41 replies to this topic

[Jimbo63]

What properties will panoramas need to be used in this game? Apologies if this has already been covered.

[Kablammo11]

Hm, specify "panorama", please. (Also, this would rather be a CourseForge thread, not so much a GenDiscuss matter)

You will get a collection of "Skyboxes" in your Unity app: Clouds and skies that you can switch on with a couple buttons. There are a lot more available for free download at the Unity Asset Store (and some more for sale for cash). Or just type "Free Skybox" into google and take if from there.

 

But relying on skyboxes alone gives the impression of a golf course floating in the air, without a feeling of space or far distance. It's very important that you add more - And for that you will be on your own, using Unity and your desgin softwares (2D & 3D), since the CourseForge will not cover it. So you need a backdrop to the golf course and some landscapes to surround it. There are several ways to go about doing that, presuming that this is what you meant by panorama.

 

• You can try to make your Unity terrain larger, add some 3 to 500 meters of periphery outside the course so that you can create a landscape on that border patch. Be warned, though, that this will either dramatically reduce to resolution of your golf course or dramatically increase the size of your terrain (you will need 4097 by 4097 resolution). I advise against it.

 

• Design a 360 degree landscape yourself in Photoshop, place it on a transpratent layer*. Make 4 images of it (1024 x 1024 each) and each one neighboring the next (same as in a Skybox). In Unity, create 4 mesh planes. Give them the Shader: Transparent > Cutout > Soft Edge Unlit , then drag your 4 images into the image field. Now enlarge and move around the meshes until they form the desired landscape

 

* Go to Google images, select a coupld dozen landscapes you like, cut out hills and profiles, combine them in Photoshop into a horizontally seamless panorama.

 

• Select a Unity skybox, then open and edit the default Unity skybox textures by pasting your 360 degree landscape in Photoshop over them.

That would be the most elegant way, imo. Yet until now I have NOT managed to edit, re-import orginal skybox textures (saved under a separate file name), without getting an annoying white line showing at the edge, giving away the whole panorama effect. If I got rid of that, this would be the best way to go.

 

• In Unity, create half a dozen more terrain objects in low res (207 or 513) shape them using the terrain tool, slap some textures and trees on them and place them strategically around your golf course terrain to create the impression of surroundings.

Don't worry about the trees too much - they will be rendered as billboards, not as 3D objects (same as your distant trees on your golf course) and won't impact your polygon count.

 

• Create and Import 3D meshes of mountains, cliffs etc from outside Unity and place them in the background behind your golf course.

 

• Or some or all of the above

 

If you think that this is quite complicated, you are crazy! It's frustratingly aggravating, that's what it is, to get the desired result, demanding many iterations of trial and error. Yes, the CourseForge will come with a fantastic ease of use - but that stuff won't be covered by it. And yet that is exactly the kind of thing that will separate good and committed course design from poor and average generic design. There's usually an easy and hard way to do things, but with Unity there seem to be only hard ways… courage!

Do not hesitate to ask if you want me to explain some things to you more in detail. 

[Jimbo63]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, this is exactly what I meant. In Course Architect for TW2008 and APCD for Links 2003 there is the capability, within the course design software, to create panoramas. IMO a panorama, if done correctly, can greatly enhance the overall effect. I have to say that it sounds complicated in Unity, but then again I found it complicated in Course Architect for TW2008 until I spent the time learning how to do it, but as with most things there will be varying levels of achievement in getting a good quality finished result. Do you think it will be possible to create a library of panoramas to be used on any course without having to design a new one for each course?

[Kablammo11]

I think, yes, there will be a growing library of panos, provided you use the method of integrating your landscape into the skybox data. The future looks bright, but we're not there yet… and then some!

I forgot one method - or rather did not mention it because it requires cash to become real:  Certain andvanced 3D terrain generation softwares like Vue D'Esprit (1'500 $…) or Terragen offer not only the possibility of creating a 3D landscape, to sculpt it to perfection and to add clouds at will, but also to export skyboxes ready to use in Unity. There are many very helpful time-saving thingamajigs for the pros - who are out of reach for us regular Joes...

 

Afterthought, one day later: Those familiar with the APCD, the Tiger Woods and/or Jack Nicklaus course architects (and those who heard about these without having used them) need to understand that the Course Forge is NOT a one-stop all-in-one solution for course design in the way the previous course creators were. The Forge will be limited to the golf specialities: Fairways, Rough, Sand, Greens, Flags, Tees etc. For everything else it relies on the Unity 3D game engine: Geography, foliage, water etc

And Unity, too, does not do "designing" stuff, except terrains; rather easy, but not comprehensive - no triplanar texturing, for example. Unity is made for collecting, arranging, combining and animating models and graphics created by other 2D & 3D softwares. So: Designing a golf course requires you to master the Course Forge (that will be quite easy, yes), to learn how to survive in Unity (Makeable, but not that easy) and to create additional bits and parts with Photoshop or Gimp, Blender, 3DStrata, 4DCinema, Maya etc. (Not obvious at all, you're on your own, buddy!). This last part might be dealt with in time by creating an online archive of useful things for others to download - also, the Forge will come with a selection of trees, bushes, rocks and buildings that will cover basic needs. Even then the designers will need some minimal knowledge on how to export and edit UV-Maps and slightly alter 3D meshes to customize their design.

Right now, there is nothing.

 

So: If you get the CourseForge sometime soon, the small print on this virtual package should read: "Batteries not included"

[Kablammo11]

Thanks for liking my post, Ian. Creeps me out when folks sneak in, like and vanish without a comment. Still, thanks...

 

And this just in: I was able to answer Jimbo's question mainly because I was busy with the same issue. I solved the riddle of the weird border lines (set texture to "clamped" in the inspector after re-importing) and was able to finish my first backdrop slash panorama. And here it is:

 

 (watch larger version on Vimeo)

 

Here's how in easy steps:

 

Step 1. Internet Browser

I went to Google Images (set size to 2 MB or larger) and searched for existing images of the sort of landscape I had in minds: In this case the Swiss Alps in Summer. Not the highest Alps, mind you, rather something a bit lower, around the tree line. I see now that into my capture folder I downloaded 45 internet images.

Tip: Images showing any feature closer to you than, say, 1 kilometer away, are useless. A tree in the foreground or houses and roads are unsuitable for a panorama.

 

Step 2. Photoshop

I started cutting out the bits of the images which I felt I needed and arranged them together in a Photshop file which was 2024 x 8192 pixels of size. I would not need this huge size, but making cutouts in a size larger than required is easier for cutting out outlines - and reducing the size later makes the borders of the cutout automatically softer.

I did quite a lot of retouching with the clone stamp, to get rid of electricity pylons and weird patches.

I obviously had to make sure that the left and right edge of the picture would match and achieved this by slicing a cutout in half and sliding it's two halves to the opposite edges (seamless texturing).

I also addes a few discreet wisps of clouds between the forest hills in closer by and the mountain peaks further away, to add depth.

When all of this was done, I added a thick line at the very bottom of the image (invisible because it would be way below the horizon) which would act as a reference for the altitude of the landscape.

Then I reduced the size of the Photoshop file to 1024 x 4096 and from that, using the crop tool, made 4 files out of the one, each 1024x1024 pixels high, each one an exact neighbour to the previous one.

 

Step 3: Unity

In Unity, I opened my project, went to Asset Folder > Terrain Assets > Skyboxes > Textures > and the Folder therein where the textures for the original skybox were saved (Sunny 3). I double-clicked on each one of the 4 horizontal skybox textures to open them in Photoshop.

There, I dragged the corresponding Panorama quarter (one of the 4 1024x1024 files) over the Tiff texture and snapped it into position. The correct order, from left to right of your panorama to the Unity textures is: Front - Left - Back - Right. I merged the layers and saved the new file as a Tiff file under a new name. The newly named file promptly appeared in the right Unity asset folder. 

Finally, I clicked on the Skybox Sunny 3 thumbnail in the "Skyboxes" folder. That opened up the textures in the Inspector window and all that was left for me to do was to drag the new images (with the landscape) over the old textures (without them). 

And this is how I made the landscape that surrounds the Chlöpfboden Alpengolf Club. The video shows the Clubhouse I finished last week, an old Alpine farmhouse. In case you are wondering about that name, it's Swiss German for "Blast Platform" - yet one more detail to bolster my explosive online persona that is so not me in real life. There is no place of this name in reality, btw.

 

Aftermath:

There still is stuff to make better in this panorama - what I wanted to find out was the process required to conjure one up, the sequence of steps to be taken etc… Still, seing this panorama in my viewer for the first time gave me one of these short, strong boosts that I need to keep going. And it add a great feeling of depth to your otherwise small golfing terrain (Chlöpfboden is 1000x1000 meters in size).

Since I now have the landscape available over transparent background as 4 Photshop files, this can easily be applied to other skyboxes. If anyone wants them for his own project, just ask me (At a later date, we might get an URL connected to PP to upload them for download; I will upload them then)

[IanD]

Forgive me lol..

 

I enjoyed the read and whilst I've not yet fully taken the plunge, I do enjoy your posts and the content you offer too. I simply know that I'll be returning to study at a later date, and feel assured you shall be several years ahead of me, in terms of development upon the curve of Unity.. life is but a challenge as they say, onward and upward!

[Jimbo63]

Absolutely brilliant mate, your answers are first-class and that course and panorama look great. The panorama now seems less of a problem as the Photoshop element etc is required in other course design software. No wonder it does not render close up objects very well when it is only using 4 (1024x1024) images, the Course Architect for TW2008 uses 12 ((1024x1024) images. It is the complexity of the Unity element that I am finding hard to grasp at the moment, will just have to persist with it once the first stages of software are released by the PerfectParallel team.

[Kablammo11]

Thanks, Jimbo. Send me a note if I need to explain more. 

[Acrilix]

I will be very surprised if an easy way to add panoramas is not incorporated directly into the CourseForge, and I would expect a selection of generic, pre-built ones to be included as with the APCD.

[Kablammo11]

Presumably, yes, Acrilix. Still, we don't know this for a fact, since everything we know about the CourseForge is encapsuled in a short video file that is 10 months old. It's not like anybody in the know could be bothered to chime in on this thread.

Even then, the main problem about generic panoramas would be that they are… generic. That's like using Instagram foto filters: Neither creative nor tasteful. 

[Acrilix]

@K11 - I would disagree with the last remark in your last post. I have seen some pretty tasteless custom panoramas in my time. Unless creating panoramas for real courses, many designers try to go for the wow factor with panoramas, and often go overboard trying to create the spectacular. Generic panoramas can often work far better if they are not too eye-catching, allowing the player to enjoy the beauty of the course itself, rather than just continuously staring at the background.

 

btw I'm not trying to put down your knowledge-sharing epic posts. It's just there are going to be a lot of first time designers around due to the CourseForge, and some of these posts may scare them off before they even start. I'm sure there will be a few specialists around who will be able to do the brunt of the panorama work for them, and it will be fairly simple to integrate these into a course using the CourseForge. After all, simplicity is what PP claim it is all about!

[axe360]

Very nice work K11.  Thanks for sharing..

[Kablammo11]

Thanks, Axe.

And fair point, Acrilix. I had to tone down my own efforts several times and still might end up a little over the top with them. I'm aware of the danger and, not being a pro, I am probably incapable of escaping the pitfalls of "going for gusto" and "being satisfied with myself too soon" altogether. I gladly concede to you that a well-made generic panorama most certainly will work a lot better than a poorly-created, haphazard self-made crap panorama.

Non multa sed multum: Less is more, I agree. And to end up with less, you have to do more. 

 

 

I was reluctant to show mine at first because I felt it needed more work, but since no-f….ing-body around here EVER posts a picture or a video about any work in any progress (Yes, this is a shot at our multimedially-challenged hosts), I went ahead with it, just the to break the general mood of an abandoned morgue whofting through these deserted halls.

[Mike Jones]

At the moment the panos are tied in with the skybox which is a pain and not something we plan to carry forward for too much longer.

 

A custom pano solution is planned which will be independent of any skybox as we plan on giving you the option to dynamically change the skybox based on weather conditions, time of day etc.

[axe360]

Good news, cause theres nothing lamer then a sky that doesnt move. 

[Dazmaniac]

Good news, cause theres nothing lamer then a sky that doesnt move. 

 

Oh there is........ a golf game with poor physics, lol.

 

I have played the Links series since Links 386 Pro and have never had a problem with a static sky background. All down to personal preference I guess.

[Acrilix]

Good news, cause theres nothing lamer then a sky that doesnt move. 

 

This seems to be the main difference between Links players and Tiger Woods players. Links players are happy if it looks and plays real and TW players are happy if everything moves! 

[axe360]

Relax guy's.. I was speaking about TWO. When it first came out, the skies were Static.. Quite Lame..  No offense intended....

[Acrilix]

@axe360 - I was quite relaxed when I made my last post. It's just a difference of opinion, and one that seems to be game choice related, that's all. When I used to play real golf, the last thing on my mind would be "The sky's not moving - that's really lame - I'm not going to play golf today!!"   

[Mike Jones]

The only time we will go to dynamic moving skys is when they look very, very realistic. I dont see the point of a moving smudge in the sky.