So, long story (basically, my PC with all my lemmings stuff doesn't have any way to get onto the internet [something wrong with it, still trying to figure out how to fix it] and I've tried to stay away from here b/c if I see what all you guys are doing, I'd get disappointed I can't play it [this is my parents computer, and they don't want me downloading stuff]  :()

So, I come back, and I see these:

http://www.geocities.com/zarathustra47/Teaser.gif

and

http://home.arcor.de/0xdeadbeef/escher.png

Can someone fill me in on them? :D

Whoa.
     

Ahribar's Teaser was just one of the levels of his that he remade in his new style, which features graphics from the original games.  The style is still not ready basically because I'm a jerk and procrastinator (you see, I was suppose to make the ONML MIDIs for him, but I dragged on for months on this and still hasn't finished).

Deadbeef's screenshots are mock-ups of a program he's writing, basically a Java version of Lemmings.  The graphics come from the Windows version of Lemmings, in particular the high-resolution graphics from that version of the game.  I don't know what features of the program he has working now at this point.

In short, you didn't really miss much.  Both projects will eventually be released for real, which probably won't happen for a while.

Thanks. :)

Well, here's a more recent screenshort of my little project:
http://home.arcor.de/0xdeadbeef/lemmgreen.png

The screenshots are not "mock ups" in the sense of put together in a graphics program. These are actual "in game" shots.
Then again, at this moment, large parts of the game logic are still missing (not to speak of sound, music etc.) and while I added the loading of all the lemmings animations recently and started with the lemmings state machine, I must admit, my progress was rather slow lately (due to heavy workload in my "real" job, sickness and lazyness).

Status Quo of the project:
- ripped all 9 gfx sets from the windows version (original + oh no!)
- converted all 80 original and 96 oh no levels to text files
- added code to load all (?) of the 176 level, display them with all draw modes and full animation of animated objects
- included the 4 "special" levels
- created collision mask out of level data and hand drawn collision masks for exit/traps
- implemented mousescrolling and keyboard scrolling
- ripped and integrated all animations of all the lemmings
- ripped and integrated icon bar which is already working in sense of pressing buttons etc. while the game code is still missing
- ripped and integrated number charset and complete charset
- added mini-map

I implemented walkers, fallers and the splatter animation last night:
http://home.arcor.de/0xdeadbeef/walker_faller_splat.png

Next step will be to add code so I can change a lemming's skill.

Well, still a long way to go, but at least they're walking at last...

Do you have a link to the latest JAR?

Sounds like it's about time for people to start testing your stuff, now that you have moving lemmings.

At this moment, only walkers, fallers, floaters and climbers work (at least to a certain degree).
These were the simple lemmings, since they don't alter the collision mask.
Implementing the blocker, digger, basher, miner and bomber will be a little more work and before I finished this, I don't think beta testing would make any sense.
Apart from that, the exits aren't working, the entry works only manually (by pressing space at the moment) and levels can only be loaded via a file requester which wouldn't work in a Jar.

However, as soon as I have something that is worth testing, I would greatly appreciate the help of a small group of beta testers to help me find out were my version doesn't work as it should be.

Anyway, most probably I won't have much time to continue this weekend and I'm on a business trip next week, so chances are little that this will happen soon.

I disagree.  Even now, I can start checking for things like whether your fallers are falling too slow or too fast (3 pixels per frame in the 320x160 resolution of DOS and Amiga).  I can check whether your skill assignment handler will do things like allowing you to assign skills on a lemming that's splattering (it shouldn't), or how it handles the case of multiple lemmings under the same cursor (select the one who came out the latest, as you haven't implement the other skills at this point).  I can check what is the maximum distance your lemmings can fall without splattering (somewhat of a long story if you want to imitate DOS/Amiga/Windows/etc. exactly, but roughly 60-63 pixels).  And so on.


Those aren't problems in terms of testing what you have now.  Though it is useful to be able to load levels, especially custom levels that I can create specifically for testing.

I don't actually need to run jar.  I can always unzip it and directly run the .class file that has your main() method.


My point is that it looks like you already have something worth testing.  The sooner testing begins, the faster we can get bugs out of the way.


Which is a good time for people to do the testing on.  Though granted, what you have right now will probably not take all week.

I have a very large list of thing I know that don't work. There are even some "array out of bounds" exception, lemmings climbing though solid ceilings and so on. The skill assignment can only assign climbers and floaters. So just believe me: at this state, I don't need someone else to tell me that it's not really working yet. I might have something more useful after the next (not this) weekend. But no promises.

If you really wish to support me, you could provide me with a set of test levels to check fall distance, maximum height of obstacles that a lemming can climb and so on.
This would really help me in this stage of development.

Levels should be either in LVL format or in my own (very simple) INI format which is just simply a text file describing all the objects.

I wrote myself a very basic java tool to convert all the original levels (win95 2kb LVL files)  to a text format. The tool also scales all the data by 2 since I have a twice as large level.
You can download it here:
http://home.arcor.de/0xdeadbeef/LemmLevel.jar

It's a very simple command line tool without very extensive error checking, but it does its job.
Use it like this from the command line:

java -jar lemmlevel.jar d:\mylevel

It will convert all files called "*.LVL" to text files called "*.INI" in the given path. Without a parameter, it will use the current directory.

Note that this only works for the (2kb) LVL files of the Win95 version.

Perhaps you could use XML instead of your INI format... see... um... [link=http://eng-forum.lemmingswelt.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=1123253327;start=18#18]here[/link].

Just a suggestion. ;P

To be honest, I'm not completely convinced of the need or usefulness of having it in XML format.  (covox never really explained that choice either)

Which four ONML levels are you missing?

Maybe those in DLVEL012.DAT? There's only 4 levels in that pack (the leftovers. Tame 17-20).

Ha!  Sounds like we just found the first bug in your program, 0xdeadbeef. ;P And without even having working code to play around with yet.  ;)

Incidentally, if you don't want people to report bugs you already know about, keep a bug list and include that with every release.  You should keep a bug list anyway in any case so you don't lose track of them yourself.

But no hurry.  Just that some bugs tend to be harder to diagnose the later they are discovered.

I can tell you from personal experience that Tame 17-20 were not in the Win95 version.  B)

Ok guys,

about XML:
To be honest, I don't see the need for XML there.  BTW: I have more configuration files than the levels and all are in simple text format (so I can load them in as java properties). This costs me no extra code or effort while for XML I would need to include an XML API like JDOM or something.
XML is probably a good thing for other purposes, but for a lemmings level description it's a bit "over the top" IMHO.

about "missing" levels:
Indeed I converted all "Oh No!" levels that are in the Win95 version.  If this version misses some levels, could someone provide me with these - if possible in the Win95 format?

about my progress:
I had my notebook with me this weekend and could continue development a little bit. Indeed I fixed some things (climbers, walkers walking out of level ceiling) and added playing of midi music and sound effects. Both functions need a little polishing, but already work quite ok.
I also added bombers and the nuke button and while both work to some degree (countdown, explode animation and explode mask subtracted from collision mask and background image), this will need some more effort to work like it should. E.g. particle effects are missing and if nuked, all lemmings explode at once, while they should explode one after the other.

BTW:
I just wonder: how did the original (Amiga) version select the music for a level? Is this random or are the tracks looped or is the relation level <-> music defined somewhere (at least for some levels) ???

That's fine, it was just a suggestion.  Perhaps you can add it after you get the game finished... perhaps not...  O_o

Unlike the DOS version, in the Amiga and many other versions, there's a definite level <-> music relationship for all levels, and it's basically a loop.

Basically there's a sequence of 17 music, and it is repeated over and over, so Fun 18 gets the same music as Fun 1 for example.  The only exception is the 4 "special graphics" levels which have their own music.  I forgot what happens to the sequence whe interrupted by the special graphics levels (ie. whether Fun 23 gets the music of Fun 6 or Fun 5), except that the Amiga/SNES/etc. behavior is opposite that of DOS's.

I forgot what the sequence is on the Amiga, but I have a feeling it's probably the one presented by the jukebox:

http://www.deveria.com/alexis/lemmings/lemmings/music/lemjuke.html

Note also that in the Amiga (and a few other) versions, since ONML is released separately from Lemmings, the ONML levels have their own repeating music sequence (though only 6 rather than 17).

I asked the exact question a while ago:
http://eng-forum.lemmingswelt.de/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=1114699813

EDIT: see ccexplore's post below.

Please note what I just said (bold added for emphasis):


I'm fairly sure DragonsLover checked the DOS version of the game.  So since 0xdeadbeef asked about the Amiga version, your answer is actually incorrect since the opposite happens on the Amiga.

[goes check the Amiga version. 10 minutes later...]

Yep, the Amiga version skips the Fun 5 music after Fun 22.

Aha! :D And that actually makes more sense, since I expect the Mac does the same, and that would stop there being a major screw-up with my edited sets that had the special levels in different places (since each level number is always associated with the same music). Thank you!

Hm, the Win95 version has only 15 songs.
Compared to the Jukebox, the order seems to be:

01: cancanp.mid
02: LEMMIN1P.MID
03: TIM2P.MID
04: LEMMIN2P.MID
05: TIM8P.MID
06: TIM3P.MID
07: TIM5P.MID
08: ???
09: TIM6P.MID
10: LEMMIN3P.MID
11: TIM7P.MID
12: TIM9P.MID
13: TIM1P.MID
14: ???
15: TIM4P.MID
16: TENLEMSP.MID
17: MOUNTAIP.MID

So I'm missing already 2 songs for the original levels: 8 and 14.

I got a midi called Menacing from one of the guys here, but  don't have the songs for the three other special levels.

I mean, I have all the songs as MP3s, but these are much larger and need more runtime than the midi songs.

Any chance I can get the missing songs as midis from somewhere?

[EDIT]
Hm, seems I found song 14 on a NES midi site. Still 4 songs missing.

The other non-special level you are missing is "How much is that doggie...", this wasn't on the win95 version, but you should be able to find a midi of it on the internet (via a search engine), or I could just send the midi I have to you.

Hm, the midis easily found are obviously all the same boring piano version of the doggie-song which don't really sound much like the Amiga version. I found a version that's a little better, but still doesn't really fit into the playlist.

How hard would it be to add MOD support to the game instead of MIDI?

You'd be hard-put to find a version of doggie that sounds even close to the Amiga, or heck, even the DOS one for that matter.

Both incorporate dog barks, which isn't standard MIDI instrument.  The Amiga one uses samples for the dog barks.

There are MOD libraries available for Java, so this wouldn't be too much of a hassle, I guess. However, as far as I understand, even on the Amiga, the songs are not in a standard MOD format (Protracker/Fastracker, whatever), but in a custom "Soundplayer" format.

If I had the Amiga songs in a Tracker-compatible MOD-format, this would be surely a good alternative to the MIDI format.

Let's not worry about this for now then.  If I were to remake Lemmings, music would be the lowest priority right below sound effects.

...being able to edit lemmings music in it's original style would be pretty cool though.  

That reminds me.  I find that there are two ways that lemming music can sound.  For one way (this one being the way I don't like) the first level has an instrument that sounds like a truck  motor.  For the second way, (Awesome sounding) no instrument even resembles a truck motor, and instead of maintaining the same volume the whole time during a note, they fade out much like when you hit a piano key, but don't let go of it.  I think this is because of differences in the sound card or something but I don't know.

The songs that are missing in WinLem are the song number 11 and the number 17 in the original version of Lemmings. On Atari ST, Amiga and PC: they have all 17 songs. On WinLem: only 15 (and this not include the Ohno! ones). I've sequenced these songs, the hardest one to make is the song number 11. I prefer the Atari ST one because the song 11 on Atari ST is longer than the other versions.



In Oh no! more Lemmings, the only level not available for WinLem is, of course: INTRODUCING: SUPERLEMMING.

In original lemmings, only the special levels.

About the music sequence (based on the Lemmings Jukebox and after, the WinLemm song):

Under Dos
1. Track 2 - Lemmin1p
2. Track 4 - Lemmin2p
3. Track 10 - Lemmin3p
4. Track 17 - Mountaip
5. Track 16 - Tenlemsp
6. Track 1 - Cancanp
7. Track 13 - Tim1p
8. Track 3 - Tim2p
9. Track 6 - Tim3p
10. Track 15 - Tim4p
11. Track 8 - {Unavailable}
12. Track 7 - Tim5p
13. Track 9 - Tim6p
14. Track 11 - Tim7p
15. Track 5 - Tim8p
16. Track 12 - Tim9p
17. Track 14 - {Unavailable}

For the amiga songs, the order is the same than on the Jukebox.

For the Atari ST list, I'll do it tomorrow!

0xdeadbeef: I've been collecting Lemmings MIDIs for some Cheapo styles I've been making. I got a couple of the Internet, and some from ccexplore and DragonsLover. I have the "Beast" and "BeastII" specials if you want those. I'd also love to have your "Doggie" and "O Little Town" MIDIs; I have two for "O Little Town" but wouldn't mind trying out another to see if it's better; and I have nothing at all for "Doggie". Use my e-mail link on the left under my username.

DragonsLover: have you sequenced more of the songs since you sent me yours, then? Please please send!

Actually there are like half a dozen ways they can sound depending on which version (ie. for which system) of the game you're looking at.

The DOS version (either Adlib or Tandy) is not exactly high quality since it's limited by the sound hardware available to PC back then.  In fact, I'd probably rate it the lowest, though to some degree I guess this depends on personal preferences and familiarity.

Didn't DragonsLover sent you his version?  Even I have it.  I'll resend it to you.

Cool! No, he didn't; he sent me all the musics he'd done, but there were a couple he hadn't done yet at the time -- "Doggie", "Cancan" and "Ten Green Bottles". I don't much care about the latter two, as I have good versions of those musics from elsewhere; but if you have DragonsLover's versions (that is, if he finished them), I wouldn't mind if you'd send those too, since it's always good to have a bit more variety.

I'm gonna send you back the same midis, I've improved them and added more (BeastI and Menacing). Enjoy!

Someone else want my songs? ;P

Note: The Doggie song isn't good enough, even if I have 3 different versions. It is very hard to sequenced if I tried the Amiga or PC version. I'll prefer do a mix of both Amiga and Atari ST, because Atari ST is longer. I've sequenced an Atari ST version in one of the 3 files.

Hm,

I'd still still take the two songs missing in the Win95 version. I'm also looking for the songs for the 4 special levels (I only have a version of "menacing").
Additionally, I don't have a single song for ONML...

However I also did some research on lemmings mod files. There seem to be conversions/recreations of single tunes, but at the moment, I don't see a chance to get all Songs in that format, while for midi, I'm at least close.
Then again, I'd still be interested in using mod based music, but only if someone could point me to the appropriate ressources.

Could you send them to me too, please? (e-mail: geoo89(ad)gmail(dod)com )

I think ccexplore is sequencing some, I don't know how far he got until now.

Could I have some too? It's just to see if they're worth having. :P

Atari ST (still based on Lemmings Jukebox and WinLem)

1. Track 17 - Mountaip
2. Track 2 - Lemmin1p
3. Track 3 - Tim2p
4. Track 4 - Lemmin2p
5. Track 5 - Tim8p
6. Track 6 - Tim3p
7. Track 7 - Tim5p
8. Track 8 - {Unavailable}
9. Track 9 - Tim6p
10. Track 10 - Lemmin3p
11. Track 11 - Tim7p
12. Track 12 - Tim9p
13. Track 13 - Tim1p
14. Track 1 - Cancanp
15. Track 14 - {Unavailable}
16. Track 15 - Tim4p
17. Track 16 - Tenlemsp

Note that it's almost the same thing than on Amiga, excepted 2 songs.



I guess that ccexplore converted them.

Geoo89, ok, I'm gonna send you the songs. You too, Isu. ;P

The emails are sended to you 3. Look in your Inbox! :D

3? Yep! 0xdeadbeef was interested too! ;P

Oh thanks. Some sound better than the WinLemm midis, some don't I think.

A little problem is that when the song finishes, not the whole time is up, i.e. it doesn't play anything for some time. (e.g. song ends after 1:20, but the whole time of the song is 2 min, so there's 40 sec of nothing played.)
Anyone else with this problem?

It's really not worth trying.  Dog barks are not something that can be handled well by MIDI, at least standard MIDI.  Even the DOS version hardly sounds like dog barks, but at least the FM-synthesis capability of Adlib cards allows some degree of control over the sound timbre.  With MIDI you're basically stuck with the standard GM set of instruments, which doesn't include any sort of dog barks.

40 seconds of nothing is definitely weird.  Feel free to send the problem MIDI file to me and I'll take a look when I have the time.

Well, as Ahribar have reminded all of us recently again and again, I have yet to deliver my promise to get them done.  But I haven't given up, despite all appearances to the contrary......

I did have one of the ONML ones done a while back.  I'm trying to get the other ones done as soon as possible, but note that this thing was started back in June/July.

As for the 4 special levels, I have something for BeastI and something for BeastII if you're interested.  I plan on hand-sequencing the Awesome one but that could take a little time.


Can you point me to some URLs?

If it's a true conversion, it seems weird that they would only be able to get a single tune rather than all of them.  My understanding is that the main different between the MOD and Lemming's custom format is that with Lemming's custom format, the samples are shared amongst all the music, whereas in MOD each track specifies its own samples.  So it would seem that if someone was able to convert one, there is no reason not to be able to convert all.

Whereas if it's a re-creation, well, look forward to waiting forever for all of them to get completed.

So, you too you sequence songs by hand? Can I have a copy of your Lemmings&Cie songs please?

I thought you converted them, but I realise that it's not. Sorry!

*AHEM*

I have some of these. Could you e-mail me the ones you have (you said you had some, right?) for the two missing musics in exchange?

No, but I'd like a MIDI with the extra section even if it's just notes and not dog barks. The "tune section" repeated endlessly with no variety would just be very annoying. (Though it's a damn annoying music anyway, of course......)

How about the Genesis version of Doggie?  It is most amenable to MIDI, and isn't too boring comparatively speaking.

I did convert the ONML ones, although even there, I still needed to do the following to produce something of Ahribar's satisfaction:

1) fix incorrect conversions (sometimes the notes' pitches are an octave too high or too low).  Also I need to explicitly pick out which tracks are percussion.

2) pick a good combination of instruments (especially made challenging since general MIDI lacks good control of sound timbre)

3) balance the volume amongst the parts

4) possibly add an ending so that it loops well in Cheapo

---------------------

For the special graphics level ones, I hand-made BeastI (it's very easy to do), and convert the BeastII one from SNES version.  For Awesome, I like the Amiga version the best, but there's no good way to do an automatic conversion for that one, so I decided to hand-sequence it--as a result I haven't finished with it yet.

It's been a while since I've heard it..... but yes, if you think you could find or make a MIDI of it, I'd be happy!

Incidentally, DragonsLover has now sent me three versions of Doggie, and the third one has a different second section -- not the same as the Amiga music but different again -- so I have a less annoying version now :) but that doesn't mean I'm stopping looking.

Ahribar, this song is the one on Atari ST.

Just listen yourself:

Lemmings Atari ST songs

They are all there! Download "Lemmings_04.ym". You'll need STSound program to listen the song, just go here:

Leonard Homepage

Go into the ST-Sound section and select Download. Download the program there (St-Sound v5.5 for Windows). After, run the program, click on the disk icon and choose the files "Lemmings_04.ym". Listen! :D

Actually it's almost all files. Nr. 17 ("Forest Green" I think) even has 1:20 without music, BUT there's something strange: Nr. 17 has 1:20 of music and 1:20 of nothing. When I click on the time bar at e.g. 1:40 after it had ended, some music is played again: parts of the song I already heared within the 1:20. So I think it's a problem with my music player.
However, I send this midi to you (guestlevels).
@DragonsLover: How long should the track 17 actually play? 1:20 or 2:40 or even something else?

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/files/lemmings_music_amiga_mod.zip

Tim2 doesn't sound too good, but the rest are very close to the originals.

That MIDI works fine on my computer. It's 1 minute 19 seconds long.

1:19:10 exactly!

That's strange! I don't think it's my MIDI file that is incorrect, but your player. Which one you used? :-/

Since I also have other problems with it, you don't have problems with the midi file and it actually takes only 1:19 I think my player itself is the problem.
I think I'll switch to a different one.

I just remembered that I never replied to this; and now that I'm home again I have access to the Genesis emulator once more.

I've had a listen, and I really don't think I want to use that version; I'd much rather stick with the one I have from DragonsLover. So that's one less for you to worry about  B)

I'm gonna sequence a new Doggie song soon. I'll see for the time I'll have because my vacation time is almost over! :-(