129 replies to this topic

[Brian]

Hey guys,

 

I know some of you have been following closely along as Steve works on his fictional course. It's great to have such an active and interested community. I'm happy to say that I have been gifted with the same task of creating my own course from scratch (temporarily named TPC Brian). I'd love to hear your comments and suggestions as I post my progress here.

 

First, a little background. I have been doing work for Perfect Parallel for just short of a year now, which started as just 3d modeling contract jobs. Shortly after, I was taught Course Forge under the expertise of Mike and began as a "starter" on real world courses. I graduated in May with a BS in Digital Media Arts and was then brought on full time in early August. Since then, I have been building courses, working on small modeling projects and training Steve. I have not yet designed my own course, so I'm looking forward to the challenge and having you along for the ride!

 

Below are just a couple of shots of the course in its infancy. I started by the laying out where I would like the holes to go with CF's measuring tool. The second image demonstrates some rather random elevation changes to add some interest before going in and modifying the terrain on a hole-specific manner. I also changed hole 5 and 7 to get the layout to make more sense.

 

I'd be happy to hear what you guys think as I make progress,

 

Brian

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[fungolfer]

The course layout looks fine to me.  Can't wait to see the progress with trees, bushes etc. I also hope there will be some water traps

[KenR]

Hello Brian, thanks for the info. Will watch your progress with interest.

[Keith]

I will definitely be following along.  Look fwd. to seeing how your course shapes up.

[Davefevs]

Hi Brian.

Quick question.....how into golf are you, do you play etc?

Good to see you've been onboard a while now. Looking forward to seeing the progress.

[Brian]

I golf on occasion and enjoy the sport, but have never played any particularly nice courses. Unfortunately here in Buffalo the golf season is rather limited so I try to get out when I can.

 

I've finished drawing splines for the front 9 holes, as well as one hole on the back nine where I've merged the fairways. My primary inspiration are courses such as Shinnecock and Sebonack, which were my favorite courses to build that I have done so far. I have yet to do anymore elevation changes, but here are some images of the course meshes. Will have more soon.

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[flinty125]

Looking good so far with both Steve's and yours Brian , it all starts with a great vivid imagination ! which I haven't got lol . I have one question ,can you extend the courses perimeter or are you limited to that green square ?

[Brian]

Thanks flinty. To answer your question, you can make the terrain any size that you choose. We typically keep them squares, but you can change the length and width individually.. For this course, I am using a 2000m x 2000m terrain. If at any point you decide that the terrain needs to be smaller or larger, you can change these settings on the fly. The only problem that you run into, is that if you are doing a real-world course and using an overhead image, this will scale the image and you may need to do some re-drawing of the splines. With fictional courses, it is no problem at all.

[IanD]

Good info to know.

 

Like the layout, interesting fairway merge layout too. Think you're actually taking it alot easier than you could lol... you could have been quite intricate with that overlap.

 

Also.. the hole (unsure number) where you tee off across water - I'd love to have seen that hole reversed and a double green created where the tee is. Could have been interesting when deciding how to approach the green with a water hazard before, and a huge putt if going too long.

 

Looking forward to how this shapes up too.

 

Couple of questions... what file size is it currently..? What Golf games have you enjoyed in your past.. ?

[Brian]

Hi Ian, thanks for the advice. Right now the entire Unity project is 240MB, but it only contains the scene file, all course forge files, unity water, a skybox and a bulkheads pack that I threw together which I am planning on using. Until I add trees, the project size will remain the same.

 

I have played a couple of the Tiger Woods games. The latest one that I have is 2012. I have also played Jack Nicklaus way back in the day, but I hardly remember it (I was probably about 8 at the time).

 

Anyway, here are a couple more shots before I call it a day. All holes are now meshed in. Will be back in tomorrow to work on the elevation and things should start taking shape.

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[TheBigYin519]

Hi Brian,

Your course looks pretty good so far.

Being in Buffalo you should pop across to Niagara Falls & have a look at some of the courses that run along side the gorge. There are lots of very interesting & challenging golf holes there that might inspire you to create a 'composite' course, but with this weather we're having you will need a big shovel, a parka & a dog sled.

I like the 'combined' fairways on the three holes but just a little point,  in real life you need to have enough space around your bunker & waste/rough areas to allow the 'greens keepers' to mow the fairways.

I will follow your progress with interest,

Keep up the good work,

John

[Keith]

Brian..do you create a water plane for each individual pond?  Also, when you first set up your terrain do you initially raise the entire terrain a bit which enables you to carve out stream and pond beds using the lower terrain tool?  Just wondering..this is the method I use when practicing and wanted to know if I am on the right track.  

[Mike Jones]

Just a note regarding course size, the unity project and the actual course file it creates have completely different file sizes. Some of the projects I've worked on get well over 2 GB in size in the editor but when you make the build for the course they compress down to an average of between 60MB and 100MB.

[IanD]

Mike, thankyou...!

 

Was hoping someone could answer that question in the form you have. I was a little concerned to see Course filesizes becoming an average 300-400mb after planting and texture changes.. but now you've stated the compression process does take place, it all helps. May I ask the current largest Course file size you have in YOUR designs ?

 

Apologies to Brian.. I don't wish to take your thread off topic, in fact I eagerly look forward to seeing more. Just wish you guys could video it all for us to sit here and drool.. you honestly have no idea how alot of us want to do more than read and type..lol..

[AndyJumbo]

HiBrian, all,
I didn't recognize what course you are working on but i'm sure you will get a great result on it, good developer, well done Man.

That's a good info Mike, thank you !

[Brian]

Hi John, I'll have to check out some of the Niagara Falls courses. I'm sure they're better than what I'm used to playing here. Hopefully it won't take too long for the weather to clear up so I can get out again. Good point about the fairway area between the bunkers and rough; Guess I haven't been thinking about the groundskeeper .

 

Keith, to answer your question, it's best to use as few water meshes as possible to save on render costs. However, sometimes we can't do this because, based on the terrain sculpting, you may have to have water meshes at different positions on the y-axis. For example, on this course, my three bodies of water are all separate. This is because the terrain is is at different heights around each one. On a flatter course, you can typically get away with using one water mesh for every lake. Also, from the sound of it, you do exactly what we do when starting a fictional course. Using the "flatten" option will set your terrain to whatever value you choose. You never want to start off at 0, because then you can't lower it for water, bunkers etc. In this example, I set my height spread to 100 (probably a bit excessive, but I wanted to make sure I had freedom to make the adjustments I wanted) and flattened it to 50.

 

More to come today. Thanks for following along guys.

[Keith]

Brian..thanks for the reply.  Nice to know I am doing things correctly.  I will remember that tip about limiting the number of water meshes when possible.  Course is looking superb, look forward to more updates.

[Brian]

Hey guys, thanks for the kind remarks and suggestions so far. I've begun working on hole-specific elevations. Here are a few shots of some of the front 9 holes.

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[Brian]

Hey guys. One last update before I leave today. Have the first run of elevation modifications done throughout all 18 holes. Here are a couple of screens from the back 9.

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[IanD]

Brian... quite possibly my eyes, but are alot of the holes using sunken fairways ? It shows a few regarding several of your latest images and I'm curious to see how the ball is likely to end up in the middle of the fairway all the time based on this.

 

Maybe include a few challenges, whereby going long allows that safety, but shorter accurate shots make landing on the fairway harder, with a roll off slope etc.

 

No basins lol..