26 replies to this topic

[Dropzone73]

Mike Jones, on 26 Aug 2018 - 10:20 PM, said:

There is a new CF ability to use multiple skyboxes, lighting settings and post processing settings which are saved to the course file. There are other additions to CF too such as prevailing wind, the ability to copy rotate and resize shapes, and a bunch of other new library functions for Turf Effects.

This is so great to hear!  

[slouis]

I hope my question is relevant to this topic but Mike has posted a number of screenshots of JNPG2 and they all show perfectly manicured North American type courses.  Although we have a number of very good renditions of links courses like St. Andrews and Royal Troon, in my opinion, they look too "green" and not as rugged and natural as what I see in photographs and telecasts of tournaments played on these links courses.

I only dabbled with Course Forge for a brief time but I am wondering if the new CF will have a fairway texture that is more like what we saw at Carnoustie rather than one fairway texture for all courses regardless of what type of course they are.  I would be very interested in seeing what a Carnoustie type fairway would look like in JNPG2.

Regardless, I am really looking forward to JNPG2.

[andrewjjones43#]

I’m wrestling with that dilemma on my home course which is just about ready. I tried some fairway settings that gave it that true to life look but it looked too washed out. Having spoken to other experienced members the advice was to show off the course with the settings that make it look the best. So I’ve gone for a similar look to the PP Troon and Birkdale renditions. IRL even when the fairways are yellow there are still green areas where the water from sprinklers or rain showers gathers. These areas are obviously hollows but this is difficult to replicate. Even if you could produce a mottled look in photoshop you might get green high spots and yellow low spots which would look fake. Being able to paint on the fairway spline would solve that and I think that was a feature request from an experienced designer in a post from Mike Jones.

[Mike Jones]

There are already facilities to use whatever textures you like in CourseForge. You can also use a course overhead image to blend with your more detailed textures to help create the uneven coloured 'look'

 

As for Links courses, the UK has experienced a prolonged drought this year and most other years the courses end up looking a lot greener than this year due to the large amount of rain we usually get in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

[Jwheels9876]

Beautiful screenshots Mike. Perfect golf has such a natural real life golf course look which is fantastic.

[Dazmaniac]

NoPutt, on 26 Aug 2018 - 1:31 PM, said:

Harry looks a little out of place in this majestic environment.

 

Might be 'out of place' but I think he's spotted a gap up ahead seeing as he's got the fairway metal out, lol.

[Dazmaniac]

An extract from MJ's earlier post

 

Mike Jones, on 26 Aug 2018 - 1:42 PM, said:

We decided that for PG2 we would go with several different static times of day rather than a dynamic atmospheric solution as it would give us better control over the lighting. I look at the best racing sims out there for inspiration sometimes when it comes to lighting and atmospherics and to me the Forza series and especially Grand Turismo sport look fantastic. They too have an advantage over golf games though in that the main area of detail can be concentrated around a relatively small area ie the track itself. Project cars has a very good dynamic skybox but that's in the realm of a fairly large AAA studio to create and not really possible for us. 

 

Here are a couple of examples of an early evening WIP PG2 scene at Woody's practice area.

 

 

 

 

 

First off, those images look sweet. 

 

As for the time of day option to have several preset times of day, I'm happy with that. IRL my rounds are approx 4 hrs on a weekend starting at around 8am. While the sun does move around, the changes in lighting during my round are not wildly different. So having a static lighting scene in PG2 is OK with me. 

 

I play loads of iRaciing (PC) and Gran Turismo Sport (PS4) and they too have the preset times of day for you to choose from when racing. Yes the lighting and shadows will be different for each option, but they are static, but it doesn't take anything away from the experience. That said, iRacing are currently working on their day/night transitions system and the snippets we've seen it does look really good, though not yet ready for  prime time community release.

 

One slightly disappointing aspect of the GTS time of day options is you cannot pick a time of day and have additional options for sunny, clear, overcast, heavy cloud etc. It is just the one preset option. I hope that PP can factor in additional lighting settings for each time of day, so if we got early morning, mid morning, midday, mid afternoon and late afternoon that each preset would come with further options as mentioned earlier in this paragraph, so at least midday wouldn't always be the same midday. So one round it might be midday and sunny and the next time I play I opt for midday and heavy cloud.

 

I also appreciate what RobC said about it being beneficial for designers having a set lighting environment in which to work, so that it offers the designer fuller control of their designs, to get them to look their best.

 

Just look forward to the day we may all get to experience it in a PG2 environment.