Lemmini

[0xdeadbeef]

Ok, nice to hear.
About that >128 level issue: I put it on my "todo" list, but don't promise anything, since there are lots of things on the list which might never be done.
Then again: If you really need it, just drop me a note and I'll reconsider.

[WNivek]

I've come across a mildly bothersome little quirk: Any time the game doesn't find a resource it was expecting (a graphic in a style, a level in a pack...), it demands a re-extraction of the WinLemm data. Under typical circumstances (only Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings), this makes sense. However, as soon as user-generated material enters the picture, the reasoning gets a bit shaky as that response remains the same even is the missing file isn't one that gets created in the WinLemm extraction process.
It's not a major concern, though - at most, it's a minor inconvenience during testing of new content. But since it came up recently, I thought I'd mention it.

[0xdeadbeef]

Dunno if this helps, but there is a (manual) workaround for this. If Lemmini (for any reason) decides to force extracing the data again, it sets the "revision"-Parameter in Lemmings.ini to "invalid".
Before e.g.:
     revision=0.77
After
     revision=invalid

Note that the revision is the revision of the resources, not neccessarily that of the program. E.g. 0.78 didn't need new resources, so its resource revision ist still 0.77, while the program is at 0.78.

The Lemming.ini file can be found either in the same directory as the JAR (in case you're using a local JAR) or in your home directory (e.g. Windows: My Documents).
If you just copy a valid backup over Lemmings.ini each time you start Lemmini, you don't have to extract the resources again.

[ccexplore]

I just managed to extract the graphics for the 4 special levels on the Mac version, which uses hi-res graphics:

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=/macspecials.zip

Now to be fair, they are nearly the same as the lo-res versions from DOS; the Mac people only did hi-res touch-ups either on small isolated areas, or simply apply some dithering.  Still, take a look and see which ones you want to use for Lemmini in place of the current "lo"-res versions.

[The Mac emulator I was using had a serious bug in displaying special graphics levels, which is why I couldn't simply take screenshots of them and be done with it months ago.]

[WNivek]

Hmm... the 'high res' versions of Beast and BeastII seem to only have added a sort of hap-hazard dithering, which appears to be compensating for not having quite the right colors available, and honestly doesn't look too good on close inspection.  Menace avoids that pointless dither, and actually cleans up a few lines. Awesome's palette has been significantly altered - the alien things look more more red than brown - but the heads of the things appear to have been meticulously redrawn.

In my humble opinion, while there's no point in borrowing the Mac versions of Beast and Beast2, It would be an improvement (albeit a small one) to use that version of Menace, and Awesome too if someone can 'correct' the palette to more closely match the original. (I may do that myself...)

[ccexplore]

Hmm... the 'high res' versions of Beast and BeastII seem to only have added a sort of hap-hazard dithering, which appears to be compensating for not having quite the right colors available, and honestly doesn't look too good on close inspection.

I don't see any difference in the color set used, maybe it's the dithering that makes you think they don't have "quite" the right colors.  But regardless, I agree that the dithering stands out too much and just doesn't really work.

Awesome's palette has been significantly altered - the alien things look more more red than brown<snip>
It would be an improvement (albeit a small one) to use that version of Menace, and Awesome too if someone can 'correct' the palette to more closely match the original.

Hmm, I actually kinda like the palette used on the Mac version a little better, but I guess it's a personal preference.  With the right software it should be easy enough to change the colors, there should only be maybe 7-8 colors used.

[WNivek]

Well that was easy. It may not be an exact palette match, but it's close.

You're probably right about the Beast/Beast2 dithering. I'm just too used to seeing that style of dithering used in situations where the colors available almost match what's needed, but not quite.

[0xdeadbeef]

Maybe you didn't notice, but the versions in Lemmini are upscaled to make them look smoother. I did something similar to the Mac's Awesome and Menace levels:

http://lemmini.de/special_0.gif
http://lemmini.de/special_3.gif

Since these versions IMHO look better than the versions I'm currently using, I think I'll include them in the next version.
Note that black is the transparency color, but in the browser, it's displayed white (transparent). It will of course be black (or dark blue) in Lemmini.
Any opinions?

[ccexplore]

Well the Mac versions only did smoothing on isolated areas, so one possibility would be to manually cut and paste the parts on the Mac versions that were enhanced and paste them over the existing Lemmini graphics.  That way you get general smoothing for the parts that the Mac versions didn't do anything on.

[0xdeadbeef]

I thought of it, but I think the method I used is less pain in the ass

[ccexplore]

Oh nevermind, I misread.  I thought you were showing the PC versions upscaled.

[ccexplore]

Hmm, now that I compare the un-smoothed and smoothed versions, I find the smoothed versions to have a bit too much of a blurred look and actually like the unblurred versions better.  I think the problem is that with your smoothing, it tends to simply smooth the "edges" around the individual lo-res pixels.

Let me think about this a little more, maybe I can come up with a better smoothing algorithm that works better.

[WNivek]

What about Hq2x?
beast-hq2x.gif
awesome-hq2x.gif
menace-hq2x.gif
beast2-hq2x.gif

[0xdeadbeef]

Well, I dunno, but I like my versions better. The Hq2x algorithm seems to create artefacts on the edges. Also look e.g. at the monster's eyes in Awesome: there's a low red color sweep added between eyes and face.

[ccexplore]

Hmm, looks like Awesome is simply tricky to scale right.  The problem is that the dragons' bodies are essentially texture but with lo-res and lo color-depth pixels.  Lemmini's scaling ends up blurring the individual pixels, and hq2x ends up over-detecting false edges within the texture.

I think a dithering approach might work better, but I won't know until I write a program and try it out.  I have a feeling I won't do much better than what we have.