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Dragonthorne Beta 1


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#1 Krotus

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Posted 07 October 2019 - 04:50 AM

This is a fantasy parkland course set on a fictional landscape on the slopes of a fictional cascade range mountain in the state of Oregon. What I wanted to do was create something fun, a little unconventional but not gimmicky that placed a premium on accuracy. There are some risk/reward areas. Some holes are designed to be a real challenge while a few others are easier to give the player a chance to make up some shots. There are a couple of dual fairways and Hole 14 is a long downhill Par 4 with a fragmented set of fairways. If you can control a long hook shot, there is a narrow fairway on the left that will give you an unobstructed shot at the pin. I tried to create the hole in a way that gives the player a chance to chip onto one of the fairways from any reasonable trouble spot.

 

I don't believe that all Par 5 holes should be reachable in two no matter how long your drive is. However, the Par 5s on the back nine are reachable in two if you can place your drive just right.

 

This beta is the basic layout with basic textures and basic foliage. All hazards are marked and all holes have flybys. Hole 2 will eventually have a waterfall behind the hole. Most of the bunkers are too deep and need work. Hole 10 needs to be redesigned; the idea didn't work out well at all. One thing that will stand out is that while the fairways are more or less irregularly shaped, I used very straight lines where there are straightaways.

 

This is the first time I have ever crated a course so questions, comments, suggestions and constructive criticism are all welcome.

 

Screen shots:

beta1-1.jpgbeta1-2.jpg

beta1-3.jpg

beta1-4.jpg

beta1-5.jpg

beta1-6.jpg

beta1-7.jpg

 

The Dragonthorne Beta 1 can be downloaded here:

https://mega.nz/#!N3...14Jw1E88KIcqGEE


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#2 RBarley

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Posted 07 October 2019 - 05:28 PM

Just a few basic observations from your screen shots. Picture 1 show a cart path to the left. I'd change the contour of the hillside or move the cart path itself. I really don't think you would want to drive on that with your cart. Also be careful with your placement with trees around your bunkers. The bunkers can reward or punish bad shots, but having to hit around trees also is too much punishment. Try reading some books or online articles about course design. Most of them contain good idea's on the basics of design.


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#3 Abe

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Posted 07 October 2019 - 07:18 PM

Lot's of fades and draws on this course. I like it!

 


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#4 LeazesNDR

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Posted 08 October 2019 - 08:16 AM

Have to agree with RBarley about course design, but otherwise not a bad effort at all. Had trouble with some drop zones after hitting the water.
On one hole a par 3 (hole 10 or 11 i think), I drove over the green and my ball trickled into the water, when I took the drop, it put me behind a tree on a piece of land which had water and another island in front of it about 150 yards from the hole.
Similar sort of thing happened when I put my ball into the water from a hole which had a sheer drop at the side of the green,(hole 5?) the drop zone was on other side of sheer drop. Will need a some fencing and a bridge to get there and back to the green methinks.  :D 
Still a million times better than what I could ever do though...



#5 3199E5kennetharry

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Posted 08 October 2019 - 09:26 AM

I thought it was very intriguing lots of tricky situations, had a +5 in first 9,   had a lot to think about to get it back to  par. 

normal normal 12 stimp


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#6 Krotus

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Posted 08 October 2019 - 02:16 PM

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

Part of the design is based on the final landscaping. If you've never been to Oregon or the Pacific NW and/or have never hiked trails on Mt Hood or Mt Ranier in Washington, there is a lot of dense undergrowth throughout the forests. The final version of the course will reflect this.

Part of what I did before I began creating the course was to draft a "personality guideline". For example, I have fairways surrounded by roughsemi surrounded by rough. For the most part, the roughsemi is 10 feet wide and has little to no trees/vegetation. The rough is 30 feet wide and will have trees/vegetation. OOB will be about 5 feet from the rough. The bunkers right next to a green will have 18-36 inches of fairway between the green and bunker. Bunkers that would intersect the straight line of a fairway was 36 inches of rough between the fairway and bunker and 10 feet of rough from the other side of the bunker to the rough. Every hole has 9 pin positions, 3 hard, 3 medium, 3 easy. There are 5 sets of tees on each hole. On par 5s, each successive tee is 30-36 feet closer to the pin, 20-24 feet for par 4s, 10-12 feet for par 3s. Stuff like that. Not "strictly" adhered but close in most cases.

I did research course design, par distances, etc. One other thing I did was to look for examples on existing of things I wanted to do. So while some may think trees around bunkers is overkill or "double jeopardy", it is done on courses. Maybe I'm a little extreme in my implementation, but I think I give the player room to strategize their shots. And like I mentioned before, the course is designed to focus on accuracy.

Since there will be dense foliage/vegetation surrounding each hole, some of the trees around those bunkers are actually there to provide a chance for a wild shot to be dropped into a bunker instead of ending up in dense vegetation.

Just an observation, but #12 at Augusta has a couple of bunkers behind the green that have plants/flowers surrounding the back of those bunkers literally right up to the edge of the bunkers.

I still don't understand how the hazard drops work. I thought they went in a straight line back from the previous shot. As was mentioned, having your ball rool over the green and into the lake results in your first drop choice on the far side of the lake.

This is just the first marginally playable version. I am going through each hole and fixing things like the way too deep bunkers, tears in meshes, smoothing, etc. Once I get that done, I'll be working on textures, then there is a lot of sculpting to do around lakes, ponds and the areas surrounding each hole. Then props, then foliage/vegetation, then backgrounds and mountains.

The cartpath seen in the first image above is just a rough blocking in - it will be smoother and there will be a railing.

Just an FYI, it is not unusual in Oregon for roads, especially NF (national forrest) roads, to run along hill/mountain sides similar to what is seen in that screenshot. Lolo Pass, about 6-7 miles in ftom HWY 26 out of ZigZag is kind of like that. I'm afraid of heights and I'm white-knuckling it at times on some of these but some, like the NF road to Wahtum Lake, have stretches that I wouldn't have the nerve to drive without wearing a diaper.
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#7 3199E5kennetharry

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Posted 09 October 2019 - 08:15 AM

Played multiplayer yesterday and on the 3rd hole par 3, one of the players hit the hole from the Tee and the ball went skywards for about 45 seconds  when it slowed down( the clouds that is ) he had to hit the ball from the Tee again 2nd shot. Not that it will happen too often I don't suppose. Just a quirk we found .


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