133 replies to this topic

[Unique]

While your working on fairways the shapes appear very basic and straight, so maybe some curves and character would also help.

 

Peter

[axe360]

I would be interested to know how you are coming up with your distances for your landing areas?

What I mean is, what are you using as a reference for club distance? If your using a Driver, what is the distance, an iron, what is the distance? What are you basing your club distances off? Since we have no playable game yet, how do you know what distance each club gives you on average?

 

In designing for TW PC, even though a Driver can be hit 300yds,  we go by roughly 250 yds for the landing area.

 

Your off to a gr8 start,  looking forward to following you to the end..

[IanD]

I'm not so much interested in your design concepts.. ie we all know the risk and reward and various designs that can be achieved through concept golf courses. What I'd like to hear Steve, and bearing in mind others may want to hear all that I've dismissed lol... is how well you are finding the use of the CF. Any pitfalls that you often find yourself doing.. that can be improved upon for the guys here to add a To Do list..

 

The fun side of using the CF...? Is there one..lol ?

 

Frustrating..?

 

What are your thoughts..

 

And typically, your background..? When Mike posted this, I thought maybe you were a "typical guy" like us awaiting the release of the CF..  it would be good to watch someone with little experience using the software... is this what we're seeing?

[Dazmaniac]

What exactly is Steve's background as far as golf is concerned?

 

Without trying to sound too negative or overly critical, from the early layout of the course he is working on, I would have to say he has never played the game and probably doesn't watch it too much on TV.

 

Not saying it's a bad thing, as it would be good to see how a non-golfer approaches working on using the CF and laying out a course.

 

[Mike Jones]

Steve plays a little golf but prior to starting work with us a couple of months ago he has had no contact with anything golf course related so this is his big chance to get a crash course in golf design and creation. The great thing about golf and golf courses is that really nothing is 'wrong' in design, just different. If Steve wants to make wide fairways I'm all for it, if he wants to make big greens with multiple 'greens within greens' well ... I'm all for that too.

 

One things is for sure - by the time he has designed and created his course, he'll know a lot more about the process.

 

Steve is off today because he's back at College and he's working on this part time so might not get a chance to post today. Hopefully tomorrow he'll be posting some more info to give some insight into the progress and whether any of the ideas so far have been taken on board.

[Sinewiz]

It sounds to me like Steve might be the perfect choice to see what he can do with the CF. Someone with virtually no experience with course design yet a basic understanding of what a golf course is supposed to look and play like. We all know that those with backgrounds in golf course design in any of the various golf games over the years will probably be able to produced some spectacular results. But if Steve can come with a decent looking and playing course in a reasonable amount of time, it will do nothing but give hope to the rest of us mere mortals.

 

I actually hope that Steve is allowed to go through the process without too much input from anyone just to see what type of results he can come up with. Heck if I any of us had Mike Jones standing over our shoulders we would probably feel quite confident that we could come up with a very respectable course. I say stand back Mike, at just let him have at it. .

[Steve]

Thanks for all the feedback. As Mike mentioned I will be back at the course tomorrow and will keep everyone updated. In response to the size of the greens, they are between 45 and 50 yards on average. The fairway width is about that as well. I tried to gauge those sizes based on the sizes of those components or other courses that I have worked on as well as online polls based on player preference. Looking at it now, the greens do appear rather large. The shape of the fairways is something that can be changed very easily with the use of Course Forge, so I will likely add more definition to the shapes. The course is completely flat right now (with the exception of the water) because I'm simply laying out the course prior to modifying the height. This is because it's easier to lower a bunker when you know where it is.

New posts will be coming tomorrow.

[fungolfer]

Only 1 question from me to Mike: How about Gravity? Are there any ways to put that into the course? A mountain course should play a lill different than a ocean side course. It would be perfect if this would be possible. Not in the alpha for sure, but maybe in a later version of CF. I would love to create a course which starts in the mountains and finishes at the beach, so each hole plays different. Ball carry etc.

[IanD]

Only 1 question from me to Mike: How about Gravity? Are there any ways to put that into the course? A mountain course should play a lill different than a ocean side course. It would be perfect if this would be possible. Not in the alpha for sure, but maybe in a later version of CF. I would love to create a course which starts in the mountains and finishes at the beach, so each hole plays different. Ball carry etc.

Yes, something in time I'll likely touch on too. However, I'll give this thread to Steve (and Mike), in terms of allowing him to give us the experience he is having..

 

Something to think about Steve, and I know you don't know me from Adam.. but ;

 

• When you began the Course you are working on, are the hole layouts based on something you know or have played?
• Are you working on each hole or the whole course ?
• So far, be honest... how many times has the program crashed causing you to lose work ?
• Can you keep a count on how many hours you have been using it for this course please?

 

Other additional things you could help us with too Steve, are ;

 

• Is the design of the hole more important than the visual ?
• What Golf games have you played in the past ?
• What do you prefer, PC Golf / Console Golf / Simulator or the Real thing?
• Chinese Food or Indian Food (always finish with a hard question lol)

[TheBigYin519]

Hey IanD,

You forgot to ask what his shoe size is.

I'm sure Mike is getting all the relevant info from Steve.

John

[Steve]

Hey guys

We had a team meeting this morning, but I'm back at it. I'd like to take a minute to answer some of IanD's questions.

For this course I really tried to draw on the influence of some of the more distinct holes on courses I've worked with. I'm a big fan of holes that require shooting over water -a few of the local courses in New York come to mind. I added a merged fairway between holes 12 and 13, this is seen on courses such as Sebonack and Augusta.

The workflow I used was to get a rough layout of the course using the measuring tool in CourseForge. It creates lines and labels them with distances making it easy to make sure every hole will fit where I want it to go. After that I have been going through the course hole by hole, occasionally revisiting previous holes to insure consistency.

So far the program has crashed 0 times. CourseForge itself is very stable and even if it were to fail it would be unlikely to cause a loss of work, provided that Unity stays open.

At this point, I've been working about 8-9 hours. It's been slow for me given the references and constant measuring that I use to ensure my course is close enough to the standard. Someone with a more experienced design sense, or with an established layout could likely work even faster.

For the other questions: I would consider the design of the hole and the visuals to be equally important in the satisfaction the player receives from a game. If realism is the goal, then it must both play in a realistic manner and look realistic. I've been golf video games on and off since I started playing games. I've always been a huge Nintendo fan, so if we dismiss the notion of realism, I enjoy the Mario Golf games.

Oh, and Chinese food I suppose. Although if Thai was an option I'd say Thai. You get all the flavors of Chinese with the spice of Indian!

 hole10.PNG   530.82KB   6 downloads  hole11.PNG   658.42KB   2 downloads  hole12.PNG   360.03KB   1 downloads  hole13.PNG   591.16KB   0 downloads  topView.PNG   849.25KB   2 downloads

[IanD]

Wow, quick response Steve..!

 

It's great to know you appreciate the design is as good as the aesthetics too. However, I'm also partial to seeing an ugly hole to know how hard it is... nothing worse than seeing an over-dressed Par 4, when in fact, it's a bitch hole with unduly tricked up traps. I suppose every hole is a journey, allowing for those variations of shots which can be appealing to more types of golfers ie the long hitter or the straight hitter..

 

As for Mario Golf games... hmmm.. we can't have everything can we lol...

 

Appreciate your insight into the CF and its stability too. It's good to know we're not looking ahead and preparing for workarounds regarding minor bugs (or did I omit to ask you that lol). The APCD had its fair share of design flaws, and I know Mike probably has a list of those longer than the code used for all 18 holes. I look forward to rolling the mouse around some terrain.

 

As for your choice of food.. you were given two choices and chose one. I commend you for that.. and smile at your third choice. It's good to hear of any improvement when being offered choices.. as I wasn't really asking what food you liked, more a kind of test to see what you'd opt for.

 

However, I'd happily go for some Thai right now... thanks for yuor time Steve, and hope we see more of your work develop. You have a job I envy..!

[CrazedMethod]

Every time I see more pictures involving course forge i become increasingly impatient because it always looks so good.

[Steve]

I've finished laying out the course. Next up is the height modification. Followed by the tree planting and texture painting. Here are some shots of the complete layout as well as some lower angles. Images from what would be eye-level aren't very interesting without height variations on a course, I'll try to have some more interesting images for you guys tomorrow evening.

 capture01.PNG   1.18MB   4 downloads  capture02.PNG   692.65KB   1 downloads  capture03.PNG   800.52KB   3 downloads  capture04.PNG   693.93KB   1 downloads  capture05.PNG   872.14KB   2 downloads

[TheBigYin519]

Hi Steve,

It's looking good, like the look of the hole in the bottom left in pic. #1

John

[Kablammo11]

- Greens still too large and fairways too wide for my taste

- Tee boxes all aligned along same axis (should be slightly offset)

- The carry from the black tee to the fairway is often a bit too short (Acceptable for merged FW)

- Some bunkers seem to have an ornamental function only, they're not really in play

 

You mustn't allow any of the above observations into your mind, Steve, as long as you feel strongly that your way is the way to go and that this is exactly what you want to do. You're the boss.

[shimonko]

Something I thought would be handy but looking absent in early views of CourseForge was an offset tool - allowing a shape such as a fairway to be narrowed or widened without having to move each control point, and also allowing a shape to be concentrically duplicated as a quick starting point for the fringe and cuts of roughs. How have you found this in practice Steve?

[highfade]

I know you haven't started with the elevations Steve but I'm interested to know how CF handles measurement in height? I suppose there is an xyz component using the measuring tool but it seems like a lot of work if you want to raise and area to a specific level. You'll have to raise - measure - raise - measure till you have it right.

 

I know in APCD moving verts around or up and down its position was displayed in real time.

[AndyJumbo]

A promising start Steve. Just watch the size of the greens and width of the fairways, it's good to have some variety and most of those greens look quite large as do the general fairway widths. Don't forget that elevations play a huge part in how a course looks and plays, many of those holes look flat as a pancake at the moment. 

 

I've attached an approach view to Crystal Down's 6th hole for some inspiration. 

Oh well Mike, thank you very much for this pic, it's simply wonderful with an high graphic quality, wow, i felt myself into it for a while;

i'm ready & excited to try PG out but you all PP staff take your right time to build it at the top. YES it is correct.

cheers

Andy

[Kablammo11]

…but I'm interested to know how CF handles measurement in height? I suppose there is an xyz component using the measuring tool but it seems like a lot of work if you want to raise and area to a specific level. You'll have to raise - measure - raise - measure till you have it right.

 

Fear not, there are height brushes among the Unity terrain tools. If you want to elevate to a very specific height, you can type in the exact altitude you want numerically - and the brush will raise the terrain to the intended level in the diameter of your choice.

As so many posters around here do, you seem a bit unclear about where Unity ends and the CF starts - and vice-versa. I'm pretty sure that all matters regarding contours and elevations of the terrain will be handled via Unity, i.e. do not require any functionality from the CourseForge proper.

Granted, it's a bit of a moot distinction. From what we've seen so far both will work together seamlessly and you won't have to switch to and fro during course creation. 

 

The CF tape measure seems to be working in yards, btw, whereas the Unity terrain is measured in meters. Both systems coexisting in the same project, that might creat some occiasional confusion.