133 replies to this topic

[Dazmaniac]

Is everyone sure that it is his first attempt on a course editor?

 

Whilst golf course design may not be right up Steve's street, it isn't really as if he is a total novice with Course Forge, as he himself has already posted:-

 

Mike and I use Course Forge every day and so we're generally the ones to add to the list of potential features

 

So I think he is well versed in how the application works, even if his golf course architecture talent's are not yet up to some of the 'masters' from various communities.

 

[Davefevs]

Great idea flinty, when the course is done it would be very cool to get a virtual tour of it.

Would that use the flyby mode?

[axe360]

How bout a Pano?  Believe me, it's much better to design With a pano then without one.. Kind of gives you a better perspective..

[Steve]

It's true that I'm not a CourseForge novice. I have quite a bit of experience with it. I have, however, never designed a course before.

I'm done with the height modification with the exception of some slight green editing to do. I've started planting and texture painting on hole 1 in order to give you guys the look I'll be going for with the course. I want my course to have beautiful water edges and lush, green foliage. I plan on getting pretty close to the fairways with the trees because I really like the feeling of shooting through a narrow lane of trees. (hole 1 might not be the best example) Some of my fairways are rather wide, so I hope to leave less room for error by bringing in the trees close to the holes themselves. I plan on using a lot of rocks near the water's edge because it's one of my favorite looks on the courses I've seen.

 hole01.PNG   1.7MB   21 downloads

[axe360]

Wow, you've already dropped all your bunkers? That in and of itself is some blistering speed over what I'm used too? How bout some elevations on those tee boxes? The water is much different in that pic? Not sure if it's clear or blurry but I'm liking it from here.

 

Plus I'm really liking the banks of your water features, I love the way they roll down to the water.. Very nice..

 

How about cart paths, do you have a tool yet that can draw cart paths at a specific width? 10, 11, 12 ft etc?

[Dazmaniac]

Steve.

 

Really good job so far. Amazing how much you have actually got done in such a short space of time. I remember first opening up the APCD back in the day and even after several days, was light years away from where you're at with the CF in terms of layout, elevation, textures applied etc.

 

Kudos.

[Steve]

Axe

-I may raise those tee boxes. The elevation on the other holes is a bit more noticeable, but due to the location of those tees and the difficulty of that par 3 they should probably be raised a bit more.

-I changed the water shader from the previous screenshots, so it should look much better. I also painted more appropriate textures under the water to make it look better.

-For cart paths we use a 3rd party plugin. I don't, personally, care for the look of them because they disrupt the more organic nature of courses. I understand their practical purpose and may add them in order to make this course appear more realistic

[axe360]

Ahh ok, thanks Steve, that is super cool that you can paint the bottom of the water, I think that is going to look awesome, especially if you had a pebble texture too that you could paint in their...

 

Thanks for the quick replies, march on trooper...

[flinty125]

Whilst golf course design may not be right up Steve's street, it isn't really as if he is a total novice with Course Forge, as he himself has already posted:-

 

Mike and I use Course Forge every day and so we're generally the ones to add to the list of potential features

 

So I think he is well versed in how the application works, even if his golf course architecture talent's are not yet up to some of the 'masters' from various communities.

 

I have had years of course editing experience on custom play golf but Steve's course looks better than all of mine , if this is his first course imagine one of his courses after gaining even more experience.

[Jimbo63]

Course looking really good Steve. I have no doubts that we will have an awesome course design tool here, my main concern is what is the game play going to be like?

[Steve]

Thanks guys.

I'm done for the week, so I'll be back at the course on Monday. I've planted the first 2 holes.

In response to Jimbo, gameplay isn't my area of expertise, but I assure you that every version of Perfect Golf that I have tested has been a larger improvement over than previous version than I would have anticipated.

 hole02.PNG   967.68KB   22 downloads  hole02shot02.PNG   1.18MB   13 downloads

[Joe Habiger]

I think it looks very good for a first course, and this is not a knock on you nor Mike Jones but I guess I am so tired seeing the same textures used on each and every course. I see the same patterns and color in the grass it seems. You would think I would have a texture fetish from all the whining I do about textures in this game.

[shimonko]

Looking good very quickly Steve!

Instead of the time it takes to constantly do videos and screenshots though, how about a stripped build allowing us to whizz around, like I did here?

[shimonko]

And if so maybe forum admin could do a bbcode for the Unity web player so we could see it embedded in posts here (and for future WIPs).

[Kablammo11]

I think it looks very good for a first course, and this is not a knock on you nor Mike Jones but I guess I am so tired seeing the same textures used on each and every course. I see the same patterns and color in the grass it seems. You would think I would have a texture fetish from all the whining I do about textures in this game.

 

Yes, it does have that generic PP look. It's not a bad look at all, but just so samey - and the more courses come out with that generic PP look, the more this might become awkward. As a potential designer at some vague time in a distant future, I am firmly commited to do something about that: this is certainly an area screaming for individualism and customization…You're not alone, Joe.

 

FYI - any textures used inside Unity & Forge, be it ground textures or foliage, can be changed, edited or switched at any moment. Double-click on their icons in the Unity asset window and they are opened in Photoshop, where you can change contrasts and colors, for example. (Unity copies all data into a new folder when packages are imported, so there is no danger of overwriting the original texture). Save your changes and the textures will automatically be updated in Unity. 

Also, you can (and you should!) superimpose different textures at varying opacity to cover the tiling and to add diversity to the dominant textures…like muddy patches on the fairway, dried out patches on fairways and greens etc...

All of this, of course, takes time and attention to detail. Our man Steve is progressing so quickly, just to keep us entertained, that he simply has not had the time to worry about any of this.

 

So let's just hope that Steve simply started with default textures out of convenience and will, near the completion of his first symphony, invest a few minutes into the general color scheme and texturing.

And while we're ont textures that cause us pause: The snow-white bunkers are what irks me most and makes me want to reach for my shades. Something brown, yellow or even reddish would be in order. White, in my book, is for Augusta only.

[Dazmaniac]

This happened with the APCD. The initial batch of courses all used the stock textures and over time every course looked very similar from a grass texture perspective.

 

Then folks learned that they could actually create their own ground textures and suddenly courses began to appear with different looking grass textures, so we then began to see fairways representing areas where grass courses were predominantly drier and ones where they were more lush and greener.

 

The same happened with trees, where some designers just used one variation of tree and the community feedback was 'too many cloned trees'. So designers took this on board, started to vary up the trees being planted. It took the courses longer to be made because of the added time to be able to focus better on the planting side, but the courses appearance began to improve, just be limiting the cloned tree effect.

 

I'm sure the same will happen once CF becomes available to the masses and folks get a grasp of how to apply different textures and then courses will look different. Until then, we will have to make do with the stock textures.

[olazaboll]

Edit + Doublepost ... sorry ... see below 

[olazaboll]

Steve Wrote: Thanks guys.I'm done for the week, so I'll be back at the course on Monday. I've planted the first 2 holes.In response to Jimbo, gameplay isn't my area of expertise, but I assure you that every version of Perfect Golf that I have tested has been a larger improvement over than previous version than I would have anticipated.

 hole02.PNG hole02shot02.PNG

 

 

To the eye the two bunkers in front of the green looks nice ... but I think the hole would be more challenging if you put a bunker in the center of the fairwaysection that is in front of the green ... ( and maybe loose the last of thoose bunkers.... the one that "grabs" arround the fairway ) 

 

[Dazmaniac]

Looking good very quickly Steve!

Instead of the time it takes to constantly do videos and screenshots though, how about a stripped build allowing us to whizz around, like I did here?

S,

 

Is the layout in the clip a prospective CF design you are planning to take on? Looks good.

[IanD]

A question for you Steve, please... along with many others here

 

What size is the file of your course ? What is it likely to become (typically one of Mike's or a complete course example)..?

 

Always interesting to know some of the finer details too.. ie what size before planting, and after planting etc..