Lemmini - Lemmings for Java - public Alpha

[Mindless]

2 requests:
custom lemming graphics support
special graphics lvl's cannot be loaded

I like the new code dialog, btw.

[0xdeadbeef]

Custom lemmings and "special graphics" styles have to be added as Lemmini styles as I can't extract them from WinLemm.
Also I must admit that I'm not so keen on writing another converted for the DOS format. Well, it would be possible of course, but I don't really think it's worth it.

Anyway, creating styles is possible already and everybody is invited to do so. For this, all the graphics have to be converted to or (re-)created in hires of course, which will be the main work to do. For a first fo, simple (linear) upscaling should do (though I wouldn't guarantee that some lemming types might misbehave). Graphics have to be in GIF format, animated object are stored one frame above the other.  Writing the styles ini is then straightforward even without editor support. I'm also willing to support any styles creator with that if anything is unclear.

Loading "LVL" files that were designed for other styles than that supported by WinLemm will always be a problem since there is no definition what the style value inside the level file means for non standard levels (even if the according Lemmini style would exist). Note that loading LVL files is a bonus anyway to allow people to play their custom levels in Lemmini without conversion.
The usual way however should be to load levels in ini format. Indeed as I wrote somewhere in this thread, Lemmini converts the LVL to ini anyway, so you can can grab this temporary file and e.g. change the style to an existing Lemmini style. This way, also loading levels with custom styles will work.

[Happy_Feet]

i changed my OS to ubuntu dapper drake 6.06 beta. installed the latest java runtime engine and switched to it as well. ran java -jar lemmini.jar. when extracting, following dialogue appears in terminal O.o

Exception in thread "Thread-2" java.lang.NullPointerException
       at extract.Extract.extractLevels(Extract.java:318)
       at extract.Extract.run(Extract.java:60)
       at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

any ideas?

[0xdeadbeef]

i changed my OS to ubuntu dapper drake 6.06 beta. installed the latest java runtime engine and switched to it as well. ran java -jar lemmini.jar. when extracting, following dialogue appears in terminal O.o

Exception in thread "Thread-2" java.lang.NullPointerException
       at extract.Extract.extractLevels(Extract.java:318)
       at extract.Extract.run(Extract.java:60)
       at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

any ideas?

This should mean that there are no files in the directory used as source of the level extraction.
E.g. "\LEVEL\OHNO". Another possibility would be that your source directory names aren't capital letters. Or maybe there's still a glitch path handling if the source path contains uppercase and lowercase characters. I could try some testing with Knoppix next week.
What are your full source and destination paths you enter in the extraction dialog?

[LU Admin]

Fixes/changes 0.64 -> 0.65
# &#A0;Swapped Walker/Faller strings. Was overlooked when cleaning up lemming.ini for 0.64
# &#A0;Lemmini wouldn't work on Linux if the resource or game directory used capital letters. Should be fixed now.
# &#A0;Width of yellow frame in MiniMap was derived from Screen resolution, not from window's width. Fixed.

I just tried on my Mac and I get the same error discussed earlier with the patch failing.  Works fine under Windows 2000 in Virtual PC.  I'm running OS X 10.4.6 with the latest version of Java.  I even tried puttting the resources folder at /winlemm/ and the extract to folder at /lemmini/ and it still didn't work.  I'd be happy to help you with further testing if you'd like (sounds like you don't have a Mac).

[0xdeadbeef]

Hm, yeah, I sometimes tried under Knoppix, but my source folder was on an NTFS partition. Chances are that Linux treats mounted NTFS volumes case insensitive. I will check again if I somehow messed the capital letters in the source path.
Anyway: Can you please post the exact error message and maybe the last lines printed out in the text window?

[0xdeadbeef]

Ok, I just tried again with Knoppix. This time I copied everything (source, jar, dest) into the Knoppix RAM disk. Also I used a mix of upper and lower case characters for source and destinations paths. Worked flawlessly.

My guess it that the path or file names of the source directory are wrong. In the WINLEMM directory if the original CD, every path and file name is uppercase. If you use the files from the CD or copied them from there, this should be the case and the extraction should work. If, for any reason, the paths/files inside WINLEMM are lowercase, then rename them to uppercase.

Anyway, I added some error checking, so when source paths are missing, the correct error should appear now. Give it a try.

[LU Admin]

I downloaded a new copy from your website and tried it again.  This time I extracted straight from the CD's WINLEMM folder without copying to the hard drive first.  The Finder as well as an ls from the terminal both show that all the folder and file names in there are uppercase as you would expect.  Lemmini still fails with the same error.  I'm using /lemmini/ for the destination folder.  Here's a screenshot of the error: http://www.lemmingsuniverse.net/lemmini.png

In case it's important, the complete path to the WINLEMM folder on the CD is /Volumes/PAINTBALL/WINLEMM (I have Windows Lemmings as part of Lemmings Paintball).

[0xdeadbeef]

Well, maybe that's exactly the problem...
I wasn't aware that there are other distributions of WINLEMM but chances are that some of the files were changed fot this re-release on the Paintball CD.
Since you are a legal owner of WINLEMM: could you try the data files from the Lemmings File Portal (link in Mindless' sig). Maybe you could make a diff of both directories to see which files differ or send me your files so I can have a look. My mail address is on my lemmini page.

And btw: why is there no link to yet to Lemmini on your site   ?

[LU Admin]

That's strange...I already wrote this once, but it didn't show up.

I downloaded the Windows Lemmings data files from the Lemmings File Portal, and renamed the folder they came in to WINLEMM. &#A0;Ran the extractor and got the exact same error as before. &#A0;Running diff showed that there were no differences between files. &#A0;The only thing it reported were some missing files in the stuff from TLFP, namely the exe and dlls (to be expected).

Anyway, I don't think it's the files on the Lemmings Paintball CD that are the problem, because I ran the extractor in Windows 2000 in Virtual PC (on the same machine) and it worked fine. &#A0;I even was able to copy the extracted files over to OS X, modify lemmini.ini, and Lemmini worked fine. &#A0;I guess the good news is that other than this problem with the extractor, everything else seems to work fine under OS X.

Is there anything I can do to run Lemmini and have it give you more output that would be helpful? &#A0;I don't know Java, but I'm reasonably good with C and Objective-C. &#A0;I'm not completely inexperienced when it comes to development/debugging, so I'm certainly willing to help with whatever I can.

And btw: why is there no link to yet to Lemmini on your site &#A0; ?

Done .

(I linked to lemmini.de. &#A0;If you'd prefer that I link to the redirector you posted here, let me know and I'll change it.)

[0xdeadbeef]

I downloaded the Windows Lemmings data files from the Lemmings File Portal, and renamed the folder they came in to WINLEMM.
...
Anyway, I don't think it's the files on the Lemmings Paintball CD that are the problem, because I ran the extractor in Windows 2000 in Virtual PC (on the same machine) and it worked fine.  I even was able to copy the extracted files over to OS X, modify lemmini.ini, and Lemmini worked fine.  I guess the good news is that other than this problem with the extractor, everything else seems to work fine under OS X.

Yes, sorry, you're right. If it works in Win2k emulation, the files must be ok.

Is there anything I can do to run Lemmini and have it give you more output that would be helpful?
I don't know Java, but I'm reasonably good with C and Objective-C.  I'm not completely inexperienced when it comes to development/debugging, so I'm certainly willing to help with whatever I can.

I uploaded another version which prints out both checksums (expected, real). Though I thought I cared about endian issues, one of the ideas I came up with would be that on a PPC Mac, the CRC32 might create different results due to big endian format. Or do you already have an Intel Mac?
Give it a try and post (or mail me) both CRCs printed in the error message.
If the checksums are just not endian flipped, please send me the GIF file the extractor complains about (bricko_0.gif), so I can investigate why it's different.
My second idea would be that the GIF extractor I use creates different files on WinXP/Intel and MacOSX/PPC. If so, I could try to switch the extractor or use PNG instead.

Done .
(I linked to lemmini.de.  If you'd prefer that I link to the redirector you posted here, let me know and I'll change it.)

No, Lemmini.de is fine. Thanks

[LU Admin]

Ok, I downloaded the new version and ran it.  Same error.  Here's the output:

Patch files
styles/brick/bricko_0.gif
Patching of file /lemmini/styles/brick/bricko_0.gif failed.
CRC of source (0x60d9a1ef) differs from that in patch header (0xc429a510)

I'm doing all of this on my main machine which is a 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4.  I've also got a dual G5, but I haven't tried Lemmini on that machine.  I don't have an Intel Mac yet, but I'm considering buying one pretty soon.

I'm having real trouble with this forum loading (as I think are other people).  Do you mind moving the discussion to email?  My email address is on my website, and I'm assuming the address on your website is OK.

[0xdeadbeef]

Ok, I think know what the problem is. Indeed, the Mac JVM behaves a little differently when it comes to handling images with indexed colors. I'm not quite sure if this is a bug or a feature but I think I know a way to work around this.
Then again, for this I need to patch lots of my reference resources, so I might need some days to come up with a new version.

[LU Admin]

Glad to hear that you think you've figured it out.  Let me know if you need me to do any more testing for you.

[Mindless]

What's the current fall-speed of fallers and floaters in Lemmini?