29 replies to this topic

[Mick-S]

how many courses have PP got in the works ?

[Dazmaniac]

how many courses have PP got in the works ?

 

Back in September, Andrew posted the following in reply to a question in another thread:-

 

5) Courses - We are nearing completion on our first 10 pack of courses and are currently working on about 2 new ones per week.  the goal is to get as close to 40 by the end of the year as we can

 

He also added that licenses have to be sought and signed off for courses to be reproduced in the game, and it's not just a case of designing them and adding them without permission. This may also impact the community designing real life courses, as they may need to get permission from the real life venue beforehand, but I'm sure PP will let us know the legal ins and outs for real course re-creations in due time.

 

[Mick-S]

40 courses. wow didn't expect that many.

[karma4u]

Right about now, just the release of a game would be nice.

[axe360]

Back in September, Andrew posted the following in reply to a question in another thread:-

 

5) Courses - We are nearing completion on our first 10 pack of courses and are currently working on about 2 new ones per week.  the goal is to get as close to 40 by the end of the year as we can

 

 

 

 

2 new courses per week?  Who's working for you David Blaine? I would be very interested to know, how you could make even 1 course per week, especially with a very limited amount of employees?  Unless this CF is going to be so simplified? Maybe even to simplified?

[Kablammo11]

2 new courses per week?  Who's working for you David Blaine? I would be very interested to know, how you could make even 1 course per week, especially with a very limited amount of employees?  Unless this CF is going to be so simplified? Maybe even to simplified?

 

Provided you have all the geodata and all the plant and building models and use default textures and generic panoramas, one course per person and week is quite doable… Once a designer has sussed out a comfortable workflow and understands how all the little bits work together, speedy progress becomes possible. It's not so much a matter of magic, but rather a question of mileage - your first golf course will take many weeks, your twentieth just a few days.

Myself, I could easily fall in love with a good golf game that ships with only half a dozen courses to begin with, and keeps adding more as time goes on, so… Enough with the screen caps of yet more golf courses already, and high time for the Devs to convince us that "they got game".

 

Andrew did use the term "10 pack" and I suddenly ask myself why… - could this allude to the possibility of PG offering courses in packs of 10, shipping with the 1st 10 and selling the rest as extra DLC? If so, that woulde be…. okay, I guess. Depends on the price tag, but it would be a legit way to generate additional income in this day and age.

[Jimbo63]

Larry

Brian is a new admin, who is designing courses. See his courses in gallery

http://www.perfectpa...3-course-forge/

I am sure that there will be lots of dlc, hope the cost is not too restrictive

[axe360]

I once read that the CF was going to be so easy that just about anyone could do it.. I guess that is going to be true.. I know that to build a superior course with the TW's CA, it took a whole lot of skill and I would say at least 40 hours give or take to build 1 course.. Even then, with all the testing, could be longer.. I never had 40 straight hours to devote to it, so I could come up with 1 every 3 months or so...

 

You guy's over at LInks could build a course in 2 day's?

 

I have seen guy's come up with courses pretty darn quick over at CS but you could tell from the 1st hole, that it was a rush job..

Time will tell I guess and I agree, sounds like were going to have to buy 10 packs of courses, I guess the day's of charging 50 60 bucks a year for the game, isn't enough for a company to make it?

 

I don't mean to sound like the devils advocate and since I haven't really seen anything yet or know how things reallly will work with the CF, I am open to something that does reduce the time to build a course, I just hope it isn't so easy that anyone can do it, if you know what I mean?

 

Peace

 

P.S. Not taking anything away from Brians courses, they look pretty darn good from what I've seen...

[Dazmaniac]

Just seen a tweet from PP with a small ad, presumably for their simulation setup.

 

 

On the same Vimeo page I noticed this (posted 2 weeks ago)

 

 

Seems things are progressing, slowly but surely (but obviously not fast enough for some folks, lol).

 

[Dazmaniac]

 

I don't mean to sound like the devils advocate and since I haven't really seen anything yet or know how things reallly will work with the CF, I am open to something that does reduce the time to build a course, I just hope it isn't so easy that anyone can do it, if you know what I mean?
 

 

Larry,

 

From what you said (quoted above) I guess you have never seen this clip:-

 

 

 

So, someone of MJ's talents could easily have a course laid out with basic texturing applied within a day. Then allow a few more days for fine tuning and there is no reason (once someone is up to speed with CF) that a high quality course could not be started and finished within 2 weeks. I think the process that will take up most of the time will be applying all the plot elevations in Unity (if folks have not been able to make use of the Terrain Importer Tool (presuming this is still being developed).

 

I can't speak for the TW community, but I know from the Links 2003 side, there are a good number of designers who made quality courses with the APCD who one would expect could take things to the next level with the CF tool.

[vfe]

Games made good strides even since that video

 

As for 2 courses per week, some weeks we're behind, but in general that pace has been more or less stuck to. Though that comment is really just about the physical design of the course-files, doesn't include the extended time-line of testing, legal matters, quality control, etc.

[axe360]

Thanks Daz and vfe. Thanks for sharing that video, I remember it now and yes looking at that, it would save tremendous time doing elevations..

 

I'm quite sure there are very talented Links designers around, I was just curious if they ever finished a course in 2 days.

 

In our CA, you could, using the Dem tool, layout an entire 18 holes of a Real course just about anywhere in the world,  tee to green including water in a few hours but that only left you with rough elevations, you had to drop every bunker, do all your elevations around the hole, flatten tee boxes, smooth, optimize, test, and adjust, drop you ponds, raise your greens etc. etc. etc.. Then layout your cart paths, plant your structures. Let's just say, somethings were/are very tedious and time consuming but, the designers that were/are willing to do the extra work, did of course, make the better courses.. I guess anyone could slap together something but the details are what matter..

 

Maybe with the CF, time consuming details like fixing raised edges, smoothing textures etc. will be automatic?

 

I wonder how PP recreates there Real courses? I know, TWO was using laser mapping to get the terrain right, I'm sure though, you still have to do your elevations around the hole, raising, lowering, smoothing, optimizing..

 

But, yes, now that you have refreshed my memory Daz, I see where a lot of time has been cut down. That's a plus for me..

 

Sorry if I have taken this thread way off topic, Mick-S...

 

Peace

[Acrilix]

@axe360 - As a general rule from what I've heard, courses take far longer to create for Links in APCD than for TW in the CA. Some designers have been known to take upwards of a year on one course. Jimbo63 would probably know best as he has recently created a Links course, and I believe he was a TW creator as well.

[Dazmaniac]

 

I wonder how PP recreates there Real courses? I know, TWO was using laser mapping to get the terrain right, I'm sure though, you still have to do your elevations around the hole, raising, lowering, smoothing, optimizing..

 

Larry,

 

I would think they used accurate DEM data for the real courses, to make sure the elevations are as close as they can get them. The accuracy obviously depends on the scale the DEM is set to.

 

Previous posts from Andrew showed us the Terrain Importer they were working on (not sure if this is still to be made available), where you could take a map overhead and combine this with elevation data to create the sculptured landscape to import in to Unity. Then by opening Course Forge you then had your course plot all laid out with elevations in place. Granted, they would need to be fine tuned but it gives designers a heck of a start on a part of the process that can sometimes be quite time consuming.

 

Here's a clip andrew put together on using the Terrain Importer:-

 

http://www.perfectpa...-map-viewer-r17

 

[Andrew]

We are currently at around 22 courses which includes 3 different driving ranges.  I know that shinnecock and Medinah were completed last week.  (Images are available in the Gallery).  Someone might be able to determine all of them from various images, but we felt that 20 was the minimum initial list we needed. 

A combination of Terrain Importer and Course Forge is all that has been used together with free data from the internet.

A

[Davefevs]

Love the two videos listed above.....appears to be coming along nicely! KUTGW PP.

[Dazmaniac]

We are currently at around 22 courses which includes 3 different driving ranges.  I know that shinnecock and Medinah were completed last week.  (Images are available in the Gallery).  Someone might be able to determine all of them from various images, but we felt that 20 was the minimum initial list we needed. 

A combination of Terrain Importer and Course Forge is all that has been used together with free data from the internet.

A

 

A,

 

Any progress updates on the bug fixing that was being done for CF? Seems a long time since we were first led to believe that a working version would be made available.

 

[axe360]

Yes we have been using the USGS site for a number of years, however recently they changed some things and made it very difficult if not impossible to grab the data from them the way we have for years.. Now I must rely on the experts to get me my dems...

[Jimbo63]

I have indeed designed courses in both Links and TW2008 and found them both difficult to grasp at first. Thanks to lots of help from existing course designers I finally managed to grasp the ideas for using both design softwares. This is a whole new concept and time for a fresh start by course designers from both camps, so there is not much point in trying to decide which one took longest to design with. I just want to see how long the new software will take me to learn, as my brain has just got a year older waiting for it to happen

[Jimbo63]

Good point Larry. I hope that PP have come up with a way to get decent dems for courses outside the USA.