OBLIGE Level Maker

QUICK START

First, unpack the zip somewhere (e.g. My Documents). Make sure it is extracted with folders, and also make sure the OBLIGE.EXE file is extracted too (a few people have had the problem that Microsoft Windows would skip the EXE, and they had to change something in the internet control panel to get it extracted properly).

Double click on the OBLIGE icon (shown right) to run it. Select the target game in the top left panel, and change any settings which take your fancy. Then click the Build button in the bottom left panel, and enter an output filename, for example "TEST" (without the quotes).

OBLIGE will then build all the maps, showing a small blueprint of each one as it goes, and if everything goes smoothly the output file, for example "TEST.WAD", will have been created. Then you can play it using the normal method for playing mods with that game, e.g. modern DOOM source ports allow you drag-and-drop the WAD file onto the EXE to play it.

WINDOW LAYOUT

The following diagram shows the GUI for OBLIGE. You can see that the window is divided into three distinct columns, and each columns contains several panels. Two of the columns can be scrolled. The panels are discussed in separate sections below.

GAME SETTINGS

The top left panel contains the most important settings.

These settings include the Game to build for (currently limited to the DOOM family of games), and the Length of the output wad (SINGLE-LEVEL, ONE-EPISODE, FULL-GAME).

The Theme button has several normal themes and also some special settings. The "Jumbled" setting means each map's theme is chosen purely randomly (and usually different from the last), where "A Bit Mixed" means groups of 2-4 maps have the same theme before choosing a new one. The "Original" setting causes the themes in each episode to try and match the original game, where the "xxx-ish" settings mean you get mostly "xxx" but with a different theme thrown in occasionally.

ARCHITECTURE PANEL

The Level Architecture panel lets you control general features of the maps, like what size they should be, how many outdoor areas and caves to make. Even more control is available in the Miscellaneous module.

Choosing "Mix It Up" as a setting means that each map will get different values, chosen at random. For example, using it with the Size button causes the maps to be a mixture of small, regular and large.

MONSTERS and PICKUPS

These two panels are all about the gameplay. Here you can control the quantity and strength of the monsters, how much health and ammunition should be added, etc....

The Strength button determines the overall toughness of the monsters. The "Normal" setting is designed to give a mix of monsters similar to the levels in the original game. Compared to that, the "Weak" setting produces weaker monsters and the "Tough" setting gives tougher ones. Note that the toughness increases over the course of an episode or game, it starts off quite weak and ramps up to the chosen setting by the end. How fast this ramping up occurs can be controlled by the Ramp Up button.

The "Crazy" strength setting works a bit differently. It forgets all about trying to make battles which are fair, and throws any or all of the monsters at you, including bosses! Be warned though, playing maps on this setting can actually drive you insane.

OTHER MODULES

Modules allow for additional customisation of various aspects of the level generation process, or to support features specific to a certain source port.

Modules are enabled or disabled by the check-box next to the module's name. Modules must be both enabled and visible in order to have any effect, otherwise they do nothing. When a module has options, those options are hidden while the module is disabled.

Modules can depend on a certain game, or a certain engine (source port), or even on another module. When a module is not usable with the current settings, it stays hidden. For example, a module which requires ZDoom will not be visible until ZDoom is chosen for the Engine button. Changing the current game or the current engine can cause some modules to appear and/or other modules to disappear.

BUILD PANEL

Once you have chosen your desired settings, press the Build button. This 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.

The levels created by OBLIGE are ready to play. There is no need to run the output WAD file through a node builder, since OBLIGE includes a built-in version of glBSP.

MENU FUNCTIONS

The Build panel contains a menu which provides access to some additional functionality, such as:

• Options : allows setting some UI-related stuff, such as the current language and the size of the window/font.
• Addon List : lets you enable and disable add-on packages, which are PK3 files used to modify the scripts and other data files of OBLIGE.
• Set Seed : here you can change the Random Seed that OBLIGE will use to build the next set of levels.
• Config Manager : lets you manage config files (files containing OBLIGE settings), such as loading settings from a file (including previously created WAD files) and saving the settings to a new file.

Note that settings in the Options and Addon windows typically require OBLIGE to be restarted before they take effect. Changes to add-ons mean that all the Lua scripts that OBLIGE has loaded are now invalidated, hence OBLIGE must be shut down and restarted.

BATCH MODE

Batch mode allows running OBLIGE non-interactively (without any GUI), e.g. from the command-line in a terminal window or from a script. Since there is no user interface, all settings must be given as command-line arguments or loaded from a pre-existing config file.

Here is a simple example:

The "--batch" option is essential, and it must be followed by the output filename. There are other options which begin with "--", for example "--verbose" causes lots of messages to be displayed in your terminal window.

Options of the form "name=keyword" are used to set OBLIGE settings. Note that there must not be any spaces around the "=" sign. Running OBLIGE normally and using the Config Manager (F9 key) is a good way to get familiar for what settings are available, and which keywords they require.

When you want to control many settings, there is a better way than simply adding lots of arguments to the command line. Instead you can use the Config Manager to save your desired settings into a file, such as "MYCONF.txt", and use the "--load" option to load those settings in batch mode. For example:

IMPORTANT NOTES

OBLIGE requires the full version of each game it supports. It will NOT work properly with shareware or demo versions, and never will.

Most games let you play at different skill levels, for example: Hurt-Me-Plenty vs Ultra-Violence, and OBLIGE takes them into account. Easier skill levels will have less monsters than harder skill levels, while health and ammo remain the same.

You need to use a Source Port to play the levels, because the original DOS versions, such as DOOM.EXE and DOOM2.EXE, cannot cope with the architecture which OBLIGE creates. For example, you will probably get the "Visplane Overflow" error which quits the game, or a crash when saving to a savegame. Note that Chocolate-Doom has the same limitations as the original DOS versions, and hence cannot be used either.