351 replies to this topic

[Mike Jones]

No I did not design a course for the par 3 competition but how many designers were there and how many got finished? For a sim company to have a competition and to only release 4 courses for the sim so far is pretty poor. There is not much wrong with these courses that it takes a person this long to fix something if something needed fixing which I doubt means much of anything. 

Sorry Mike you sold Trackman your golf game, they as a company need to release the courses for THIS GAME and not wait until there sim released it, if they want to wait and fix stuff for there SIM that is there prerogative but all par 3 competition courses should be released for JNPG and it should not be a year before it is done. That is piss poor marketing to the community.

 

You can edit what you want but this is how I stand, I am standing up for my friend who I guess doesn't seem to care if his course is released but yet he was talking about it in our friday night group rounds of golf and many of us were pretty much putting down trackman because of it.

 

If you entered but did not receive a prize you can release the course whenever you like and some have done so. If you win a prize that's different and the course will be released as and when it is bug fixed and fits in with Trackman's release schedule. As they put the prizes up for the community they are entitled to release the prize winning courses at the time they choose. 

 

BTW I removed the profanity in your initial post but that's all. 

[BrianZ111]

Joe is talking about me for those who don’t know.  Me, him and a few other friends get together on voice chat Friday nights and play Perfect Golf.  We’ve been playing various golf games online for about 10 years now.

 

I am concerned but not to the level in the tone of Joe’s posts.  I think I threw out the question of if my course was ever going to be released last Friday since we hadn’t heard anything about any of the remaining courses in quite a while.  It was sarcastic on my part because I didn't really believe it wasn't going to be released but meant as a comment on how long it was taking. It is a little bit frustrating to put a lot of work into something and you want it to be available for the community to enjoy but you don’t hear anything about when that will happen for a long time.  I also never asked though so that’s on me.  I even said I was going to ask during the conversation last Friday but then I got busy with other things over the weekend and forgot until I started getting notifications about new posts in this thread.  I did PM Mike after reading them and he was able to give me a vague idea of when my course might be available so I thank him for that.

[Ted_Ball]

Marketing? Why would a company worry about marketing?

[DoGgs]

Just my two cents, the design comp offered monetary incentive for us to hand over control of our designs to trackman, we knew this going in, like it or not we accepted this condition.  There was no roll out timeline stipulated therefore there is no real argument as to why it has not been pushed to the masses, maybe an email to trackman to see if they intend to push it at some point, if not then maybe you could push the version you have, if you have it at all.

[NoPutt]

Just my two cents, the design comp offered monetary incentive for us to hand over control of our designs to trackman, we knew this going in, like it or not we accepted this condition.  There was no roll out timeline stipulated therefore there is no real argument as to why it has not been pushed to the masses, maybe an email to trackman to see if they intend to push it at some point, if not then maybe you could push the version you have, if you have it at all.

Check post #302 in this thread...LOL

[DoGgs]

Check post #302 in this thread...LOL

I asked yeh...if you don't ask you don't get  LOL i prob would have shared mine myself by now anyway...i'm naughty like that see!

[DPRoberts]

Don't want to start anger because I appreciate that Mike still shows up here to post and takes a bit of bashing without getting heated. He truly is our last hope to see PG2. I think he still fights for the console and/or PC release for us. He is tied to the community because he was one of us in the Links days. We have had our share of misunderstandings but I truly appreciate all that he has done and selfishly wish I could reproduce his bunker wizardry (haha).

I know I upset him when I refused consolation money for the contest. I only did that because I decided if I wasn't top 5, I wanted the community to have the course. I never cared about the money. I just didn't want to load the Trackman carousel because they could throw 150 bucks at any contestant and take the course rights.

My whole problem with the contest is that I hoped it would mean they would release something for us. Remember, we could always make par 3s for ourselves. Trackman just couldn't use them because of how they sell their product.

In the end, the contest has proven to be a carousel load for Trackman and a few bucks for the guys that won prizes.

There was no give back to the community here but the prize money.

I don't know why I thought it might mean more of a two way deal for the community and we'd see a bone in the way of another PG course.

Regardless, the community makes great courses and PG hasn't produced overlay courses. Just give me an offline mode that loads all courses or never leave Steam and I'm good with PG1.

Bring me along with PG2 and I'll try and push ideas, think of stupid ways to use the tools in CF not originally intended and above all be a help to the community.

Thank you Mike for continuing with your dreams in this venture. Hope you still enjoy it and it's not only a headache!

[BrianZ111]

I didn’t know at the time it was going to take this long to release but it wouldn’t have changed my decision to take the prize money.  I lost half the prize money in the bank fees that were charged for sending money from Europe to the US but that wouldn't have changed my mind had I know that either.  The main reason I accepted is to be able to put on a resume that I did a contest course that was accepted for Trackman if I ever have a shot at applying for a job creating courses for anyone.  I recognized a while back that I really couldn't do this course design thing the way I wanted to due to lack of time unless it was a career.  I've done contract work for various companies since but it hasn't really worked out as a career and I'll probably end up doing something else but I'll always keep the door open just in case.  If it doesn't work out I'll probably still do some course work in my spare time, just not as much and with less detail then I'd like.

 

I also want people both here and who use the Trackman sim to be able to play my course.  The more the better I say.  I can be patient, I just didn't like the seemingly indefinite time to release.

[Joe Habiger]

I wonder if there would be any interest in a community fantasy course design competition? Real courses are easy, import lidar, trace shapes and put down objects. A fantasy course takes more brain power and experience.

 

Since you can share you could also co-design with someone and instead of the little bit of time Trackman offered you would have at least two to three months to finish your design if this happened and a timeline was agreed upon. Would there be enough interest that we could start another topic on this? We could leave Trackman out of this but I wouldn't care if it was played in Trackman but this could also be a part of the discussion because maybe some would not want this to happen? If interest I could start something in another topic, I really don't work right now so I have time to get something going on this and we can set a date. I obviously would like to see a huge turnout though, we could have a crap load of nice custom courses to play. Real courses are great because it's a course we admire but might never get to play but the last two golf games I have been a part of (This one and CustomPlay Golf) lidar import and blueprints was so easy to do that almost no fantasy courses we made and sometimes it's nice to let your design juices actually come out.

This way we also wouldn't need to worry about having course design courses released months and months later because of Trackman and us throwing away our rights to OUR design.

[BrianZ111]

I might be interested Joe.  I do enjoy these contests.  I don’t know if I want to do an entire course myself but having co-designer would be fun.

[BrianZ111]

The format I’d really like to see make a comeback is the hole by hole design contest that DanO started for PGA 2000 around the 2005 time period.  Basically he created a plot and routed where holes would be.  Then each week designers submitted entries for each hole and they were voted on.  It was great because you only had to do one hole at a time so it wasn’t a big time commitment to participate and the feedback on designs in the voting process was amazing.  That was the biggest attraction to me.  It brought the focus to specific holes with great discussion about the strategies behind different entries, instead spending 2 or 3 months on an entry course before you get any feedback and maybe not even getting anything about specific holes.

 

The downside though is it only produced one finished course with the winning entry for each hole so all the losing entries for every hole didn’t become part of a course even though a lot of them were very good.  Even if we could get around that and everybody could release their own course they would still all be on the same routing which could be a little boring.

 

Still I felt it was worth it for all the extra discussion about course design.  I’d be willing to put together a plot/routing and run it if there was enough interest in that format to make it work.

[M Rose]

I'll admit the money was a big deal - as it turns out, it pretty much went straight into a mortgage payment, so I didn't really get to enjoy it.
 

But Iike Brian, I also had used it as a de facto audition for something bigger, like the Trackman design job, or at least the prospects of contract design work. I would have gladly traded prize money for a job. But I don't have any real attachment to the course I did.... I'm very proud of it and regard it as one of the best things I've done. I guess I'd hoped I'd at least get an interview out of it at the very least, but it didn't turn out that way. Admittedly my own lack of formal education is probably an issue - I find myself now past the age of 40 and looking at taking out a loan so I can take some UI/UX classes, because I'm fed up with the 1099 economy and delivering groceries for less and less money. 

 

Seeing dozens of YouTube videos popping up of my courses being played in simulators was an eye opener.... maybe it went to my head to some degree, but I began seriously asking myself what I could do to use this skill I had..... and now I actually have content in the game. It's frustrating not being able to explore that further.

[M Rose]

For a design contest, I'd suggest giving everyone a real landplot to route the fictional course over.

[DPRoberts]

Totally agree on the real landplot idea. I was actually going to post that about 2 months ago but didn't have the time or energy to spearhead it.

I would suggest some gentlemen's rule on only modifying land for greens and tees. Or, some minimal alterations so as to keep it fun by utilizing different plots in the future.

Maybe even something like trees can be removed but no new ones planted. I dunno, just trying to keep it from evolving into a free for all and being no different than just fantasy course and however you want to do it.

[BrianZ111]

I'm up for the real plot idea as well, finding holes in existing land is pretty much my favorite part of course design. Again I'd probably be looking to team up with a co-designer to do a complete 18 hole course though.

[RobC]

I'd be up for it...Need a bit of inspiriation and motivation

[Joe Habiger]

Brian i'd be willing to help out with the co-design if you want. Since we talk every week while playing golf we might be able to get BJ, Brian Silvernail and Steve to do this as well or heck maybe all 5 of us can do one or two courses together.

 

Are you guys talking 1 plot or have maybe 3 plots to choose from and then you can take your pick? This way it might seem less repetitive of seeing the same landscape? Still a good idea I think and i'm glad there is some interest. 

 

I know I have access to the whole state of Minnesota for lidar and can pick area's out that are not of golf courses, but there are also many great states that have lidar as well that we could pick from too. 

I'd be down for one plot though so as long as that plot was 4096x4096 because it gives you much more room for multiple courses to be on that wouldn't be to repetitive but again we can also do this with a few plots if needed. I will start a new thread and we can discuss there for right now. Maybe we can get Mike to join us as well..lol

[BrianZ111]

Yeah, that would be great.  I know Brian and Steve are already working on courses so I don't know if they'd want to take on more but it can't hurt to ask.

 

If you're going with multiple plots I could do the LiDAR for one of the plots as well.  Planting it, I don't know.  My biggest issue with this editor is I don't know where you guys get the variety of trees to use or how you go about creating them and even if I knew how to create them for this editor, creating trees isn't exactly my favorite thing to do when it comes to course design so I don't know I'd want to spend the time doing that.

[Mike Jones]

 

My biggest issue with this editor is I don't know where you guys get the variety of trees to use or how you go about creating them and even if I knew how to create them for this editor, creating trees isn't exactly my favorite thing to do when it comes to course design so I don't know I'd want to spend the time doing that.

 

http://www.perfectpa...utorials/page-2

 

Post 28

[BrianZ111]

Yeah I went through that already but unless I'm missing something there are only 6 trees in the package.  This is part of not being able to do course design in as much detail as I'd like and it's not necessarily because I can't but because I don't have time to create the assets unless I'm doing it professionally.  I'm kind of a perfectionist so it's a hard habit to break.