note that it uses nearly the full height of the screen).

Alternative option is of course to use a smarter resize than just directly zooming a 640x400 render. This would be a lot of effort for little gain, though.

If you don't already have it turned on, try enabling the smooth resizing in menus option under settings. This tends to look a lot nicer.

- You can double click the release rate to get to 01 or 99 quickly. This is mainly just convenient, but it can also help with certain level solutions as well.

There is no level that's solvable with this feature but not without it, as it's equivalent to pausing, increasing / decreasing the RR, then unpausing. However - as IchoTolot says, NL does have this feature if you right-click.

- The level selection window automatically saves level stats upon successful completion of a level, which is great for reviewing/trying to beat your time/skill count/% saved etc.

NL currently saves lemmings-saved and time-taken records (but not skill counts). There was discussion of extending this, as well as making it more visible, but nothing has come of that yet - I need to revisit this at some point. They're currently only visible on the postview screen; this could be improved.

[ccexplore]

- The main menu/level screen text & images are in the correct aspect ratio rather than being stretched, as they are in NL. This may seem a minor point to most people, but it just adds to the overall aesthetic when everything is taken into consideration.

NL keeps a consistent aspect ratio, specifically 8:5 (as the internal rendering resolution of the menu screens is 640x400). It stretches it to fill the screen, but keeps it proportional, adding blank space at the sides if need be. There's currently no option to avoid non-integer resizing of these screens; but you could use windowed mode with a window size of 640x400 (or a multiple thereof).

WillLem, can you post some screenshots comparing SuperLemmini and NeoLemmix on above point?  If as namida said NL keeps the stretching proportional to fill screen, then the result should still be in the correct aspect ratio in contradiction to what you say, so I'm a bit confused here.

[WillLem]

Thanks, that's valuable feedback!

- You can double click the release rate to get to 01 or 99 quickly. This is mainly just convenient, but it can also help with certain level solutions as well.

NL has the same thing, but here it's the right mouse button rather than a double click.

You're very welcome

Ah yes! Perfect, thanks for letting me know. The only other thing I'd say here then is it'd be nice to have the rate-increase sound from the Amiga game included, if possible.

- The control panel has "clickable" buttons, rounded edges and cartoon icons; all of which adds texture and provides a more tactile interface (I'm currently working on one that could be used in the Hi-Res mod, if needs be).

This is a problem you or another user needs to tackle most likely: If a good replacement is made by someone you can simply swap out the default ones with your preferred choice.

Most graphics in NL are swappable/customisable. They just need to be created and be the same size.

Good shout, but I think it'd be nice to upgrade the default panel for everyone as well, or at least have it as an included alternative option just in case people prefer the current look & feel and want to keep it that way.

NL will never use native Windows GUI buttons on this, but I'm open to graphics that simulate such buttons. EDIT: To be clear, this would need to be widely agreed on, not just "one person wants it" - but if that consensus is there, sure, it can be done.

Again, I'm more than happy to look at doing this. I'm currently creating a set of buttons that are similar to the Windows GUI buttons but, IMO, even better, and closer to the slim size of the NeoLemmix buttons. I'll get some examples uploaded soon.

[/quote]

- The main menu/level screen text & images are in the correct aspect ratio rather than being stretched, as they are in NL. This may seem a minor point to most people, but it just adds to the overall aesthetic when everything is taken into consideration.

NL keeps a consistent aspect ratio, specifically 8:5 (as the internal rendering resolution of the menu screens is 640x400). It stretches it to fill the screen, but keeps it proportional, adding blank space at the sides if need be. There's currently no option to avoid non-integer resizing of these screens; but you could use windowed mode with a window size of 640x400 (or a multiple thereof).

WillLem, can you post some screenshots comparing SuperLemmini and NeoLemmix on above point?  If as namida said NL keeps the stretching proportional to fill screen, then the result should still be in the correct aspect ratio in contradiction to what you say, so I'm a bit confused here.

Sure thing, see attached images. Similarly with the panel GUI, I just feel that an overall visual facelift for NeoLemmix should include the main default-view screen looking as great as it possibly can, with little/no adjustments from the end-user (although, of course, the options should still be there).

- Firstly, and most importantly (to me, at least)... I think it looks great. It's a lot smoother, everything looks more rounded and well-defined, and this just makes for a more enjoyable gaming experience, in my humble opinion. It's great that a Hi-Res facelift for NL is being considered/in production: I am happy to continue providing graphics/help with this wherever I can.

High-res mode is likely to be the "major" feature for V12.8, in the same way eg. the Shimmier was for 12.6. I suspect at first, high-res mode will be limited to the lemming sprites and the official styles, but over time this will expand.

It's great that you're taking all this into consideration btw, and looking to make some adjustments. Really looking forward to seeing how the ideas develop.

NL currently saves lemmings-saved and time-taken records (but not skill counts). There was discussion of extending this, as well as making it more visible, but nothing has come of that yet - I need to revisit this at some point. They're currently only visible on the postview screen; this could be improved.

If you wanted to go one better than SuperLemmini, have individual skill counts as well as time & % saved. It's possibly a good shout to display the records as part of the F2 level-select screen since there's a lot of unused space on the right hand side, it'd be more than good enough to put the records there.

As always, it's great to be getting feedback from these suggestions. Thanks again!

All best,

-WillLem

Regarding the attached images:

If you look at the compared level screens for Fun 24 in SL and NL, you can see that the lettering in SL is taller & more like in the original game rather than stretched horizontally, as in the NL example. There is also variation in the text colour, which makes for a more dynamic-looking intro screen.

With the main logo screen examples, it's very clear here that NL stretches the Lemmings logo (as well as the graphics of the Lemmings holding the options cards) quite extensively. I've included a screenshot of the original Amiga screen for comparison. Incidentally, although SL is comparitively closer to the Amiga screen, it doesn't include the original logo (probs for licencing reasons?) and the scroller text is stretched vertically - so, it doesn't get everything right!

IMHO hat's needed is a redesign of the main screen using the Amiga screen as a guide. I offer my services for this task if you'd be happy to make this change. I'll keep it exactly like the original NL screen in every other regard - layout, etc. Let me know if you'd like to me get on this.

[namida]

Ah - I think I see where you're coming from regarding the "aspect ratio" of SuperLemmini vs NeoLemmix.

What you're seeing is actually not to do with stretching, but to do with different sources of the graphics - SuperLemmini's appearance is based on Amiga, whereas NeoLemmix's appearance is based on DOS. Indeed, the majority of menu graphics, including the font and the logo, are direct rips from the DOS version of Lemmings. However, there is one change - while both render at a set resolution then scale up, for DOS this resolution is 640x350, whereas for NL it's 640x400. NL does not achieve this by stretching anything; rather, NL adds more space. But yeah - you will notice, if you compare NeoLemmix to DOS Lemmings rather than Amiga, it's pretty much the same as that.

I should note that overall, NeoLemmix's general tendancy when referencing an original engine, is to treat DOS version as the authoritative source. However, there are absolutely some case-by-case exceptions, most notably digger behaviour, and the source of levels used in the conversions of official games (Amiga has highest priority, then DOS is second; beyond that is more or less on a basis of "whatever gets converted first").

[WillLem]

ALSO! I forgot to mention this in the original post, but I much prefer the dark-blue in-game background rather than black. I believe there is an option to create custom backgrounds for individual levels when editing, but it would be good to have this as a basic selectable option in NL itself - dark blue, black, maybe even light blue...?

[WillLem]

Ah - I think I see where you're coming from regarding the "aspect ratio" of SuperLemmini vs NeoLemmix.

What you're seeing is actually not to do with stretching, but to do with different sources of the graphics - SuperLemmini's appearance is based on Amiga, whereas NeoLemmix's appearance is based on DOS. Indeed, the majority of menu graphics, including the font and the logo, are direct rips from the DOS version of Lemmings. However, there is one change - while both render at a set resolution then scale up, for DOS this resolution is 640x350, whereas for NL it's 640x400. NL does not achieve this by stretching anything; rather, NL adds more space. But yeah - you will notice, if you compare NeoLemmix to DOS Lemmings rather than Amiga, it's pretty much the same as that.

I should note that overall, NeoLemmix's general tendancy when referencing an original engine, is to treat DOS version as the authoritative source. However, there are absolutely some case-by-case exceptions, most notably digger behaviour, and the source of levels used in the conversions of official games (Amiga has highest priority, then DOS is second; beyond that is more or less on a basis of "whatever gets converted first").

Hmmm... fair enough. I grew up with the Amiga version, which is probably why I prefer that look. Maybe something to consider for the hi-res version? Again, I'm happy to do all the work with regards to getting graphics together...

EDIT - I've just had a look at the DOS version, and yes - the logos and everything do appear to be squished horizontally... surely the Amiga verson is better in this particular regard?

[IchoTolot]

ALSO! I forgot to mention this in the original post, but I much prefer the dark-blue in-game background rather than black. I believe there is an option to create custom backgrounds for individual levels when editing, but it would be good to have this as a basic selectable option in NL itself - dark blue, black, maybe even light blue...?

This has nothing to do with NL itself. The background is determined by the level itself and which tileset it is using. Tilests have different backgrounds as sometimes the standard dark one is working quite poorly with the terrain and/or objects.
So the level designers did in fact chose the background for each level. You would most likely have to edit the level files here.

[WillLem]

ALSO! I forgot to mention this in the original post, but I much prefer the dark-blue in-game background rather than black. I believe there is an option to create custom backgrounds for individual levels when editing, but it would be good to have this as a basic selectable option in NL itself - dark blue, black, maybe even light blue...?

This has nothing to do with NL itself. The background is determined by the level itself and which tileset it is using. Tilests have different backgrounds as sometimes the standard dark one is working quite poorly with the terrain and/or objects.
So the level designers did in fact chose the background for each level. You would most likely have to edit the level files here.

I've attached a screenshot of the same level opened in NL and SL for comparison - note the difference in background colour. I edited these levels myself, and didn't specify a background colour at all. Are you sure there isn't a default for each engine?

[ccexplore]

mmm... fair enough. I grew up with the Amiga version, which is probably why I prefer that look. Maybe something to consider for the hi-res version? Again, I'm happy to do all the work with regards to getting graphics together...

EDIT - I've just had a look at the DOS version, and yes - the logos and everything do appear to be squished horizontally... surely the Amiga verson is better in this particular regard?

Out of curiosity, when you looked at DOS version, presumably in DOSBox, are you looking at it in windowed or fullscreen mode?

The squishing you see may technically be an emulation inaccuracy in DOSBox.  The pixels in many of the standard screen resolutions supported by DOS PCs at the time are not square pixels!  640x480 has truly square pixels at the 4:3 aspect ratio of the monitor.  At the other resolutions, the pixels would actually be rectangular as displayed on the actual hardware, so that it still fills up the whole monitor despite not matching the aspect ratio of the monitor.  And DOS Lemmings uses 640x350 and 320x200, neither of which are 4:3.

AFAIK DOSBox does not attempt to apply corrective stretching to account for this, especially in windowed mode.  In fullscreen mode, it could in theory change to a different resolution, and maybe it could find one that's compatible aspect-ratio-wise with 640x350 or 320x200, and also hope that the display hardware will apply stretching in hardware for those non-4:3 resolutions to fill up the monitor (as opposed to just leaving blank space at the margins).  So there's maybe more of a chance of the display looking closer to the original unemulated hardware when in fullscreen mode of DOSBox, but still not guaranteed.

Given that NeoLemmix uses 640x400 rather than 640x350, I suppose there's a case for NeoLemmix of adjusting the 640x350-based graphics to at least take advantage of the 50 extra vertical pixels instead of leaving more space.  I don't know you could just directly use the Amiga graphics though, since I don't know what screen resolutions those are made for and thus may not be fully compatible as-is with NeoLemmix's resolution either.

[namida]

ALSO! I forgot to mention this in the original post, but I much prefer the dark-blue in-game background rather than black. I believe there is an option to create custom backgrounds for individual levels when editing, but it would be good to have this as a basic selectable option in NL itself - dark blue, black, maybe even light blue...?

This has nothing to do with NL itself. The background is determined by the level itself and which tileset it is using. Tilests have different backgrounds as sometimes the standard dark one is working quite poorly with the terrain and/or objects.
So the level designers did in fact chose the background for each level. You would most likely have to edit the level files here.

I've attached a screenshot of the same level opened in NL and SL for comparison - note the difference in background colour. I edited these levels myself, and didn't specify a background colour at all. Are you sure there isn't a default for each engine?

In NeoLemmix, levels may specify a background image. Where none is specified, they use a background color based on the style. For most styles, this is black; but for some styles (eg. orig_crystal) it isn't.

[WillLem]

mmm... fair enough. I grew up with the Amiga version, which is probably why I prefer that look. Maybe something to consider for the hi-res version? Again, I'm happy to do all the work with regards to getting graphics together...

EDIT - I've just had a look at the DOS version, and yes - the logos and everything do appear to be squished horizontally... surely the Amiga verson is better in this particular regard?

Out of curiosity, when you looked at DOS version, presumably in DOSBox, are you looking at it in windowed or fullscreen mode?

The squishing you see may technically be an emulation inaccuracy in DOSBox.  The pixels in many of the standard screen resolutions supported by DOS PCs at the time are not square pixels!  640x480 has truly square pixels at the 4:3 aspect ratio of the monitor.  At the other resolutions, the pixels would actually be rectangular as displayed on the actual hardware, so that it still fills up the whole monitor despite not matching the aspect ratio of the monitor.  And DOS Lemmings uses 640x350 and 320x200, neither of which are 4:3.

AFAIK DOSBox does not attempt to apply corrective stretching to account for this, especially in windowed mode.  In fullscreen mode, it could in theory change to a different resolution, and maybe it could find one that's compatible aspect-ratio-wise with 640x350 or 320x200, and also hope that the display hardware will apply stretching in hardware for those non-4:3 resolutions to fill up the monitor (as opposed to just leaving blank space at the margins).  So there's maybe more of a chance of the display looking closer to the original unemulated hardware when in fullscreen mode of DOSBox, but still not guaranteed.

Given that NeoLemmix uses 640x400 rather than 640x350, I suppose there's a case for NeoLemmix of adjusting the 640x350-based graphics to at least take advantage of the 50 extra vertical pixels instead of leaving more space.  I don't know you could just directly use the Amiga graphics though, since I don't know what screen resolutions those are made for and thus may not be fully compatible as-is with NeoLemmix's resolution either.

OK... so, if I make a 600 x 400 main menu graphic, would you be happy to consider it for inclusion?

[WillLem]

ALSO! I forgot to mention this in the original post, but I much prefer the dark-blue in-game background rather than black. I believe there is an option to create custom backgrounds for individual levels when editing, but it would be good to have this as a basic selectable option in NL itself - dark blue, black, maybe even light blue...?

This has nothing to do with NL itself. The background is determined by the level itself and which tileset it is using. Tilests have different backgrounds as sometimes the standard dark one is working quite poorly with the terrain and/or objects.
So the level designers did in fact chose the background for each level. You would most likely have to edit the level files here.

I've attached a screenshot of the same level opened in NL and SL for comparison - note the difference in background colour. I edited these levels myself, and didn't specify a background colour at all. Are you sure there isn't a default for each engine?

In NeoLemmix, levels may specify a background image. Where none is specified, they use a background color based on the style. For most styles, this is black; but for some styles (eg. orig_crystal) it isn't.

OK. Would it be possible to have preferred background colours as a selectable option (where the level creator has not specified one)? For example:

- Default based on style (this would be the default option)
- Black
- Dark Blue
- User Image (upload)

[WillLem]

(Aside: Does anyone happen to have the code for SuperLemmini btw?)