Somewhat recently there has been some interest in using the extended graphics feature in DOS Lemmings/CustLemm.  Of course, everyone has been hampered by the fact that you're stuck with 4 predefined terrain when you do that (but in spite of that people have been successful in making use of it).

I still think people would probably prefer Cheapo's vastly superior capability than this, but since LemEdit/CustLemm clearly still have plenty of life left, I figure maybe it's time to turn some long-held knowledge into good use.

Hence, myvgaspec.exe -- convert Windows Bitmap files (*.bmp) into VGASPECx.DAT files!

myvgaspec version 0.1 to be exact.  Which you'll soon find out, means it sucks.  Because I'm lazy.  But it's better than nothing (I hope) at the moment.

Download here:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/myvgaspec/v0_1/myvgaspec.zip

Be sure to read the README so you understand how to use it and more importantly, all the annoying limitations associated with it.

In particular, you're stuck with a 960x160 bitmap with only a maximum of 7 colors + black as the background.  (Blame the game.)  A far far cry from the 65536 colors in Cheapo.  Oh, and because I'm lazy, the program only accepts 24-bit BMP files at the moment.  ;P

But it works, or at least it does on my computer.

Included in the zip file are 4 files, the README, the program, an example bitmap (example.bmp) that the program will be able to handle, and a level (myspec.dat) that uses the graphics in example.bmp.  This gives you some incentive to practice using myvgaspec.exe to generate vgaspec0.dat from example.bmp, in case you want to play the level in myspec.dat.  (I must confess that since I want to release this without delay, I did not playtest the level at all.  Tell me how it went for you.  Hopefully it is at least solvable......)

I'll be available here to answer any questions you have, such as why it wouldn't accept the BMP file you want to convert (remember, 24-bit only, and only a maximum of 7 colors used).  I definitely will try to gauge the interest in this in order to determine whether to continue future work on it or not.  Thanks and enjoy (or curse).

To get around myvgaspec's pickiness about what BMPs it will accept (so that no one's stuck with only example.bmp), I've now uploaded BMPs for the original vgaspecX files, in the 24-bit BMP format that myvgaspec requires:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/myvgaspec/original_vgaspec_bitmaps.zip

When editing those bitmaps, remember that the 7-color maximum still applies, so be sure to stick to only the colors already used in the bitmap.

Oh, and skip the spec1.bmp file for now.  Well, try it and you'll see why. :-[ I'll hopefully have the problem fixed and release a v0.2 sometime tomorrow.

[edit:  the problem described above has now been fixed, and a new version v0.11 has been released.  See next post.]

I've found and fixed the problem associated with spec1.bmp.  Turns out it's actually a false alarm caused by a bug in the routine that verifies whether the compression is doing the right thing, causing it to sometimes think it found a discrepency when in fact there's none.

Since it's literally a one-line fix and there are no new features, I'm making the version 0.11 0.1.1 rather than 0.2.  Download here:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/myvgaspec/v0_1_1/myvgaspec_v0.1.1.zip

Is this to help people create their own VGASPECx.dat ?

I know it is now. This should help me create mine I've dreamed of making my own extended graphics.

http://www.geocities.com/jmjm0052005/JMVgaspecX.zip

I just edited the beast of a level terrain and removed all the trees. Who likes it?

This is quite cool, guest! The only thing, of course, is that levels created by this aren't exactly the easiest to share, but there's nothing really you can do about that (at least, I don't think so ;) ).

I guess, what I should ask is... is there any way to change what .dat file the special graphics level point to? (Somwhere easy in hex...?) And, if so, does the file name have to be VGASPEC#.dat...?

Well, right now with CustLemm, you still have to copy the levelset you want to play to levelpak.dat, so it's just a few extra steps to copy the VGASPEC# files.  So for distribution, what you can do is to name the VGASPEC# files you will be distributing to have similar names to the levelset, so that the user can put the files in the same directory amongst other people's custom VGASPEC files without overwriting one another.

I can certainly change CustLemm to look for any name (well, 7 letters or less) plus a single digit.  But then you'll also have to keep multiple copies of CustLemm around.

As for changing which .dat the level points to, well the level stores the info that picks the "#" part of "vgaspec#.dat".  What I can do later tonight is to release a set of blank levels that covers # from 0 to 9.

Whoah!  Man!  We've been trying to do what that program does for years!  Thanks a lot!

Oh, and in a way you can also create your own styles.  Just create bitmaps of pieces and stick them all in the same folder.  You can then put them into levels and make one!  Sweet!  This is the answer to cheapo's lack of the original game feeling.

The program rules!!
Take a look at the download I put up there

Actually, by version number standards, 0.11 is newer than 0.2 since it would be the 11th minor revision. Bug fixes usually go under the third revision section (eg. 0.1.1)

Hehe, ok thanks.  Clearly I don't understand how version numbers work.   ;)

Um, I'm running this on a 98.  I got the welcome box, but right after it says "are you sure you want to quit?".  If you say no it brings up the same box again.

Ok, I think (hopefully) I know what the problem is.  I'll release a fix within the next hour.

Thanks by the way, you will be credited for discovering this problem.

Ok, I can't tell whether it'll fix the problem until you try it, but here we go:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/myvgaspec/v0_1_3/myvgaspec_v0.1.3.zip

In addition to changes that hopefully allows the program to work on Win95/98/ME, I also added one more change.  myvgaspec now "handles" bitmaps with more than 7 colors.  Although by "handling", I really mean "it will assign colors completely randomly when going past the first 7 it found". ;P Clearly only a temporary solution (and a bad one at that), but at least it opens up more BMPs to conversion.

Thanks!  That fixed it.  I'm working on a special level already, and aside from confusing one color with another when my pallete's color is extremely similar to the default, the seven colors thing hasn't been much of a problem.  In fact, it kind of forces that "classic" feeling to be in your levels.  This program is great!

I take it that your level will be located in Pack 4 will it?

...Good idea.  I didn't think of that.  Sure, why not?  Thanks JM!

I'm glad I though of that idea.

Awesome program! B)

 Just a few questions:

 So you can't actually edit the level in LemEdit? But you have to draw the entire level terrain as a bitmap then save it in MyVGAspec, then transfer a level already using that style into your set using LemEdit?

 I suppose it would be simpler if it were possible to edit the VGAGRx.DAT files, so we could build the level in LemEdit using our own graphics and objects.

 Still, it looks like a very useful program.

 I look forward to getting some levels done with it.

With the information posted on this board, you could actually write your own editor.

True, but a style editor would probably have more UI involved, so it'd be more work on my part.  And the color limits now applies to every terrain piece and interactive object animation frame you wish to include (meaning together they cannot go over the limit), so it becomes more necessary than ever to have a proper color reduction algorithm implemented so that the bitmaps can share the same palette while minimizing the effects of reduced color.

So in other words, later, much later.

Well, you can edit the level in LemEdit, but since LemEdit doesn't recognize the VGASPECx format, the terrain won't display.  (I do have a partial solution to this though, stay tuned.)

The vgaspecX format is kinda like the Cheapo's handling of terrain.  There is no concept of terrain piece, instead the entire terrain is stored as a single 960x160 bitmap.  So yes, you'll have to draw the entire terrain as a bitmap.  I know it can be annoying, sorry.


Oh sure it's easy for you to say "simpler"... ;P  Maybe later down the road.  Just not now.  ;)

 I could, and I would, if I knew the first thing about coding and writing programs! You are clearly the master in this area, so I will leave it in your capable hands for your own convenient time, if you wish to create one.

ccexplore's abilities exceed mine by quite a bit. (s)he deserves the title of Master


As you can see, (s)he's got quite a few tricks up his/her sleave.

@ccexplore: *hint* setting your gender in your profile makes it easier to refer to you ;)

You'd probably want to let the user set the palette, instead of creating the palette based on bitmaps.  Although, you might let the user import a set of colors from a bitmap...
But, as you said, later...

Why, I'm happy with "it".  ;P

Well ok, I'm a "he" (looks down there and check...yep).  ;P

I enjoy creating VGASPECx.dat files. I really should upload some good VGASPECx.dat graphics and people can try them out.

Is there a program that converts VGASPECx.dat files into BMPs?

You could take screenshots of the level, and save them as .BMPs.

Do you really need one?  After all, I already released the original VGASPECx as bitmaps (it's one of the posts on this thread).  And the new ones you created will have come from a BMP anyhow.

What will happen though is, once I put color reduction in place, I will probably have the program output the color-reduced version as a BMP as well as the VGASPEC, so you can do further editing on it (and remake the VGASPEC afterwards) if necessary.

In some games like Save the Lemmings there are graphics like that 1 on the Covox level that may want to be edited. They are extended graphics aswell.

I have a couple more questions.

Is it possible to have more than only four special graphics levels in a pack?  I mean, could you simply name the file VGASPEC5.dat and have the game refer to it?  I think that's possible by loading up the '.dat' file itself into lemedit and saving it after editing, but I'm not sure.  I found out that you can move levels around that refer to those files and they still work.

Another question:  So basically you chop off part of the screen when you have to use 960 x 160?

Oh alright.  I had a conversion program (that's how I got the BMPs for the 4 regular VGASPEC levels, over half a year ago).  I'm too busy right now, but maybe later tonight/tomorrow I can upload it.  The only caveats:

1) it's command-line only.
2) It generates a 4-bit BMP.  You'll need to use Paint to convert it to a 24-bit BMP before myvgaspec will accept it.

Yes.  In fact you can have pretty much any single character in place of the "0" or "5" or whatever, as long as it forms a legal filename according to Windows.  So vgaspecx.dat (literally the letter x) is for example a valid name (at least as far as Lemming/CustLemm is concerned, don't know about LemEdit, but it shouldn't care since it couldn't handle VGASPEC files anyway.)

I'm probably going to do just 0 to 9, because with only a single letter being changeable, it's simply not possible to uniquely named your VGASPEC files amongst everyone else's.  0 to 9 should be fine since you could only have at most 10 levels in a levelpak anyhow.  I haven't forgotten about the templates for 0 thru 9, just that for them to be more useful, I want to also finish the program that allows you to (sort of) see the special graphics terrain in LemEdit.  So just wait a little.


I'm afraid I don't understand your question.  The game always gives a level (special or not) a 1584x160 area.  For probably memory reasons, the file format of VGASPEC fixes the size of the bitmap to be exactly 960x160.  The game places the left edge of this bitmap at x=304, which ends up basically centering it within the 1584x160.

If you try to give myvgaspec a larger bitmap, it will just tell you its size and that it's too large, and refuses to do anything with it. If you try to give it a smaller bitmap, it will internally create a 960x160 version of your bitmap, by centering the original horizontally and aligned it vertically to the bottom, filling the unoccupied area with blackness.  Just try it out with a small bitmap to see for yourself.

That's so cool! :agree: :party: :thumbsup: :D

I agree :D

Whoops, I just realize that the program I used actually takes decompressed versions of the VGASPEC data to generate the BMP.  So to do what you (JM) want, I'll have to modify the program to also decompress the DAT file first.  (Or maybe you can use Mindless's program for that, if you don't mind the hassle of having to run two programs for what you want.)

Since I don't think there are really that many additional "official" VGASPECs out there, maybe it's easier if you just e-mail me the files and I'll convert them for you?  In any case I'm probably not going to do anything on this until the coming weekend.

If I get hold of Save the Lemmings I could send it to you. My e-mail is thetransplants2@hotmail.com but I don't know your e-mail address sorry.

<-- Email Button

Edit: err... YaBB adds http:// to any link that doesn't have it... including mailto: links.

Thank you.

ccexplore did you get my e-mail?

Yes, I've received it.

Ok. It's all good.

There's also a Prima Publishing special level, but the graphic is nothing special at all.
Just the letters Prima Publishing and a symbol to bash though.
If you want it though, I can send you the vgaspec file @ ccexplore.

Eh, why not, might as well.  Thanks.

I've played on that Level. The graphics of the level aren't really anything special but the Covox Level has some interesting designs.

The BMPs have been uploaded:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/myvgaspec/covox_prima.zip

Thanks for uploading them. They're great.

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/

I have uploaded a VGASPECx.dat for people to use in their own levels. Anybody feel free to use the VGSAPEC2.dat that's located in the portal. If you have any comments please tell me.

Wow. I have to try this! :)

You should try it. It's awesome. Timballisto made a level with one the new extended sets. You can find it in his 4th levelpak. I'll look forward to your new Custlemm levels Anatol. I hope I can see your new VGSAPECx set.

I'm having trouble with the colours...if I only can use those 7 colors those levels will look monotonous :(

How did Timb manage to get a level that looks so cool?

You could ask Timballisto about it I think. I've been making my own VGASPECx.dats but I haven't used any in my levels yet.

You don't think "A Beast of a Level", "What an AWESOME Level", etc. look cool? They all follow the color restriction... It's all about picking colors that go well together, as well as a couple that look good by themselves for misc. terrain features. Actually part of the reason those particular games' scenes were chosen was because of their use of that particular palette (8 colors). I think Mike posted somewhere about how other games' levels had to be rejected because of their colors.

But even the regular graphics sets follow this restriction (aside from objects), and they manage to look OK, don't you think?

Just don't be too ambitious...

I would have sworn I saw other colors than that palette in Menacing and other regular levels...I'll have a closer look :)

Beast of a level,MENACING,What an AWESOME Level and BeastII of a level all look cool. The Pipes by Timballisto also looks cool. When you edit your own VGSAPECx the palette can change as the objects in Timballisto's level has different colour. He used VGASPEC0 as a base to build his own VGSAPECx file. I could make some VGASPECx files and upload them so people can use them in their levels. I think I already uploaded 1 at Mindless's file portal. Leviathan I would love to see your own VGSAPECx file.

Menacing has 7 colors and black (I counted 4 "browns" and 3 "reds").

The regular sets can have 8 colors it seems (for terrain, aside from objects, which can have 7 or 8 more).

And of course all the objects of the base graphic set get shifted to the new VGASPECx palette. So yeah, you only get half the total number of colors in the special graphics levels, but the terrain can have almost as many as the regular levels.

It wouldn't make sense to have arbitrary palette rules that aren't used by the game for special graphics levels. If your VGASPECx.dat must conform to a certain standard, then of course all the ones used in the game will be the same way...

You said there are 4 browns and 3 reds in Menacing...

However the only colors I'm allowed to use for vgaspec.dat files are red,orange,green,yellow,blue,cyan and purple...

I tried making a vgaspec.dat file with white pixels,it didn't work.I tried doing the same in orange and it didn't work either.
I use the example from myvgaspec.zip and it works.

No, no, no.  Sorry,  looks like there's a misunderstanding.

myvgaspec will take the first 7 color it finds in your bitmap, but they can be any colors.  The example used the rainbow colors to help highlight the fact that there are 7 colors, but you're not stuck with just those specific 7.


The problem might have nothing to do with colors.  For example, what's the dimensions (width and height) of the bitmap you're trying to use?  The width must be 960 or less.  Also, your bitmap has to be of BMP format, and must be a 24 bpp BMP (in Windows, open up your graphics in MS Paint and do a Save As, making sure to select under "Type" the one that has "24" mentioned).

myvgaspec should give you fairly descriptive error messages pinpointing why it doesn't accept your bitmap.  Tell me which error message it gave you.

Here's a useful hint for those who are not clear on how to get the bitmap you want to convert to be in the format acceptable by myvgaspec.

Simply make a copy of the included example.bmp file.  Note I say to copy the file itself, not just the graphics.  Then in your copy, inside a suitable graphics program like MS Paint or Photoshop or what-not, erase all graphics and start copy-and-pasting in your own graphics, and optionally do some additional drawing as necessary.  Then just save the copy.  Since the copy started off in the correct file format, it should end up being saved in the correct format as well.

That should ensure you won't run into any errors with myvgaspec, unless there is really a bug in the program.

I don't get any error messages but when I play the level,it looks completely messed up and when fading in or out,the level behaves really strange.

I respected the dimensions...but I think I forgot the 24-bit thing.

I'll try again later today,I hae to go to school now :)

Hmm, maybe it's a bug in myvgaspec then.  Or not.

E-mail me the bitmap that's causing your problem and I'll take a look.  Thanks.

I uploaded it at the lemmings file portal...I checked the dimensions and it is 24-bit.
It's merely a test o see if it works,and it doesn't.

The file is called "lem.bpm".

Is it used in any levels?

Interesting, I just looked at the BMP.  Since there are almost no large areas of the same color, it looks like the graphics will not be compressed too well.  That could cause the size of the resulting vgaspec to be too large (unfortunately, I haven't figured out yet what the size limit would be) and consequently lead to problems in CustLemm.

Can you tell me how large the resulting vgaspec file is?

I'll probably have to take some time to fix the compression in myvgaspec so that it compresses better.  In the meanwhile, talk with Mindless.  He has a program that can recompress DAT files, and generally results in smaller sizes than even the compression used by Psynosis.  That might allow your vgaspec to work.

That being said, I don't think that particular graphics of yours will work too well as an actual level anyway, even if there are no issues.

I made that bmp just for testing purposes...I'll make another,actual level graphics and see if that works :)

Geoo's own VGSAPECx.dat is awesome  ;D ;D ;D ;D