46 replies to this topic

[Kablammo11]

Wow, great things to come. I am very excited. Thanks to the testers who show us some videos or pics.

 

You're welcome Volker. We deeply care about your excitement, so allow me to aggravate your condition... If you should seek extasy beyond your excitement, I strongly recommend that you click on the HD button on the Vimeo window below before starting the clip. Everybody should do that...

 

So, showtime! Picture quality is not good, but that's my the fault of my rig, the game looks very fine. In this video you will see a dramatic mishit on the 3rd hole, caused by lag, which was caused by running the screen cap app, which resulted in a delayed 3rd click, which created a very bad shot. That's alpha to you, baby... it'll get sorted...

 

Aaanyway, today's sunday stroll will take us to the eminently beautiful and staggeringly breathtaking Shadowlands course, which was created by our very own Mike Jones. Mike, being chronically shy and obsessively self-effacing - a tragic victim of true British understatement and inhumanly rigorous stiffupperlippedness - would never ever muster the nerve to toot his own horn.

And yet he should. But he won't. So I must. Now, everybody, give the man a round of applause and... Toot!

 

[Thrangar]

Well as a 2 month lurker, this is a real treat, not here to start a fight but ...honestly this really boosted my interest and opinion.

 

Like Teddy said its early so I will ask only one question.

 

Is the camera choices in the videos a Unity default, why would you choose or make a camera setting that bounces up and down as the ball does?.....very disconcerting

[Kablammo11]

Camera choices are made in the PerfectGolf game. Different angles are also available for replays. Most are tracking the ball and will, of course, bounce with it.

No doubt the camera department will need a lot more love from the Devs. Compared to more pressing issues like frame rate, swing meter functionality, shot types and ball physics, they are currently not at the top of the agenda. I have edited some replays into this sequence just to demonstrate the different camera types currently on offer, so it's a bit disconcerting - as the player, you will get to choose which ones you want to use and be put in charge of your own camera coverage.

[Tigers Agent]

would never ever muster the nerve to toot his own horn.

 

 

I can see why you're on their team.. the incessant asskissin.  how sad to stoop to that position.   it's not who ya know....

[frank70]

@Kablammo11

Physics need a little bit of work, right? Wedge shots don't back up, but keep on rolling after impact on the green. A would expect a little bit more difference between long irons and wedges considering backspin. As you told us, finetuning physics is on the agenda, so i'm not worrying.

[shimonko]

No-one deserves more to be on the team than K11 and he has a go at Mike's work just as much as praises. His sincerity is endearing.   

[Kablammo11]

It would be insulting to Mike to ever believe he would fall for my kind of sickly over-the-top ironic flattery. Thanks for kissing my ass just now, shimonko. I'll be sure to kiss yours back endearingly .

 

But now to frank70, who does know how to stay on topic in a thread. Yes, physics... The clubs used to have too much spin in an earlier version. You could get 20y backspin on a sandwedge. Now they don't have enough grab and bite, true. They probably will fiddle some more with the algorhythms and increase the backspin again. Still under construction. 

The Devs are very strongly into simulating real golf shots, to a scientific extent that eludes me, tbh. They believe that only at full swing or above some serious ball spin is being generated. The amount of spin is tied to clubhead speed.  Shots with less power do not spin very much, hence the roll on the wedges you observed. But then how do we explain the magic of Phil Mickelson? 

In conclusion: Yes, yes, physics, yes, problems... being dealt with. Somehow...

[yesrushdt]

Thanks for sharing guys.  Game looks to be coming along very nicely indeed. 

There looks to be an option to turn the ball trail completely off judging by fungolfer's video.  Is this the case?  Also, are the alpha testers able to play online with eachother as of yet?  Doubt this option is available yet, however I'm curious nonetheless.

[shimonko]

Yeah you can turn off the ball trail - I don't like it all personally and use the little comet trail instead.

You can be sure the game looks far better and smoother than shown in K11's video. I typically get 50-80 fps running at 1920x1080 at the top level of graphics with a decent video card, and 40-80 fps doesn't really look much better than 30.

[yesrushdt]

Yeah you can turn off the ball trail - I don't like it all personally and use the little comet trail instead.

You can be sure the game looks far better and smoother than shown in K11's video. I typically get 50-80 fps running at 1920x1080 at the top level of graphics with a decent video card, and 40-80 fps doesn't really look much better than 30.

Judging by Perfect Parallel's hole in one video, there isn't a ball trail  or comet trail.  Hopefully there is an option to completely remove either type.

 

Good to know it's running smoothly on your rig.

[frank70]

It would be insulting to Mike to ever believe he would fall for my kind of sickly over-the-top ironic flattery. Thanks for kissing my ass just now, shimonko. I'll be sure to kiss yours back endearingly .

 

But now to frank70, who does know how to stay on topic in a thread. Yes, physics... The clubs used to have too much spin in an earlier version. You could get 20y backspin on a sandwedge. Now they don't have enough grab and bite, true. They probably will fiddle some more with the algorhythms and increase the backspin again. Still under construction. 

The Devs are very strongly into simulating real golf shots, to a scientific extent that eludes me, tbh. They believe that only at full swing or above some serious ball spin is being generated. The amount of spin is tied to clubhead speed.  Shots with less power do not spin very much, hence the roll on the wedges you observed. But then how do we explain the magic of Phil Mickelson? 

In conclusion: Yes, yes, physics, yes, problems... being dealt with. Somehow...

You can apply spin without hitting a full swing (pitches, chips). Difficult to implement into a game for sure. But as you of course know, it has to do with the angle of the club hitting the ball and with the swing plane (big divot vs. picking the ball up clean from the ground). I think this is the reason why almost every golf game has difficulties to offer a good and realistic short game (pitching, chipping, flops, bunker play).

[shimonko]

Judging by Perfect Parallel's hole in one video, there isn't a ball trail  or comet trail.  Hopefully there is an option to completely remove either type.

 

Good to know it's running smoothly on your rig.

Yes, you can have no trail (and I've been trying to play without it as I prefer it that way), but you just can't see the ball in the air when viewing from the player or landing position. I did think they'd fixed the undershading of the ball to make it more visible against the clouds, but then noticed I'd been watching a dirt spot on my monitor (remarkably believable with the way the camera works).

[clint]

I would love to be part of this testing but will continue to wait "patiently" for early access.

 

Same here!!!

[Volker]

K11, thanks for your comment and the video . I always liked Shadowlands in Links2003 and this one looks also gorgeous. I love the option of a reverse landing cam. Oh man, I would like to be a tester, too.

[Kablammo11]

Glad you enjoyed it, Volker.

A reverse cam is quite tricky, fyi, because Perfect Golf is the first computer golf game in the entire golfdom that calculates real-time ball physics. Meaning that what you see is what you get, the PC does not "know" in advance where the ball will stop - unlike so many other games we could mention... So how to place the reverse cam properly to capture the best landing and roll of a ball? I often used a shot replay in reverse cam in my video, because for the replay the game already "knows" what will happen.

 

As for you and all those who would like to be testers, I can assure you that it's not all fun and games. PP officially have stated that they are going for an early release ASAP (whenever that will be, I have no ETA, so don't ask) in order to use that early release to gather yet more input and feedback in order to finish developing the game. Our team of testers right now is busy helping them to prepare a rough beta that will not be the finished product (explicitely not finished!) but in a (halfway) decent shape to release to a wider range of interested testers via early access. 

 

Somebody asked about multiplayer further above. Apparently a few shots have already been fired in anger online, but I wasn't there to witness it. afaik the team currently is busy adding skype-ability to their multiplayer.

 

The courses at our disposal right now are: ShadowLands (fictional), Willow Heath (fictional), Sawgrass, Boston TPC and Bethpage Black (though for licensing reasons they have different names).

[Mike Jones]

You can apply spin without hitting a full swing (pitches, chips). Difficult to implement into a game for sure. But as you of course know, it has to do with the angle of the club hitting the ball and with the swing plane (big divot vs. picking the ball up clean from the ground). I think this is the reason why almost every golf game has difficulties to offer a good and realistic short game (pitching, chipping, flops, bunker play).

 

With the advent of Trackman and other such launch monitors much of the mystique around what causes certain shots, spins, launch angles etc has been revealed. All shots that get airborne have spin but full shots always impart more spin than part shots that's why you see the tour pros laying up to their optimum point on par 5's when they can't reach in two. 

 

There are also so many variables to take into account when calculating what the ball will do on landing and the physics has to work on all of them. I can assure you it's pretty easy to back up a full wedge onto a soft green when playing into a breeze but it's not a 'canned' effect like in many previous golf games, the conditions have to be right for you to do that.

[Davefevs]

No-one deserves more to be on the team than K11 and he has a go at Mike's work just as much as praises. His sincerity is endearing.

He certainly does!

[hyperrodik]

nice...thank you guys a lot for that

[Bob1527]

I posted in another thread before I read/viewed this one,I should have waited and just said it all here....definitely impressed with recent progress reports,and it's great to see videos starting to appear,thanks for putting them up....the way the game looks,I would rather play 'as is'  than have to use wgt...

[KenR]

Because we use real world physics variables and not fudges, the ultimate goal is to allow you to do just that and adjust your players distances. In fact in the future if you play golf IRL and can book a Trackman or other launch monitor session, you will be able to plug in your real world stats for spin, speed and launch angle and then play the game as yourself. 

 

Thanks for that info Mike. Being able to set club distances and play as "yourself" is a feature that really enhances gameplay for those who want to do it. Very pleased to learn that ability is or will be in PG.