96 replies to this topic

[Kablammo11]

 

No worries my friend, I know when to make an exit, sniff,sniff, tear.

I'll be heading to Oasis Lodge where Tara is waiting to show off

her new Geisha Bush, while you remain in your Thorny Thicket.

 

 

You never got over me aborting the Lodge project, didn't you? You had your mind set on Tara's exclusive adult cabaret for premium guests, mistaking her for an active participant, whereas I clearly said she would be managing the place, not perform any gymnastics herself.

 

I'm not convinced I should revive Oasis Lodge and generally do not like backtracking to old things. I have, however, not deleted the project folder yet, so, hm... there were quite a few things wrong with the golf game aspects of it, which made me take a step back (and actually question my own skill in designing golf courses at all). It was too tricked out, lacking ease and flow, feeling as if I was trying too hard. It did not feel balanced to me at the time, just a weird amalgamation of ideas, some of them barely okay, others not at all.

I will play its latest version again at some time in a medium-term future and look at it through fresh eyes.

 

Meantime, here's an image of the updated, 3rd clubhouse/casino complex:

[NoPutt]

You're right K, I never got over it. Excitement was built-up, 

Premium Cabaret and airline tickets were purchased in advance, 

and I could almost hear the sound of slot machines and shuffeling

decks, when..Ka-Boom!, all was aborted and cancelled, more tears.

I actually preferred the colorful carnival atmosphere of the old club/casino,

but if you've got your heart set on another prison I'll still be there for

Taras' Grand Opening.

We now return you to the program already in progress...SHOGUN.

[DPRoberts]

Not being prone to minimalism, I took a few free minutes on a plane flight to work on that side of my brain. I had the concept of "ma" that you had previously touched upon as the objective.

Probably more Aroha than Shogun but K11 inspired nonetheless...

Umi
(created in Samsung Notes, app for Galaxy phone)

[Kablammo11]

That's a decent go I'd say. I like it. I certainly prefer to have something like this on the wall at home - rather than a sad clown portrait or a group of anthropomorphic dogs playing poker.

My brain goes and instantly fills in the waves, the beach, the other trees, the sea, the clouds, two dozen more palm trees and the tiny flock of seagulls at the left edge of picture - without you having to draw them. Your effort triggered my imagination and lured me into doing most of the work myself inside my head.

Pen and paper (or the electronic equivalent thereof) are such an enticing and powerful medium! 

 

Not quite sure if "ma" and minimalism are quite the same. 

 

Thank you very much for sharing. Unfortunately, Unity and CF will never allow me this much blank space in course design... utterly unsuited for the existence of "nothing", they (and nameless cohorts of two-dimensional players clamouring for perfect next-gen realism) on the contrary demand an overload of detail. 

[Duval59]

Very nice course that is coming together here. Like the simpleness of it and the mystery/drudge awe. Sound seems nicely done, with some Japanese flare. Looking forwards to loosing myself in its awe. I do have one concern that when watching your videos I cannot get out of my mind. . . The textures for fairways and greens look so Scottish/American. I do not see these as Japanese textures at all as they seem to pull me away from the intended feel for this course. The tee boxes, however, are truly Japanese in nature. For some reason, and I am not complaining just venting, I cannot get this off my mind. The mystery is taken away as I stand in the fairway and feel like I am playing the local course with plaid Scottish accent fairways. Good work, thanks for the play by play on creating your course and its story.

[Kablammo11]

Fair comment, Duval59. There are also the pot bunkers, which are not commonly associated with Japan, yet utterly plausible, especially in a culture that thrives on adopting and integrating foreign things (The main features of Japanese culture have basically been imported from the more ancient culture of China). I have tried long and hard to add more far-eastern accents to those surfaces, but that would be at the expense of creating confusion in some other players - and risk being a bit too gimmicky.

See posts 46 and 56 in this thread about this.

 

It's fair to assume that fairways, greens, etc per se resemble each other across the world. Go for any Google images of Japanese golf courses to learn from them that the fairways over there are not on cultural topic with their location.

 

That said, there is one thing still missing to them: TE (or turf effects, or Unity 2017 magic, or 3D grass). The Shogun will not be released before this next major upgrade and if it will published ever, it will contain TE. And that will be tricky, because TE are a bit of a game changer. They will result in a complete overhaul of the Layers Library and the separation of labour between its current components. To an extent that is still unknown to me. This will translate into hours and days of tweaking by trial and error, I reckon.

 

Think of the current surfaces as provisional - as far as I can take them in this version of CF, but nowhere near the unknown reality of the next one. Meaning that they will undergo more changes and you are by no means looking at the finished product.

Until then The Shogun lies dormant.

[hiltonwelford]

....

[Kablammo11]

Very nice. Best of luck.

But why not open your own Show & Tell  thread about it?

[Duval59]

Ah, true enough. 

"The Shogun will not be released before this next major upgrade and if it will published ever, it will contain TE."

 

 

I hope we will get to play this thing after your dulcet tones lulled us to sleep over it for quite a few hours at a time. It seems I have invested much time and anticipation into desiderating over Shogun. From this I have developed the desire to encourage you to finish with fervor. Till then, happy playing.

[hiltonwelford]

...

[Kablammo11]

I'm sorry for misunderstanding your initiative, hiltonwelford. Quoting my line of thought in your erased post, as you did in the one after that, might have helped explain. Since you did mention a WIP in there, this made me assume you were working on this as a designer yourself - hence my suggestion to present this in your own thread. Also, with your example in Hong Kong not quite being from Japan, I failed to make the connection.

But yes, what I briefly saw in your link indeed does underscore my point that fairways etc are pretty much grassy and similar all over this planet - interchangeable. It even might serve as a good example for a somewhat brutish, globalist, mainly Americanised golf course design that is as generic worldwide as the CF default library - and utterly disconnected from its local surroundings. And that definitely is not my cup of tea.

 

Again, sorry for misreading and thank you.

[Kablammo11]

Returning to the Shogun, another thing I tried is fiddling with the skybox, or rather it's colour. Remember the blue sky it used to have? Well, now it looks like this.

 

 

Yep, it's too much. It looked okay in Unity, darker and less saturated, but the lighting gremlins went and mucked it up in the game. And what with the next super update to JNPG2 and Unity 2017 that explicitly mentions a sea change in lighting, well, I will have to wait for that as well before I can fine-tune this. As with TE, I've got to kick this can down the road and put this on the back burner.

 

 

Still, methinks something like this does add a slight notion of distant lands: Dorothy is not in Kansas anymore, unless she's back in the Dust Bowl. Where she was at the start. Okay, scratch this one: Bad simile.

 

 

That said, this is only available to all golfers who select to have Dynamic Skies off. All the others, who think that they know  what weather and which colours they crave without the designers direction, all these fair-weather philistines, will be treated to the usual blandness of PG default skyskapes, plus a dense yellow fog and billowing yellow-orange swamp particle effects from me. Ought to look weird.

[DPRoberts]

Just shows the impact of lighting and a skybox. It's often not, "how does this fairway look" but "how does this look with everything surrounding it."

It's not Scottish, Japanese, American, it's mystic and captivating.

Textures in TGC are subpar but some of the great designers over there make their impact with shadows and lighting.

Can't wait for PG2 and Unity 2017. New toys and new problems to be solved!

[Ted_Ball]

Dokode gorufuba?

 

Sonkei suru

[Kablammo11]

Ted, my man!

 

I speak fluently French, English, German and am able to converse superficially in Italian and Spanish as well. I also learned (and then mostly unlearned) Latin and Ancient Greek. Beyond Goggle Translate I have no mastery of Japanese whatsoever, alas.

Something with where or when, with respect? What's new?

 

The Shogun currently lies dormant, and will remain so, until CF-Unity 2017 and PG2 are released (plus one or two months for me to get to grips with them, maybe one more to do the icky Speedtree bit). 

 

I have not played the game or worked in CF since my last post in this thread. And I can't say I miss them tremendously - After a total of 5 years around this forum (joined 22-12-12), I can't keep being as enthusiastic and optimistic like on day one; things got stale. I still visit daily, to see if there is some movement somewhere (nope!) and to answer the occasional help thread for CF designers. 

 

No Shogun in the foreseeable future. No "The Thing"(Cartoony, simplified), no "Alpha"(Mountain Forest), no "Oasis Lodge" (Desert Waterhole) and no "Peacemaker" (Parkland/French Palace and Garden) either. Blammocorp is on indefinite business closure atm.

[olazaboll]

K11: I probably dont know what Im talking about , but seeing your last 3 pics make me think about Shaun Tan

( if you dont know him ... you can google him ... ) ...

not an art-expert myself in anyway, but last week  Mr Tan popped up during my current studies ..

[Kablammo11]

Thanks, I did. Perfunctorily.

I shan't rest until Shaun Tan has to google me.