OBLIGE / ObHack, Total Conversion. custom levels?

[Sunny Day]

I sent a mail to the ObHack creator, but my mail is bust, so Ill poise the question here as I believe its to interest, it concerns how random generated level creators function, and how to use them to make custom levels with ones own art resources.

So from the question I posed to the creator of ObHack-

Ive been playing around with ObHack, It makes doom 2 maps great, but I notice it wont make other maps , like heretic, it makes them but they don't have the sprites and textures etc, I'm not sure how ObHack gets its resources for the wad, I would of thought you would manually tell it where the original wad for the game its building is located, I have seen no option for that, so perhaps it looks in some place for the wad to be installed, it builds Doom 2 levels, so it must of got the original Doom2 wad from some place from my computer, for Heretic it must know where the wad is, Ive no idea where one places wads for it to find so it can make random generated wads built from the original games resources.

I also want to have ObHack build custom games from my own. Is it possible for ObHack to use custom content so one can build a game with entirely new content created by myself, I am wondering if there is any possible way to do that. Not sure if that would have to be done via themes perhaps and creating a custom wad for ObHack to find to make the level from.

[samiam]

OK, if you sent me a mail and I didn't replay to it, apologies.

The difference between Oblige/ObHack making Doom/Doom2 and Heretic levels is there are a number of prefabs for Doom and Doom2 that don't exist for Heretic. A prefab is basically an object that is in a room, such as a window with a given shape, a pillar in a cave, a computer terminal, a skylight, or what not that adds a bit of ambiance to the map.

There aren't any prefabs for Heretic, so the levels are a little more plain and not as interesting.

Oblige/ObHack actually don't need to use the Doom wad to make levels; the code has internally all of the Doom/Heretic/etc. information included needed to make a level for the game in question.

- Sam

[Sunny Day]

when I open the generated level in XWE for a Doom2 created game I can see all the textures and sprites etc, but when one opens a Heretc map one cannot see the sprites and textures, only the two stock Oblige level maker ones, so Doom2 textures sprites sounds etc get into the generated wad somehow as I can open the wad in XWE and see them all, I can export them out of XWE if I wanted, for a Heretic level, they are not even in the wad when one opens it in XWE.

Also I am curious into what one can do to use your own textures and sprites rather than stock game ones and have the generator use them instead.

[Sunny Day]

Ive had a look at this, you can open the created wads in doom builder and it will ask you what file the textures/resources etc are located, then it will load them into the wad and then we can save out, and they will be all in the wad, I'm assuming how this works is that you make the ObHack level, load it in a source port, it will ask you where you keep the original game resources, and then load it from that. I'm new to Doom editing, used game engines for years, its just Doom that's new to me.

I'm still curious as to how we can use this to use our content and not the classic doom content, its it possible? How does the program work, how does it decide what textures to place on the walls.

[andrewj]

Do you have the full game of Heretic installed on your computer?

It sounds like you are trying to play the maps generated for Heretic using a DOOM port, and that obviously won't work. Be sure to save the output file in the same folder where Heretic is installed.

To customise OBLIGE for new content, you need to know how to program. OBLIGE uses the "Lua" programming language. Knowing how to edit maps is useful too (so you can find what texture names to use).

The lua scripts are text files which you can open in a text editor (like Notepad, but not Word). For example if you open "x_doom1.lua", and look for TECH_BASE, you'll find some lines like this:

  TECH_BASE =
  {
    theme_probs = { TECH=80 },
    mat_pri = 8,
    wall  = "STARTAN3",
    floor = "FLOOR4_8",
    ceil  = "CEIL3_6",

That shows the "wall" texture uses the "STARTAN3" texture. Change that texture name and next time Oblige uses the TECH_BASE theme, it will use the new texture.

Eventually I will write some documentation on modding OBLIGE. However right now I am doing a big rewrite (for better levels) and everything is still in flux.

[Sunny Day]

I looked at the themes code, looking at the example, it is using "STARTAN3" texture for a TECH_BASE theme, for the walls, isn't that just using one texture for that theme, wouldn't it be best to have it say use from this texture to this texture, or to input a big list of all the textures it could use for the walls in a theme, it looks like it is just using one in the code example, perhaps it does say to use more than one texture for the wall and I'm not getting it.

In the generated levels it uses more than one tex on the walls I am sure, This program would be awesome to be able to change things around, I'm not a scripter but the Lua programming doc for the themes doesn't look too hard to add and change even for non coders if they had a few guidelines.

I just want to go over this -

TECH_BASE =
{
theme_probs = { TECH=80 },
mat_pri = 8,
wall = "STARTAN3",
floor = "FLOOR4_8",
ceil = "CEIL3_6",

It says
theme_probs = { TECH=80 },
80 what?
also
mat_pri = 8,
Whats that part.
Then we have
wall = "STARTAN3",
floor = "FLOOR4_8",
ceil = "CEIL3_6",
It looks like its saying the theme is just these 3 textures only.
So not sure how that works, as we want a selection of textures it would use to make the theme, not the same one texture on all the walls ceiling and floor.

What it needs is to set ones own themes, a front end for this would be great, perhaps this could be done for your upgraded version, that would really be great to be able to put into it settings themes, and put in which textures are set in the themes, save these as sets, then when we make a game, we can pick one of the texture sets that contains the themes we have made. Now that would be really fantastic.

I hope you continue with Oblige, I think its just about the best design tool I have come across and Ive been designing games for quite some time, its really quite unique.

[andrewj]

Each room only has one wall texture, one floor texture and one ceiling texture. [In DOOM the floor/ceiling textures are called "flats" and are a different set of images than all the walls]

This per-room texture set is called a COMBO.

Each THEME (e.g. "TECH" or "CAVE") contains many COMBOs it can use, so that the whole map has some variation. Hallways have their own COMBOs too. It is a very basic system but is adequate for the time being.

Sometimes a room has a different wall on one side because of the room on the other side (the wall is shared between the two rooms, but can only use one texture).

Pictures in walls and other details are done with Prefabs.