[SuperLemmini] NepsterLems (111 Levels)[V1.3 - NEW UPDATE]

[WillLem]

Download NepsterLems V1.3

Here it is, the wonderful Nepsterlems by Nepster - 111 levels of pure intricacy, excruciating logic and baffling genius. The maps are what draw me to this pack personally; Escheresque in their painstaking blend of artistic beauty and mathematical precision. It's definitely one of my favourite custom level packs; I will even endeavour to complete it at some point!

You are heartily encouraged to enjoy this pack in SuperLemmini; it's a classic-8 skills pack, all levels are in the L1 tilesets, so it's ideal for inclusion in your collection.



So, finally managed to finish this conversion! For some days, 29 of these levels would not open in the 1.43 Editor, so I could find no way to convert them to .ini for inclusion in the pack.

Then, I discovered that the levels would open in SuperLemmini itself; from there Turrican thankfully enlightened me to the presence of the $external folder within Resources/levels, and - lo and behold - there were the levels as .ini files!

This essentially means that any level editor capable of creating .lvl files is compatible with SuperLemmini - but, that's a topic for another post!



Original pack author: Nepster
Conversion by: WillLem with help from Turrican
Testing, replays & level fixes by: ericderkovits



SuperLemmini users: download the attached zip and extract it to Resources/levels.

NeoLemmix users: the NeoLemmix version of NepsterLems can be downloaded here.

[kaywhyn]

Nice work! However, it appears that there are some issues that haven't been taken care of. For example, in each of the levels, the fall distance is doubled the default. This was a problem that I needed to fix that was also present when I did the conversion of Deceit's Lemmings to Superlemmini. It was quite annoying, to say the least, since I needed to open each .ini file to do that.

The music is also set to the Cancan for every level Really, the same track all 111 times? Along that line, why are the .ini files not all in a folder? Not a huge problem, since one just needs to create a folder inside the levels folder where the person's Superlemmini directory is and then extract the .ini contents to it.

However, I believe mobius asked for the music pack that Nepster used for the pack some time ago, which namida was able to supply. I have the custom music as well if you would like that. Just need to open the NL version and put in the corresponding music track.

Finally, I only checked one level so far, and it appears that the traps don't work on Black Hole 1. I also ran into this problem when converting Deceit's Lemmings, although it concerns exits rather than the traps. I think all the traps worked, just the exit on some levels was either too high or too low so that lemmings wouldn't exit. Steel also didn't work on some levels. Fortunately, there was only one level that was rendered impossible when the steel didn't work. There are other levels that I tried getting the steel to work, but I just couldn't, particularly since the extremely old editor is very annoying to work with. Luckily, alternative solutions to those levels exist when solving.

I will even endeavour to complete it at some point!

Yes, I hope to complete the pack at some point as well. I'm looking at you, Black Hole 1 Just been taking a break from Lemmings in general for the past few weeks. I'll probably be back in about a week or so.   

[ericderkovits]

ok, there were alot of things to address in your Nepsterlems .ini files

1) many levels the traps didn't work as they needed adjustment (including black hole 1 as Kaywhyn stated)
2) many levels didn't show the OWW's (had to turn off terrain rending momentarily to see them(object rendering on) Also fixed level 406.ini (Divide and Conquer) to show the OWW's only on the terrain as your .ini the OWW was NOT on terrain only(wasn't correct and looked ugly) compare to the neolemmix's
version that Icho played on his youtube channel of that level.
3) some levels had steel issues (IE: play level 8(comet-Tic-Tac-Toe) I used a digger on the steel right above the hatch. One isn't supposed to destroy steel.)
    so I fixed the levels by turning on steel rending and placed steel in the levels wherever the level showed steel. The original .inis didn't show any steel in the
    levels that had steel when turning on steel rendering.
4) also the fall heights are corrected(at 126 instead of double(252))


One thing I didn't do though was anything to the levelpack.ini (ie: your repeat of the cancan song needs to be fixed or used with custom music as Kaywhyn suggested).

I'm more than happy to help addressing any issues with the ini files as when I converted Icho's reunion to Superlemmini I spent a long time addressing issues with traps and a few things stated above in the Nepsterlems .ini files. Editing of packs(.ini's) takes a while to fix. One can't just convert it from the .lvl files and assume everything will be correct(ie fall heights, traps, exits, steel ,etc). So I spent some time with your .ini's to address these issues.
Of course if any other issues show up that maybe I missed, just give a shout and I'll help out with it.

So far I have replays for the 1st rank(comet) and will slowly get the remaining ones although will take a while since I've been doing other things.

I uploaded the fixed level .inis only (not including the levelpack.ini since it still needs to be fixed with the repeat of the cancan song.)
   

[kaywhyn]

Yes, converting .lvl to .ini isn't as straightforward as a mass conversion and hoping that everything will be correct in Superlemmini. As I already pointed out, I still had to check everything for Deceit's Lemmings, and as it turned out there were still issues even though the conversions to .ini went fine: fall distance doubled the default, non-working steel on some levels, some exits too low/too high, and some non-working traps. Once I took care of the issues, then I released the conversion of the pack. Yes, it can be annoying to check everything, but it's a good practice to check to make sure everything is fine before release.

Most importantly, as eric has mentioned, Lemmings Reunion was, by far, the most difficult pack to convert. It took him a very long time, almost 1.5 months IIRC. I can attest to this, as I have read his copious notes on every level he edited. I provided input, assistance, and replays wherever I could if there were any I thought would be of interest for him when converting/editing. Also, there are some styles that didn't play too nicely, such as the L2 and Castle and City and Sega tilesets. And of course, there was also the annoying mild slopes to bash which doesn't work in Superlemmini, as well as climbers being able to climb past builder walls, and climbing through terrain that they shouldn't, such as crosses from the Dirt tileset. Now that Tsyu has returned after so long, perhaps he can tell us if these issues were intentional or if he agrees they should be fixed.

Needless to say, make sure to take your time, as converting any pack to Superlemmini takes a while. Doubly for Nepsterlems, since it has double the amount of levels that Deceit's Lemmings does and therefore there are way more things to check. However, as this was the first Neolemmix custom pack you converted to Superlemmini, you still did great for a first attempt. It's likely that you simply weren't aware of the issues that can result from converting. 

[WillLem]

Thanks guys, I'll have a look at these issues over the next few days. The original download has been removed in the meantime

Incidentally...

the fall distance is doubled the default. This was a problem that I needed to fix that was also present when I did the conversion of Deceit's Lemmings to Superlemmini. It was quite annoying, to say the least, since I needed to open each .ini file to do that.

This can actually be done very quickly for multiple levels at once using Notepad++ and RegEx commands. I'll post a tutorial sometime soon

[WillLem]

Version 1.1 full-pack update now uploaded to original post.

Changelog:

All levels now have the correct fall distance of 126 px

The music has been set to the standard rotation of the 17 tracks from L1 as opposed to every level being the "Cancan" music (NOTE: a future add-on will supply the original NepsterLems music)

The levels are now zipped to a folder-within-a-folder for easier extraction to Resources/levels

Traps now work on all levels

Steel is now set to Autosteel on all levels (this will need to be modified again in a future update, since Tsyu is updating the Steel rendering indexes in the next version of SuperLemmini)

All OWW objects now appear, and work, as expected

Many thanks to ericderkovits for providing many of these fixes, and kaywhyn also for highlighting these issues.

Please note that the pack will also be updated for the next version of SuperLemmini, so it'll be worth checking back again at that point to keep your version of the pack fully up to date

Thanks for playing!

[ericderkovits]

Great Job WillLem.

I again noticed one tiny problem with the level (Neutron Star 7-Divide and Conquer-406.ini). A tiny piece of grey terrain had a small gap in the rightmost section of lemmings. After seeing this level on Icho's Youtube channel, there shouldn't be that gap otherwise the lemmings will fall thru it.

So I closed that gap(as it shows in the level) with the needed small piece of matched grey terrain(compare original 406.ini to that level on Icho's playlist of Nepsterlems). It shows there shouldn't be that gap. I don't know why it removed that piece when Superlemmini converted the .lvl to .ini.

Anyways here is the fixed .ini for Neutron Star 7(Divide and Conquer).

[WillLem]

Thanks Eric, well spotted!

I've updated the OP with V1.2, which includes this level fix.

[ericderkovits]

Hi WillLem


There were still issues with the levels with the levels which I fixed (also have a full set of replays now thanks to Icho and Josh as Nepsterlems was too difficult)

There were some levels with minor terrain changes, some with minor screen size adjustments (so level will play correctly) and a some with backroute fixes and added timers which I fixed as in NL's V2.00 of the pack)

So I have a .rar of the fixed pack and a .rar of the replays.

If you want I can P.M. you my fixed pack and replays to see that the levels now play correctly.

After these fixes there shouldn't be any more issues.

         

[WillLem]

So I have a .rar of the fixed pack and a .rar of the replays.

If you want I can P.M. you my fixed pack and replays to see that the levels now play correctly.

After these fixes there shouldn't be any more issues.

Brilliant, thanks Eric. You're a legend

Please do send the levels over; I'll likely go in and remove all of the 100 minute timers as well. I've given you a co-credit as well since you've ended up doing a lot of the testing and fixing work for this pack

[ericderkovits]

ok here is one change to Blackhole 15 (Hanglem.ini). I forgot to lock the release rate as in NL's version of the level which is locked.

In the Hanglem.ini file I just added the line

lockReleaseRate = true (so now the RR is locked at 50 in SL)

just replace the old one with the uploaded one and place in the Nepsterlems level folder


As I never fiddled with the RR in my replay, so it doesn't affect my replay.


And yes one can lock the release rate in Superlemmini. I had to read the doc file in SL's Level Format.txt to see that one can. It mentions it's default though is false, so I had to add the line lockReleaseRate = true(to Hanglem.ini) to get the RR lock for the level.

[WillLem]

ok here is one change to Blackhole 15 (Hanglem.ini)

Good timing, I'm just about to upload the fixes

And yes one can lock the release rate in Superlemmini

Good to know!

It may be worth making a post for all of the possible variables such as this that can be added to a .ini file...

[WillLem]

Version 1.3 now available

Full credit to ericderkovits for supplying this update, which should hopefully eliminate all remaining issues with the pack.

Download now includes a full set of replays by ericderkovits (with help from Icho and Josh)

Minor terrain changes to some levels

Minor screen size adjustments to some levels

Backroute fixes

Changes to timers and RR on levels which needed it

Head straight to the OP to get the latest copy of NepsterLems for SuperLemmini!

[kaywhyn]

Since eric seems to be the most knowledgeable about the Superlemmini structure and seems to gladly jump at the chance of converting packs to the engine, that's why I told him he could convert Nepsterlems if he wanted to, particularly since I also mentioned that it simply uses the OL and ONML tilesets only Perhaps it wasn't at the top of his priority list?

In particular, there seems to always be something new to learn about Superlemmini. That locked RR was a great find! Good to know that SL does indeed support it.

Anyway, nice work to WillLem for taking up the initiative of starting the conversion and eric for sorting out problems that came about from the conversion after a premature release. I would had pitched in some assistance as well, most notably for packs that I've already completely solved, for which Nepsterlems isn't one of them. Hence why I haven't done much. More than that, admittedly I haven't had the motivation to do anything Lemmings-related lately. Mostly due to hitting my own roadblocks with the packs that I've been trying to get past but haven't been able to. That's how stubborn I am when it comes to not looking up any kind of replay or hint on levels I haven't solved at least once on my own Don't worry, though. I'll be back to playing/solving on the Lemmings front again after some time. Honestly, this extensive amount of time away from the game has been helping a lot To finally be taking a break from Lemmings after having played nothing but Lemmings for the last several months every day feels great!

Plenty of converted packs to Superlemmini that I still need to go through that I'll eventually get to!    

[ericderkovits]

I wanted too to start the conversion of Nepsterlems to SL. But I too was having the initial problem that WillLem was having with able to get the .lvl's to .ini's as it was showing that same error message that WillLem stated in the editors. And I even tryed JBuilder as Willlem did, but there too was problems. But We should all give a big thanks to Turrican for discovering that SL actually has an external folder that holds the .ini format of the .lvls. Without SL being able to do that, Nepsterlems would not have been able to be converted. Even I didn't realize SL has an internal way to convert .lvl to .ini. Otherwise I would have started this conversion. So I think Turrican should be mentioned in this.

Editing of the levels of Nepsterlems wasn't too difficult. What was the most difficult was trying to get the replays. This pack is more difficult in my eyes than Lemmings Reunion. Alot of Nepsterlems levels were really difficult escpecially the blackhole rank.


Also When I convert packs, I want to have all the replays first before I release the pack to make sure the levels work properly with exits, traps, steel, OWW's and even occasional climber issues.

Also I'm more than willing to help convert packs (if Possible) but I prefer to have more help in doing so as it does take time. Perhaps we could each help convert packs by doing a couple ranks each.