5 replies to this topic

[dpeters95]

Ok, I followed the example posted by Shimonko over in the now, locked, Course Forge forum using the Muirfield heightmap and overlay. I had no problems and it looked great in Unity. Now for the million dollar question, how do I get these two files for a local course that I want to create?

I know I saw something about a future app that would allow us to get heightmaps but how do you get the heightmap and corresponding overlay right now?

I would have sent Shimonko a message but he hasn't been on here since May so I thought I would ask in here.

TIA

[Dazmaniac]

PP's Terrain Forge will allow you to do this (as long as the area your course is in is covered by LIDAR data). I believe Terrain Forge will follow in time now that Course Forge is out in the public domain. Both of these tools together make a very powerful course designing package.

 

I believe there are other programs that can obtain LIDAR, such as Global Mapper.

[dpeters95]

Yes, that is the app I was referring to, but it is not currently available and I see people using heightmaps and overlays of courses now... I was wondering how they get them at this time.

Are they really spending $1000 for Global Mapper and the LIDAR plug-in? WOW...

[johnmeyer]

I can make you a "poor mans" terrain using world composer. It uses the BING maps data, which can be as good as 6m/pixel height data, as bad a 15m/pixel.

 

Doggs fashioned porthcawl and torrey pines using them though, the worse the data the more sculpting involved. 

 

Also would need you to be pretty confident in what ya doing in both unity and courseforge too as there various different settings you just need to tweak etc. 

[Mike Jones]

As with everything in unity there is a simple and a complicated way of doing things. Creating and importing a matching overlay and heightmap is something that Terrain Forge is designed to do. This will be released in due course and will make the process pretty simple.

 

As John says I would wait until you really understand what the standard settings in the tutorial project do before jumping into the deep end and importing heightmaps etc. I will be making an 'interim tutorial' which will hopefully bridge the time gap between now and when TF is released.

[dpeters95]

Thank you for the offer John! And thank you Mike for the information. I actually thought it would be easier with a heightmap and an overlay. After importing them into Unity I figured I would then just have to learn Course Forge to overlay the "golf" objects on top of the imported terrain.

The desire to build my local course is the driving force for me to learn Unity and Course Forge.  But, I guess I will wait then for your interim tutorial Mike! But, if it takes too long, I might still take you up on your offer John