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andrewj

OBLIGE 7.50 released!

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Oblige is (as leilei once put it) a robot which makes DOOM maps!!

I have just released version 7.50. This is a major rework compared to 6.20, introducing a new system of generating levels based on the concept of Shape Grammars (a somewhat rudimentary application of that concept, anyway). The results are definitely better than previous versions, though it still does some stupid things sometimes.

You can get it here: http://oblige.sourceforge.net

Linux weenies can either compile from source, or use Wine to run the Windows version.

Some screenies:


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Wow those screens are decent for an automated map generator. I'll have to check it out somewhen. I'll subscribe to this thread to remind me I said that. :)

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This is AMAZING!

Set to favor the BFG, "nuts" amounts of monsters (generally of low tier), hellish, caves, and lots of traps. Or seed: 859520899 (I think so).

That chaingunner trap was really cool, especially with aggressive play. Loved the last room as well, really dickish. The Firewall cave section was quite imaginative from a design perspective -- I haven't seen that texture used that way before.



Yes, the screenshots in the OP sold me, even though I suspect those are atypically good. :) I'll record more FDAs for randomly generated wads (even the disastrous and unbeatable) if you are interested.

How does Oblige handle light variation? Seems to be noticeably absent, apart from a few highlights at logical locations.

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Very cool. Some questions, both about this version and possible future developments:

- The maps seem much more consistently textured, but on the other hand I encountered a more limited number of texturing themes. Are the two connected?
- Is there a way to make map names dependant on what elements are present? I've generated a bunch of "Valley", "Canyon", etc. maps with no natural areas and very little verticality.
- Does the "traps" variable control how many trapped pickups there are, how many traps each pickup opens, or how many monsters are in each trap?
- Is there a way to generate interconnectivity (e.g. multiple routes through the same room at different points during progression) or is that beyond the capabilities of Oblige?
- Is there a way to make traps more closely connected to the pickups that open them? At one point I picked up a key that spawned a bunch of Revenants way back in an area I had no reason to ever visit again (technically part of the same room as the door for that key, but the room itself was huge and they spawned in the opposite end).

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Very nice work once again ajapted!!

I'd probably say that the custom textures, objects and prefabs seem a little out of place against predominantly IWAD assets but this is definitely your best Oblige build yet :)

Its pretty remarkable that your map generator seems more and more human as oblige evolves. Traps and puzzles are fun, monster placement is better, decorations are nice. This is very cool and its comforting to see you still so actively working on it.

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Is there a setting to make preferred weapons appear near the start location? Sometimes I set it to LOVE the BFG but it gives me a single shotgun and lots of shells like it's an exploration map or something, and I get stonewalled at the start by the cyberdemons I told it to spam. I'm not sure what the "pistol start" setting does, but it doesn't seem to help.

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On the sillier side, I just made a mostly tech mapset with some wacky settings, loaded the wad in PrBoom+ and then...


Who is responsible for this?

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VGA said:

lmao does it generate titlepics?


It does, mostly the fonts look like ass and the actual title is word salad though, so I suspect this one was pre-generated.

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I've played around with the latest v6 versions and the latest ObHack versions, and from my small test of v7 with these settings:

Spoiler



(seed = 1796849587)

This is looking real good. Really small and fast, but one of the most fun things I've played lately. map04 (the last map) even had a really good cyberdemon boss fight. The TP traps are a really great addition.

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Awesome! Hard to believe that these screenshots are from levels randomly generated.

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I just generated a small mapset with these settings and it's pretty amazing:

Spoiler

Here's the download, try to survive the MAP03 teleporter trap on your first try. Or the MAP04 spiderdemon.
https://www.mediafire.com/?yi4sujfei2syjmk

I feel like while sometimes a bigger map will look and play amazing, generally the smaller the maps are the more interesting they are. Oblige 7 does feel a bit unpolished compared to earlier versions, like there's less variation in how things actually look. It actually feels closer to ObHack and the early Oblige versions it's based on, in the way rooms sometimes blend together into a mess of differently-textured twists and turns. I especially miss the canyon-like outdoor "caves".

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Solarn said:

I just generated a small mapset with these settings and it's pretty amazing:

Here's the download, try to survive the MAP03 teleporter trap on your first try. Or the MAP04 spiderdemon.
https://www.mediafire.com/?yi4sujfei2syjmk


Haha, fun. I got both, with really close calls. (I've started expecting dickish traps upon entering teleporters, up to the point where I'll simply fire the BFG preemptively if I have it :D).

FDAs for whole set:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ctmhdvp2ehk5t0t/obl7small2_rdwpa_fdas.rar

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I feel quite proud to be a contributor to this project since the late V2/early V3 days. That's 8 years I've been in love with this project and procedural generation is a way to give a tech boner to me.

If anyone wants slightly more texture variation, grab this and decompress it to the games/doom directory inside the Oblige directory.

Also, is there some way for some ports (IE GZDoom, Zandronum) to use the full TGA coloration palette titlepics since for some reason it downsamples the color to Doom's 256 color range?

Finally, for anyone who wants to help translate it to non-English language, check the /language/ subdirectory for the template and send the translated file to Ajapted.

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The new version is amazing!

There was some issues I had with this config, though:


Seed was 28.

* In E2M5 and E4M2, the exits seem to be swapped (the normal exit was hidden in a secret while the secret exit was out in the open).

* This is more of a gripe, but in E3M5, there's a mandatory teleporter that takes you into a smallish room with two Cyberdemons (on ITYTD, none the less), which gives you very little time to react to their rocket missiles.

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Funny how i a randomly generated 32-maps set gave me more fun than doom 2, i was gonna upload the wad but 16mb wtf.
Oblige certainly has improved!

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YukiHerz said:

Funny how i a randomly generated 32-maps set gave me more fun than doom 2, i was gonna upload the wad but 16mb wtf.

If you don't want to upload the file, I believe all Oblige wads are generated with a text file inside of them that lists out all the settings used to generate it, so you could probably just post that somewhere.

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What ever happened to the "quiet start" setting, and usage of 3d floors? I liked those features, but they seem to be gone now..

Seems a lot of settings from oblige 6.20 are gone, which is a bummer.

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mumblemumble said:

What ever happened to the "quiet start" setting, and usage of 3d floors? I liked those features, but they seem to be gone now..


"Quiet Start" was made default I believe, and more work would be needed to get the 3D floors returning.

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Neat. I've been waiting to see what "shape grammars" would be like since you mentioned the idea a while back. Still kinda sad that you dropped hexen support, though.

Solarn said:

mostly the fonts look like ass and the actual title is word salad though


So it generates realistic titlepics, then :0)

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Shouldn't this be in the Doomworld New forums? Judging from the posts here, it seems big enough to be considered Doom news.

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Voros said:

Shouldn't this be in the Doomworld New forums? Judging from the posts here, it seems big enough to be considered Doom news.


I'd wager it is because it's a major release for the program. Anyone with this sort of privilege care to frontpage this?

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Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'll bunch up all my replies into this post....

Q/ no lighting variation
A/ individual rooms get different light levels, but the same level is generally used over the whole room. I'm still thinking about how to improve that without every room becoming a "lighting salad".

Q/ more limited number of texturing themes
A/ maybe, I don't know, been a long time since I used 6.20

Q/ make map names dependant on what elements are present
A/ would be nice, but it's really hard to do

Q/ the "traps" variable
A/ controls how often traps are used, and I think the quantity. The number of monsters per trap is not affected.

Q/ interconnectivity
A/ not possible yet, but improving that is a goal

Q/ spawned a bunch of Revenants way back in an area I had no reason to ever visit again
A/ Oblige does not "know" that a monster closet is in part of a room that the player won't visit again. That is hard to check for

Q/ Is there a setting to make preferred weapons appear near the start location?
A/ no -- it would need new code (and perhaps even a new module) to support that

Q/ lmao does it generate titlepics?
A/ yes, and they will rock the world

Q/ I especially miss the canyon-like outdoor "caves"
A/ they often looked quite good, but could be hard to play without any cover anywhere. I hope to generate something better one day

Q/ has system that economies the file size of the map files too
A/ like what? I dunno what you mean

Q/ (G)ZDoom use the full TGA coloration palette titlepics
A/ depends, if it requires creating PNG format then I won't bother

Q/ In E2M5 and E4M2, the exits seem to be swapped (the normal exit was hidden in a secret while the secret exit was out in the open
A/ I will check that

Q/ the "quiet start" setting gone?
A/ yes, start rooms can be very big now, it seemed bad to have absolutely nothing going on in them

Q/ no 3D floors
A/ due to the new way of generating levels. I plan to support them again, later

Q/ dropped hexen support
A/ I need to get DOOM working really well before considering other games. Version 4.28 supported lots of games but the levels were really poor -- I consider that a mistake now.

Lastly, Glaice mentioned translating to non-English languages. Yes, that would be appreciated! The basic method to do it is to copy the file language/TEMPLATE.txt to a "PO" file whose name is the ISO 639-1 language code. For example "ru.po" for Russian, "de.po" for German, etc.... then edit it (with a text editor or PO editor) to fill out all the translations for the strings. Best place to discuss this and post any translations is on the OBLIGE forums.

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