AngularJS ngClass conditional

Your first attempt was almost right, It should work without the quotes.

{test: obj.value1 == 'someothervalue'}

Here is a plnkr.

The ngClass directive will work with any expression that evaluates truthy or falsey, a bit similar to Javascript expressions but with some differences, you can read about here. If your conditional is too complex, then you can use a function that returns truthy or falsey, as you did in your third attempt.

Just to complement: You can also use logical operators to form logical expressions like

ng-class="{'test': obj.value1 == 'someothervalue' || obj.value2 == 'somethingelse'}"