Lemmings Remake

[EricLang]

Now can anybody help me a little with DirectXLemmings?

I installed DelphiX 1.07 and managed to display a bitmap on the DDraw Component.

Now all my rendering is done internally with TBitmap32 of the Graphics32 library. So when referring to bitmap I mean TBitmap32...

I have bitmaps for
1) the world (which is adjusted when lemmings are bashing, digging etc.)
2) all lemmings animations
3) all object animations
4) drawbitmap, which is a copy of world

Could I just do the following every frame?
1) erase lemmings and objectanimations from drawbitmap
2) updategame()
3) draw lemmings and objectanimations to drawbitmap
4) flip this drawbitmap SOMEHOW FAST to the screen.

Steps 1-3 are really very fast (thousands of frames per second)

So the basic question is: can I draw this TBitmap32 fast to the screen, adjust it and draw it fast to the screen again?

Thanks, Eric

[Traveler]

Quite exceptional work. I remember playing this game a lot when I was younger. Actually, now that I think of it, that must be like over 15 years ago. :shock: It sure does brings back some nice memories, though. Hehe, I can still see my dad play those levels again and again. He was quite good at it actually. I never got that far, but he just couldn't stop. Heh, those where the days...

Anway, I really like your version. It's pretty much a duplicate of the origional. I do remember the music being a bit different though. Iirc the tunes are the same, it just sounds a bit different. Could be my memory playing tricks though.

There was one odd thing while playing through ohno more lemmings.

As you can see in the screenshot, I used one digger, but instead of going through one floorlayer, it took a portion of the wall too. I can't be too sure if that is in the origional game as well, but I don't think that should be happening.

Anyway, its just a minor thing in an otherwise great piece of work.

And just as a sidenote: thank you for making me remind of times past. I know it may sound stupid, but life is going pretty fast these days. I believe it is a good idea to look back from time to time, to see where we are in life. Your remake kind of helped me do just that

[EricLang]

Thanks Traveler...
Now for your "digging" question. I had some help from a lemming-guru. So the game-mechanics are exactly as the original. Even some slight differences between "lemmings" and "ohno more lemmings" are built in. You can check with the original and dosbox.

Now for my questions.... ?

[czar]

That is so cool.

I almost feel like it might be a hoax and in fact you are running the original

Very well done. I would love to see a higher resolution version.

Love to have a look at the code too.

excellent work.

[czar]

Just reading some of your questions.

When using delphiX you could port your work quite easily.

The individual Tbitmaps32s would be images in the dximagelist.

You do not need to erase individual element to achieve animation. At the start of every frame the entire screen is blank and you build all the elements onto the screen. i.e. each frame you draw all the walls and particles and lemmings. This is done so quickly that it feels like the objects are animated.

Which sounds like what you are proposing to do.

I am surpised you managed all this with graphics32 I found graphics32 good but of limited use and quite a pain to maintain.

[WILL]

Very well done. I would love to see a higher resolution version.

You know Eric, it might be possible to enlist the help of a graphics guy here on PGD aswell. This site is primarily for programmers, but we get a good few artists and musicians here aswell.


As for you question; This is what I normally do in all my 2D games:

[size=9px]NOTE: graphics engines have changed often, but the basic procedure remains the same![/size]

-- Beforehand --
i) create my sprite and animation textures [size](many methods are acceptible, but keeping all frames of each animation sequence within the same single texture will speed things up drastically)[/size]
ii) create a virtual screen to draw on before sending it to video memeory
-- Begin Loop --
1) Clear the screen OR draw panaramic/background layer(s) (if I have any)
2) draw sprites/objects & tiles (may consist of multiple layers and any number of tile layers and object layers and special effects/particles)
3) Draw any forground graphics you want to pretty things up with.
4) Take the virtual screen memory and flip it into the video memory. [size=9px](Minimize on going from system memory to video memory because this slows down graphics the most!)[/size]
-- End Loop --

REMEMBER to deinitialize all allocated memory [size=9px](read a lot about memory leaks? now you know where. )[/size]

[JernejL]

sorry to interrupting: for all interested into history of lemmings:
http://www.dmadesign.org/Lem_1.htm

also see http://www.dmadesign.org/ for more history about the lemmings makers:
http://www.dmadesign.org/

[EricLang]

Ok Thanks you all so far.
Now for WILL's answer...

My main problem seems to be that DelphiX (which I am going to try for a while. It seems the best way to start of...) uses this TPicture in it's TDXImageList. How do I get the TBitmap32 in there without assigning (which means moving too much memory around)?

-----------

There is a lemmingsgame in higher resolution, written in java. It's called Lemmini (http://lemmini.de/).
And also WinLemmings has higher resolution, but unfortunately this is not a very good remake in my opinion (bugs, sluggy mouse reaction, worse game-mechanics). Lemmini is better.

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

As for the music and sounds in my remake: the musics are mod-files from the amiga version (it seems impossible to hack adlib.dat, which contains soundblaster emulation data I think) . The sounds I borrowed from the winlemmings version. Sounds will change a bit. That's still in progress. I think I am going to use the amiga sounds as well.
So the "cloning" of sounds is not 100% possible I think.

[WILL]

My main problem seems to be that DelphiX (which I am going to try for a while. It seems the best way to start of...) uses this TPicture in it's TDXImageList. How do I get the TBitmap32 in there without assigning (which means moving too much memory around)?

If my memory serves me right --it's been a good few years since I've used UnDelphiX-- you are looking for the draw function in the Help files. It is a method of the TImage object that references the 'Screen' that you wish to draw the image to.

The older DelphiX used to have an installation that setup the included help files in with your standard Help files so searching through them would be the same. Now you have to manually do this, if that is what you want.

Look the help files in the UnDelphiX folder and have a good look through them. You should specifically look for at least the drawing functions, how to fill a TDXScreen, Flip it and how to dynamically load and free images.

That should cover your basics. Sound should not differ much, I think. It's been some time since I've used the suite.

[EricLang]

Restarted the clone project. It will be further expanded.
I want to make the graphic output optional: using Graphics32, OpenGL or DirectX.

Two questions:
1) How can I handle this?
2) What is the best place to handle input (mouse, keyboard).

I'm really stuck a bit. need some advice

And I really need a good example of OpenGL 2D animation.