SuperLemminiToo v1.51

[WillLem]

And because of the space gained by using icons, I added a 4th icon for number of lemmings needed.

Also, as an extra visual indicator, I made the "In" number Red until you've saved enough Lemmings to pass the level.

The new enhanced status bar is a great addition to SL, nice work!

Please can you let me know whereabouts this is in the code?

I'd like to see if I can combine the "required" and "exited" info into one bar entry, so that it shows a minus number in red until the save requirement is reached, and then continues to count up as more lemmings exit. NeoLemmix shows the information in this way, and it definitely seems to make more sense than having the two numbers separate (especially since the top menu bar shows the number of lems to be saved anyway).

I'd also like to see if I can modify the original status bar to display the number of lemmings remaining in the hatch. If you like this idea, it could also be added to the Enhanced bar as well. This is what I'd be aiming for eventually (the current Enhanced status bar could show this information using the existing icons that you've already added):

IN: lemmings still in hatch, yet to spawn (hatch icon)
OUT: lemmings on the screen (lemming face icon)
HOME: lemmings saved - save requirement (exit icon)



Alternatively, the save requirement could be left off the status bar altogether, and HOME could simply display the number of lems saved. The red figures could instead be used to show when too many lemmings have died; i.e. the OUT number could turn red if there aren't enough total lemmings available in the level for it to be completed (taking hatch lems into account as well).

This would removed the need for minus figures, and also removes potential confusion when a player has saved X lemmings, but the OUT display shows X - n (n being the level's save requirement). This can occasionally cause confusion in NeoLemmix, until one remembers that the display is showing the total saved - the save requirement.

[Charles]

The new enhanced status bar is a great addition to SL, nice work!

Thank you.

Responding to the rest in the Programming new thread: -- edit Simon
https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5804.0

[Charles]

New release!

This time I've changed the Icon Bar!

As before, the new options are completely toggle-able.

I've increased the height of the icon bar, and moved the skills counter down into it (this actually uses less vertical space overall!)

I rearranged some of the icons, to make (to me) more logical sense.

I've added toggle-able text icon labels. jkapp76, I based them on the ones you did in your iconsets.

To do all this, I had to do some fairly extensive code-rewrites for all of the icon handling code. And as a consequence of those rewrites, I changed how icon graphics are loaded... which I believe will make future mods easier to do... the icon graphics are now composited in real-time. What this means is there is a single "background" icon image, and multiple transparent button icons. A mod designer only has to replace the 1 single background icon (well, 2... if they're supporting both the original icon bar, and the new enhanced one) and all the icons will use it automatically.  That's how I'm able to apply the icon labels too.

EDIT: v1.30.1, minor bugfix. Fixes alignment in standard iconbar.

[Charles]

New Release!

This one's my favourite.  I've added the animated icons from Lemmings for Windows 95.  These are now the default icons when Enhanced Icon Bar is turned on.

When you've got Enhanced Icon Bar turned on, and you're in a mod (like Xmas), the engine will prioritize like this:
1st, use animated icons in the mod if they exist.
2nd, use static mod icons if no animated ones exist
3rd, use animated standard icons, if no mod icons exist
4th, use static standard icons if no animated icons exist.

Because I didn't draw these -- I ripped them right from Lemmings for Windows 95 -- I don't have animated icons for everything. Minus, Plus, Restart, Scroll Lock are all static icons still.

EDIT:
I was so excited about the animated icons, I completely forgot. I also tweaked the status bar to show number of lemmings still in the gate, and the total number of lemmings needed.

I *also* added the level name (and rating) to the main level.

EDIT: removed link -- bad root.lzp. See a couple posts below for the corrected attachment.

[WillLem]

This sounds great, I'll have a look at this version over the weekend!

If I get time I might also be able to provide xmas versions of the animated icons in time for December no promises at this point though because I've been so busy, but I will try and make some time for this.

[WillLem]

Had a quick look at this just now and get the following error when trying to run it:



Of course, the data folder does contain root.lzp, so not sure what the problem is

[Charles]

Hmm. Okay. I was seeing that problem myself for a bit but I thought I fixed it. Must not have. I'll take another look when I can and hopefully fix it for good.

[LanaAndCo]

You can't believe how happy I am to learn that a SuperLemmini fork has been made! With timed bombers! This is exactly what I needed, even if I am busy with projects other than Lemmings at the moment, so I can't really make levels nor play them sadly. But I'm very glad that some progress have been made so, thank you very much Charles!

[Charles]

Thank you LanaAndCo, I'm very glad you like them!  I hope you like the other enhancements I've made as well (once you get the chance to try them).

WillLem, I think I've narrowed down what the cause is. I'm working on an update to both fix it and give better error messages.

For now, I believe you should be able to resolve it with a quick edit to your superlemmini.ini file. (You should be able to find in windows at %USERPROFILE%\superlemmini.ini or in your specific case (based on your error message earlier) I think it'll be at C:\Users\will3\superlemmini.ini.) 

Find the line for revision= (I expect it will be revision=invalid).  Change it to revision=zip, save it, and restart SuperLemminiToo.  You should be good to go then.

EDIT:
Okay, nope that wasn't it... I put the wrong root.lzp into the release.

[jkapp76]

I'm glad you like my icon sets. I can help more you need it.

[LanaAndCo]

Alright, I took some of my time to test this new beast of an engine and, yeah, it's awesome! Can't wait to play custom levels with this.
The only problem I have with it is, despite installing it in a different folder, this engine still happens to use my custom thingies from SuperLemmini, which makes the bottom bar look kinda glitchy since they weren't made for it in the first place...
But anyway, I'm relieved I don't have to come back and forth between SuperLemmini and Lemmini to test levels with timed bombers anymore, even if there are not many of them for now. I'll still keep SuperLemmini under my arm, since it is the engine I use the most, but I'll definitely use this one too!
Even though I'm not often online here, if you need some kind of help outside of coding (because I suck at it), I'll try to help as best I can.

[WillLem]

Had a good look at 1.40.1 today. It's generally great, with just a few issues which I feel are definitely worth mentioning so that SL2 can solidify its "next gen" status and hopefully become the engine that SL users choose over its predecessor. It's already well on its way there, and with some tweaks it could really reach that next level.

General feedback:

The enhanced status bar is looking great
Adding the "out/hatch" number and "required/total" numbers as miniature numbers is a great solution in order to have all the info displayed without too much clutter, I like this a lot
Obviously, having the option for timed bombers is a win. Many SL players like this legacy feature, so it's good to have it back
Options to disable scroll wheel and framestepping are also welcome; I personally choose to keep these enabled, but it's great to have these as options to make the game feel more like classic Lemmings (which is one of the main drawn of SL as a platform)
Making "Show Percentages" a positive boolean is another minor but important feature to make the options dialog that bit more user-friendly
The Visual SFX from WinLemm are great fun, and also very useful for those who are playing without the volume on, or players who may be hard of hearing. This is an excellent addition

Issues/suggested tweaks:

Not sure why the level title has to be displayed in the status bar - I think this makes it look overly cluttered to be honest. Consider either adding this as an option, or just removing it altogether
The labels and icons are woefully misaligned at the moment; skill labels appear lower than action button labels due to the placing of the skill numbers, which doesn't look great and will encourage most users to have this option turned off unless they absolutely need it for any reason. The enhanced bar is a great idea, but needs a bit more thought to get the various features placed so that, ideally, they don't interfere with each other. I'm not one for pointing out a problem without offering a solution though, so here's what I'd suggest (note that these images are mockups):


Buttons are shorter by a few pixels; icons have been moved upwards (skill icons slightly more so in order to align better with action icons); and importantly, there is a roughly equal amount of button space above and below the action icons.


The labels can now be added to the bottom of the button so that they look neater.

The enhanced panel doesn't work with existing mods, as Lana alluded to:

The only problem I have with it is, despite installing it in a different folder, this engine still happens to use my custom thingies from SuperLemmini, which makes the bottom bar look kinda glitchy since they weren't made for it in the first place...

I get the same issue. Here's how the Lemminas mod looks with the new panel (plus labels):



Suggested fix: allow any modified panel icons to override the panel, regardless of whether the user has the enhanced panel option turned on or off. This will keep everything looking as tidy as possible whilst users redesign their custom panel tiles to allow the animated icons to be used.

Finally, a few of us think that SuperLemminiToo could do with a new name, to set it apart as a bona fide alternative. I don't have any immediate suggestions, but if I come up with anything I'll definitely get back to you on it. It might be worth throwing this one open to the community, see if anyone has any decent ideas.

[WillLem]

Here's some alternate versions of the Basher, Pause and Nuke animations. I've improved the colours slightly to make them more like what we're used to seeing in SL. If you like these, I'll get a full set done and send them over sometime soon.

[Charles]

I'm glad you like my icon sets. I can help more you need it.

I hope you don't mind me including your labels in this update. Your set is really what inspired me to separate out the icons into separate layers and composite them in real-time.

The only problem I have with it is, despite installing it in a different folder, this engine still happens to use my custom thingies from SuperLemmini, which makes the bottom bar look kinda glitchy since they weren't made for it in the first place...

Yeah, this is kind of part of a larger issue... part of my goals with SuperLemminiToo is to be fully cross-compatible with SuperLemmini... that's why I chose the name... Two/Too ... I'm trying to imply it's also SuperLemmini, rather than a successor. I know earlier Tsyu had said he's still working on SuperLemmini and I don't want to sabotage those efforts, because I'm keen to see where he takes things.

That said, I kinda goofed on the cross-compatibility with the composite icons... any iconpack creaters will have to choose one or the other, instead of being able to support both.  So, in the next update I'm going to change the names of the transparent icons.  If a mod creater hasn't built in support for SuperLemminiToo's enhanced icons, they'll still look kinda glitchy... the only way to fix that is outright turn off the enhanced iconbar.

The labels and icons are woefully misaligned at the moment;

There are a few restrictions on creating the enhanced iconbar-- so part of my bugaboo was that I really hated how the skill numbers were in the black space above the icons.  Every other port I'd seen of lemmings had them incorporated into the icon bar itself. Now, the static icons and the animated icons had a fixed size of 32x40 (WxH)... some of the animated icons even used that full space (namely the Bomber). So to put them inside a standard brown button, I had to make the buttons wider and taller. And taller even till to put the numbers into them.

So the skill icons are perfectly fit and have no room to safely move up or down without encroaching onto the numbers, but the problem then is that the action buttons now have a huge dead-space above them and look very weird.   So I moved the action icons up to be slightly centered.   This is all fine and dandy until you add the labels.  The labels are going to have some overlap on top of the icons... but generally the icons have more headspace, so it made more sense to have the labels on top.  I even purposefully exaggerated the difference in the action icons by raising the labels even higher on those.

My thought was that there's enough contextual difference between those types of icons that the different spacing wouldn't be too off-putting.  It's still off-putting of course, and I'm not deeply happy with how it turned out.  Maybe the labels could go on the bottom, but there's no room to move the skill icons up.

Not sure why the level title has to be displayed in the status bar - I think this makes it look overly cluttered to be honest. Consider either adding this as an option, or just removing it altogether

This is another of my goals, actually. No metadata information. i.e. if information is important enough to show in the title bar or elsewhere, it should be in the game window.  It is actually togglable, but I just haven't exposed it in the GUI yet... I hate working on Java's GUI.  find the showLevelName= option and set to false (or add it if it's not already there).

Here's some alternate versions of the Basher, Pause and Nuke animations. I've improved the colours slightly to make them more like what we're used to seeing in SL. If you like these, I'll get a full set done and send them over sometime soon.

Thanks for those. The Lemm95 ones definitely suffered from a 16-colour palette. Honestly the neon green hair has kinda grown on me, but the better skin tones are much appreciated.  I'm not sure I like the black paws button though.  I don't like the yellow one -- again, that limited palette -- but going back to black feels like a step backwards to me.  Maybe a softer yellow/orange blend...

What I'd really like to see is animated xmas lemmings done in the style of these animated Lemm95 icons.  I'm not a huge fan of just using existing sprites for the icons -- there's so much more pixels to play with in the icons, it's nice to give them some personality.

As for the name, pardon my bluntness but I'm not changing it. I like that it acknowledges the hundreds/thousands of hours of hard work done by those who came before (both Lemmini and SuperLemmini).  I've made some changes that may look quite impressive, but honestly I'm not changing much of the existing code to accomplish them... which is a huge testament to the existing codebase.  And like I said before, I very much want to maintain cross-compatibility with SuperLemmini for as long as I can.

[WillLem]

any iconpack creaters will have to choose one or the other, instead of being able to support both.  So, in the next update I'm going to change the names of the transparent icons

Out of curiosity, how will renaming the icons help with mods being able to support both? Am I correct in guessing that a mod will be able to contain icon sets for both the un-enhanced and the enhanced style, and whichever is relevant will be selected?

There are a few restrictions on creating the enhanced iconbar

I totally understand the restrictions you're working with; when I was playing about with the status bar and icons myself I realised very quickly how limited the space actually is.

That said, although the current iteration of the Enhanced icon bar works (given the limitations), it's still worth continuing to refine it however possible. It would be a shame to have put all the work in only for people to avoid using it because it doesn't look quite right.

Thanks for those. The Lemm95 ones definitely suffered from a 16-colour palette
...
I'm not sure I like the black paws button though ... Maybe a softer yellow/orange blend...

OK, I'll get on these over the next few days at some point. I'll think of something for the paws; I agree that it would be good to try a nice fresh look for these.

What I'd really like to see is animated xmas lemmings done in the style of these animated Lemm95 icons

Yeah, I'll try to get this done it time for December. I'll likely end up doing Lemminas ones as well! (Hence my particular interest in how mods will handle both un-enhanced and enhanced).

As for the name, pardon my bluntness but I'm not changing it
...
And like I said before, I very much want to maintain cross-compatibility with SuperLemmini for as long as I can.

No worries, just felt it was worth mentioning because it has been discussed on Discord.

I too sincerely hope that Tsyu continues to develop SuperLemmini, and maybe takes on board some of the ideas you've put forward with your version. However, it just... seems unlikely, since he's never around in spite of an uptick in interest in the platform. I'm not saying that means it needs to be replaced by a new version, but more that this may end up happening anyway.

That said, it's clear enough that SLToo is more of an enhancement than an outright "new version", as such. And since you're doing it as a bit of fun when you have time, it almost seems unfair to suggest that you make any changes to what you're doing. I would take any feedback I offer with a pinch of salt, then, since a lot of it is just frustration that SL's developer has been MIA and there is a backlog of ideas that need to be implemented in some form or another.

There is clearly still a demand for a fully functional, currently-maintained platform which allows players to enjoy classic-style Lemmings on a PC with some QOL features and graphical upgrades (although not so many that the feel of the original game is lost). SuperLemmini absolutely is that platform, and long may it continue.