OBLIGE Level Maker V3

INTRODUCTION

Check out Oblige II if you are interested in a Heretic or Hexen map generator, or if you just want to see what the previous version was like.

OBLIGE will have the following features which set it apart from existing programs (like the famous SLIGE by David Chess) :-

• higher quality levels, e.g. outdoor areas!
• easy to use GUI interface (no messing with command lines)
• built-in node builder, so the created levels are ready to play
• uses the LUA scripting language for easy customisation
• more games, like Heretic, Hexen and Quake!

VERSION 3.43 INFO

The good:

+  nicer GUI interface
+  name generator
+  sky generator

+  big rooms!
+  symmetrical rooms
+  room-in-a-room
+  diagonal walls

The bad:

-  only supports DOOM 1 and DOOM 2
-  only one available theme: TECH
-  no traps, no cages
-  no secrets, no powerups
-  very limited scenery

The ugly:

-  the MAP07 and MAP30 arenas
-  common glitches on outside borders
-  occasional wrong textures or misalignments
-  lousy crates all over the place

USAGE GUIDE

The top left corner is the Settings panel, which contains the most important settings.

The first control is the "SEED" number. Each SEED number produces a unique, distinctive level. Using the same SEED number always produces the exact same level (as long as the other settings are the same).

Other settings include:

• the "Game" type (DOOM, WOLF3D, HERETIC or HEXEN),
• the "Mode" of the game (SINGLE-PLAYER, CO-OP, or DEATHMATCH)
• the "Length" of the output wad (SINGLE-LEVEL, ONE-EPISODE, FULL-GAME).

The Playing Style panel lets you control the how many monsters and traps are added. as well as how much health and ammunition. OBLIGE also implements the different skill levels for each map (e.g. Hurt-me-Plenty vs Ultra-Violence).

After you've chosen the desired settings, press the "Build..." button, which will open a Save-File dialog asking you what the output file should be. Enter something appropriate, e.g. TEST, and after that OBLIGE will starting building the levels.

In Wolfenstein-3D mode, the "Build..." button does not bring up a dialog box. OBLIGE simply creates the output files in the same folder where it is installed. These files are called GAMEMAPS.WL6 and MAPHEAD.WL6 and you need to copy them into your Wolf3d folder (be sure to make a backup first!).

To exit, press the "Quit" button in the bottom left panel.

The levels created by OBLIGE are ready to play. There is no need to run the output WAD file through a node-builder program, since OBLIGE does this automatically.

You should use a Source Port to play the levels, because the original DOOM.EXE, DOOM2.EXE (etc..) may not cope with the architecture which OBLIGE creates. For example, you might get the "Visplane Overflow" error which quits the game.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to JohnnyRancid for beta-testing Oblige III, for big help with the level-name generator, and creating heaps of DOOM prefabs.

Thanks to Chris Pisarczyk and Esselfortium for very detailed feedback and bug reports on OBLIGE. These guys have even made their own Oblige mods -- they must be nutters like me :-D

I appreciate the feedback received from the other "OB3" beta-testers: gggmork and Csonicgo.

Big thanks to Derek "Dittohead" Braun for making a whole swag of Prefab structures, which kicked off some big improvements to the way OBLIGE builds stuff.

Thanks to Enhas and DoomJedi for their help.

Finally I'm grateful to everyone who provided positive feedback, bug reports and ideas for improvements, both in email and on the various forums. Cheers guys!

OBLIGE uses the cool FLTK widget library (http://www.fltk.org).

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE

CONTACT DETAILS

Website: http://oblige.sourceforge.net/

Project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/oblige

Browse the code: SVN / oblige / trunk