What do oblige levels have in them that shows they weren't created by a person? And could someone strip this out if they wanted to fool someone?

I'm not proposing doing this but always wondered if someone could in theory sneak a map into the archive.  I think there's a header in the wad and also something on the automap that gives it away?

Several things, all of which are best left unsaid to make it more difficult.

But yeah, it's possible if you wanted to be really thorough and couldn't recognize Oblige's generation style.

1 minute ago, Dark Pulse said:

Several things, all of which are best left unsaid to make it more difficult.

 

But yeah, it's possible if you wanted to be really thorough and couldn't recognize Oblige's generation style.

Sounds like it would be more effort than simply making ones' own map.

3 minutes ago, invictius said:

 

Sounds like it would be more effort than simply making ones' own map.

Considering the wealth of tools and tutorials nowadays, it pretty much would be. Learning all the stuff you'd have to remove, alter, and tweak would basically have you most of the way on to making a map anyway.

Forgive me but aren't Oblige maps just huge clusters of prefabs slapped together? Look for the various prefabs Oblige maps are built out of, especially recurring instances of them and bam, you've proven it's an Oblige map, even if it's been copypasted into another wad to remove the header data and whatever else. A laymen could probably still figure it out somewhat easily, nonsensical item and monster placement that recurs multiple times in the same pattern throughout the map would be a dead giveaway, even more blatant if there are several maps back to back.

Man, screw Oblige

This is a timely question for me, as I'm currently working on doing exactly that. I wanted to do this experiment and I like the very general layout of a lot of Oblige maps, so I generated a few until I found something I thought I could work with. The first thing I did was ditch all Things, line actions, sector tags, and sector effects. I have to say, I think it's on a trajectory to where I could easily pass it off as entirely my own, but I'm actually intentionally leaving in some aspects that could be used as potential identifiers if I liked them. To be sure, this process has saved me minimal time, if any, and it's hardly saved any creativity, just redirected it. But it's been a fun and interesting process. The biggest mistake I made is not saving the original map. All I have is a very early version after I had already deleted lots of things and textured almost everything the same.

But to answer your first question with examples:

• little 64 x 64 x 16 high platforms with goodies on them
• a significant amount of map after the "exit" door
• a very discernible tunnel style
• rounded-ish corners that are 45 degree angles at 22.63 length
• little switch alcoves
• a very discernible faux arch style
• staircases that are 32-deep and 8 high (the 8 high is the big giveaway)
• a small, empty start room

There are many more, but that's all I can think of right now. Like I said, the experiment I'm in the middle of is basically only for layout. I certainly wouldn't advise keeping the generated monsters or, in many cases, the map flow.

I don't know much about Oblige but i know that for Slige (the precursor) the very first area (or sector i guess) is usually a secret. Not sure if Oblige does that as it's supposedly a lot more advanced.

Anyway's this isn't super related (and it's already known) but if you want to try some "real fun" maps, try the daily auto-generated Slige maps. I'm sure you'll have the time of your life ;) https://soulsphere.org/hacks/slige/

Seriously though, it is neat that site exists. Kudo's to Fraggle.