So, you wanted a Lemmings -> Lemmings DS converter, eh?

[MattKamineko]

Where can I find info about all of the terrain pieces (graphics, sizes, palette (I believe each style has a single 16 colour palette?)) available to L and ONML levels?

[Mindless]

I can give you all the terrain pieces in PNGs if that would be helpful.  If not, ccexplore has documented the file formats of the DOS version and he'd probably let you have them.

[MattKamineko]

That'd be ace. 

What I'll do is make sure that each style uses a single palette, and then use that to translate all of the (hideous) windows lemmings terrain data into .LDS levels.

The one-way area 'Objects' are always 32x32, right?

[MattKamineko]

I found 'lem_terrain_gfx.zip' lying around in an old 'I want to make a Lemmings remake' thread... and it seems to have everything I could ever want in it.

Would you happen to know if these terrain pieces are in the same order as they appear in Windows lemmings? And would you also happen to know if the BMP sets contain a constant palette for each graphics theme?

[covox]

Ah! Finally a kindred spirit who thinks the Windows terrain pieces look hideous!

Yes, the one way areas are always 32x32.

I'm fairly sure that the Windows/DOS/Amiga versions of Lemmings use the same index for terrain and interactive pieces (hence why the levels are easily converted). Not so sure that BMP files are palette-indexed though.

Here's a quick dump of all the interactive/terrain objects as indexed PNGs.

[MattKamineko]

It's time for a bonus round of 'guess the level that Matt's managed to kinda-convert from the location of the steel areas'!

[ccexplore]

Natural choice of level with lots of steel.

The exit seems a bit too low though and the water too high, but I guess w/o actually seeing the terrain I can't tell for sure.

[MattKamineko]

Yeah, the exit, entrance and water are all slightly off due to the different definitions of position. (Windows lemmings positions the top left corner of them (sometimes weirdly... the pink brick entrance comes in two pieces, it seems), and Lemmings DS positions the active point. I'll fix it all when I've got the terrain working so I've got some kind of reference.

I kinda chose it because I didn't want to have click Cheat Level in Winlemm for ages trying to get a level that I could test against.

[MattKamineko]

It now looks a little more like this:

[2112]

(sometimes weirdly... the pink brick entrance comes in two pieces, it seems)

Well, actually, all of them consist of two objects - one still, one animated.

Well, it's nice to see this coming along so well...

-2112

[MattKamineko]

All of 'em? I didnae know that.

Anyway, I screwed up building the final staircase by a single pixel on Steel Works just now, so I'm FORMATTING MY ENTIRE HARDDRIVE AND NEVER PLAYING LEMMINGS EVER AGAIN NO. :cry:

[MattKamineko]

Hmm... I think my terrain ordering is a little off: (This is One way or another)



I'm a bit confused as to the correct way to handle the special terrain nibble. As I understand it:
8 signifies that the piece should not overwrite existing terrain
4 signifies that the piece should be drawn upside down
2 signifies that the piece should subtract from the existing landscape (so far).

But if that's the case, something really weird is happening here. 

Edit: Uh oh, I may have to upgrade the Lemmings DS rendering engine and editor to handle these subtractive shapes, I kinda screwed up when I wrote the system. Darn.

Edit 2: Yup. It was my fault. I was handling subtractive shapes incorrectly within the level renderer. I fear I may have broken compatibility with all of the custom Lemmings DS levels, though. *checks* Nope, it still works. Nobody used my 'Zero Overwrite' flag, because it didn't really make any sense in its previous state. Now everything is groovy and great, hooray!

[MattKamineko]

It had to happen sooner or later... on my converted 'We All Fall Down', can you guess what happened? Can you?

[MattKamineko]

I've started a new thread as this one got a bit messy with all my thinking aloud. I apologise. 

[2112]

It had to happen sooner or later... on my converted 'We All Fall Down', can you guess what happened? Can you?

I'm gonna take a crack that the far end is low enough that the lemmings can walk off the edge and live?

All of 'em? I didnae know that.

That's okay. I wasn't aware of it until very recently when I started working with level editor programs (especially Lemmix).

-2112