12 replies to this topic

[axe360]

So over at coursedownloads where we play and design courses for the Tigerwoods PGA Tour PC Series game, which was sold on a disc. The  last year being 2008..

 

This is how it works.. Say when the 2006 disc came out, it shipped with all the stock libs you needed for each stock course that came with the game... EA Sports would release those stock libs to our community, several months after the newest disc came out, so we could use the libraries to design custom courses.. All free of course, after the initial purchase of the disc... You had to have at least 1 Stock Library to build a custom course..

 

Also we have a Library Creator, to make custom libs for our courses and those are Free also to the community for use, only with the TW's game...

 

So at coursedownloads we have a libraries section, with thousands of custom libraries made over the years by designers and you can go thru and choose any libs you want, to build your courses with, 100% free.

 

 I know it is different over at Links. I guess libs can be Locked for use only with a particular course or the Libs can be left Open, for anyone to use to build there own custom courses?

 

So how is it going to work here? Will we have access to Stock libs that come with the Stock courses that PP will use for PG?  Will those be free for designers to use as they wish, to make our own courses?

 

Will  we have a good starter set of Stock Libraries to choose from when we get the game? So if the game comes with say 10 PG made stock courses, then we would have access to each lib from each course, which would give us use of I would imagine some pretty good libraries from the start?

 

Then I would be fine with others buying there own libraries and having them locked so no one can use them with there own designs accept to play that particular course..

 

I wouldn't mind have a small fee added to the purchase of the game, if that meant I would have access to all the Stock Libraries that came with each course, in the game...

 

Otherwise, I don't see myself purchasing separate libraries just to build a course to share with others for free.. Not that I would ever want to charge for my courses, nor would I ever pay for custom courses. But I don't see having to pay for good libs when I can have access to a set of Stock Libs that would be purchased with the game... Not asking for freebies, mind you..

 

Maybe that is the way this will go and maybe that's just the way it has to be... I don't know...

 

I guess you would have to know how things work over at coursedownloads.com with TW PC Series. I hope I have explained it well enough..

 

I only ask these questions with the best of intentions as I of course am also looking for something new and exciting to do and look forward to working with the community to help that to happen.. So far this is the place that I am taking a good look at, I like what I have seen so far... I understand if it's to early for some of my questions to be answered but they were on my mind..

 

Thank you

 

Axe.

 

Note: If we will have to pay for good libs or whatever, I will still play this game as it looks wonderful...

[IanD]

I've wondered several things regarding this area of interest myself... however, gone are the days where the involvement I had will occur again.

 

I'm expecting someone within the Unity crowd to have more knowledge of how this has perhaps happened elsewhere. Either within another type of game utilising similar add-ons or otherwise.

 

In the art of trying to sell a course designed, I'm even less knowledgeful. For one to do so, he'd likely make the file available as a download and that requires hosting sufficiently, and ensuring payment is secure. What costs would be recuperated by doing this, I'm at a loss to know anymore. It would be highly unlikely it would be vastfully profitable.

 

However, your suggestion of making the course freely available, and perhaps a cost involved to allow sharing of the asset/textures within may be something to consider. But again, making those transactions is not something for those less aware of what's involved. The other arduous task is ensuring the items being sold are indeed owned by the person selling them, unless an ingenious way of doing so arrives. Personally, I'm not keen on seeing any monies involvement as that is usually the area things go awry..

 

I've not yet purchased anything via the asset store myself, but I'd guess there may be certain restrictions regarding the content being further passed on or distributed, so I'd likely start there for more information.

[axe360]

The only cost I was speaking of would be included in the price of the game as I'm sure PG had to purchase libs for the game initially..

I am NOT for paying for courses or anything else after I have paid for the game..

[Kablammo11]

As you write yourself, axe360, it's a bit too early to answer your question.

 

CF will come with a Layers Library, where you will spend hours getting your textures right for your course project. But this library makes a distinction between (1) the textures themselves, which are stored separately and copied into the corresponding asset folder and (2) the tiling value of the textures, the fringe width and blend, and the combinations of textures and shaders that you use for your project.

Think of (1) as the ingredients and of (2) as the recipe required to combine the ingredients into the look of your course design.

Meaning that you will be able to exchange with others either (1) or (2) or both together. Only both together will add up to the course look. Also, the CF Layers Library only pertains to the textures used for the golf course: Deep rough, rough, semi, fairway, green, bunkers. These layers also have a "physics material" assigned that defines how the ball will react to them in the game. The landscape, terrain and ground textures not part of the golf course will be stored in a different place and applied in a different way (the same way any textures are applied in unity).

 

I concur that it would be a darn fine thing for the CF to have an export function that can save all the textures loaded up in any given project to a new location, including the design parameters they have been used with. I have not spotted such a function on my recent roamings through CF, though. Still, very good idea, well worth pushing.

 

Allow me to propose one more way of exchaning data: Asking and giving. Find below one free give away of a 512 seamless texture made by me. It can work for rough and semi and I recommend a tile-size of 35 to 75, depending on the slopiness of the terrain. (lower tile value for strong slopes)

 

[axe360]

I see, that would be a default base Library that other designers could use to make rough textures for there own courses? That's exactly how the ball will get rolling...

 

Now you've made your textures to include fairway, greens, 1st cuts, fringe, tee box, bunker etc..

 

Now PP would have a section in the forums named Libraries and all could come there and download any ones they want, to use with there design.   Then you have a custom course download section where the course would be listed as well as any libraries needed to play that course.. So folks would download the libraries either to strictly play your course or to add to CF/Unity to use on a course they might build...

 

Keep in mind all these suggestions are from what we use over at CS (coursedownloads.com) and have used for years to play and design for the TW's PC Series game..  I'm not saying we have to use that format but maybe this will get the ball rolling with some ideas of how to go about this...

 

Thanks

[Kablammo11]

I suspect there will be a special URL for that, not just these forums. Let's call it CFC, "CourseForge Central". And in it, I can very well envisage some sort of database search function to look for single textures and single shaders as well as for "design collections" or "texture packs", member-created folders containing all the elements required for a particular "look" of a course.

(As well as larger files for the promised prefabricated terrains including all the necessariy models)

 

Perhaps even larger, themed collections created and sold by PP such as "Links and Seaside Courses" textures and grasses - or "Desert Golf Special - including 12 brand new Cacti"

Or the "K11 Premium Collector's Edition". For free, of course, I do despise micro transactions and extra cash DLC. I do the Ka-Boom stuff, never the Ka-Ching noise!

 

 

Since, for instance, my beta test project is a course I call "Willows Heath", one fine day the CFC could host the "Willows Heath Collection", ready for download, including all the textures, shaders and the .lib settings for the Layers Library. Or if you just liked the fairway, you could limit yourself to search the database for the WH fairway.jpg and/or the WH fw_shader.tga. 

 

This, or something similar, will most likely happen - one fine day. It's too soon, imo, to expect this to be operational "soon™"

[axe360]

One more thing I do believe should be so.. Now once someone has made there own custom library and it is available for upload, I don't believe anyone that downloads that lib, should be able to EDIT said library.  Just like it is over at CS, no one can get your TCA, (the course architect) from you,  period, unless you give it to them..  Nor can anyone get the library you created accept for use on their course, that too can NOT be changed by any person accept the creator... This is what I'm talking about, not so much blank texture for others to modify..

 

When you design either a course or a custom lib, no one will have the ability to modify said course or library...  They can only use it to play the course or to install it for there custom course but no ability to EDIT it..

 

Again, these are just suggestions/thoughts from my experience and I am always open to new ideas..Peace

[Mike Jones]

Axe FYI you don't need any external libraries to play a course (everything is compressed and makes up part of the course file) and if someone downloads and plays a course they don't have any access to the assets within that course whatever they may be.

[Brucey Mc]

Mike, am I right in thinking that the assets we have within our course forge file are like 'source code' and our final course that is compiled is our 'executable', in terms of computer programming?

[axe360]

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[axe360]

Axe FYI you don't need any external libraries to play a course (everything is compressed and makes up part of the course file) and if someone downloads and plays a course they don't have any access to the assets within that course whatever they may be.

 

Ok, so then unless a designer wants to share his libs that either he has created or paid for, with other designers, we will have to make our own or buy our own.. Or just use what is free over at Unity? Is that correct?

[Kablammo11]

…or just use the default textures (and shaders) provided by PP inside the CourseForge. I'm sure there will be a decent choice available from the start. Right now, in the private beta, that choice is a bit limited.

 

Please remember that you can do quite a lot yourself with these default textures (and shaders): You can change the size of the tiles, which will considerably change the appearance of your course. You can interchange textures with shaders and also create new looks that way. In CF, that is an easy, 2 seconds drag and drop thing.

And finally, you can open any texture (and shader) inside a graphics software by double clicking on its icon in Unity, to fiddle with brightness/contrast and hue/saturation, so that you can change their entire color scheme.

You might get a limited amount of textures in CF, yes, but there are no limits on what you can make out of them, even without having to create your own or - God forbid! - having to buy them elsewhere. And once designers start to share their textures, you will get even more options.

 

Here's your free texture for the day. It's a bunker texture I lovingly handmade myself by overlaying 4 bing maps screen captures of the Sahara Desert in Photoshop and turning the result seamless. Dimension is 512 x 512; optimal tile size is from 15 to 30 meters.

 

[axe360]

Thank you K11.  I really appreciate you taking the time to give me an answer to my question.. This sound much better to me now...

I didn't know that CF would ship with some textures for starters, that sounds gr8!!

 

Thanks again.

 

L..