389 replies to this topic

[DPRoberts]

So cool. If we could only be on a version that supported directx and GPU rendering of the grass...

I also don't think we have control over camera settings. If someone could write a shader that only rendered grass within like 30 yards of the camera...

[Birdie]

So cool. If we could only be on a version that supported directx and GPU rendering of the grass...

Absolutely true. It's definitely fps hungry. I'm now at least back around 35fps on the 9th green. There is already a lot of a other hungry things going on. Many tiny waterfalls sections, textures, plants. The Unity profiler shows a lot of business with these waterfalls for example. Will definitely have to optimze things.

But the grass is easy to implement. Just export a spline the "DP-way", import it back as obj and apply the material with the grass shader, and the overlay on the original spline. Then tweaking until bleeding... I use the Stixgames DX11 shader btw. The grass density is also dependend on the mesh structure, so you may see some artifacts where we had small angles is the spline mesh for example. I think this can be solved with editing the spline objects mesh a little in blender for example. Subdividing or reordering some vertices maybe.

Btw i also finally managed to get a spline as a surface in the speedtree modeler. Don't know if it's a common practice. But this also gives a lot of nice planting options. So far i didn't like the mass planting inside Unity. But in the modeler everything stays exactly inside the splines and you have a lot of quick randomisation or alignement options.

[Birdie]

I also don't think we have control over camera settings. If someone could write a shader that only rendered grass within like 30 yards of the camera...

In this shader you can definitely define a fade start and end an so on. Is this something you mean? With this you can gain a lot of fps back while you on the other side may loose some visuals.

[DPRoberts]

Birdie, I love it! Maybe there can be a trimmed usage of this. You've got talent and energy, I hope you stick with some of this experimentation.

I've seen that animations are a big resource hog. I would put them all in the same folder in the hierarchy and untick their rendering and see how a build goes.

And yes, a fade would be great. Sounds like it is already there. It works correctly in the build?

[Birdie]

Yes it works surprisingly well as far as i can tell. You can also use texture atlases for variation.

After work i will try a build without the waterfalls and do further testing. But i already disabled a lot of options which were given in this waterfall asset. Lets see...

[Charles]

Am i seeing the birth of 3D grass in PG1 or am I dreaming here?..   You designer-wizzards speak/write in a foreign language so i'm a bit puzzled here... Do I read that you are on the brink of figuring how to get workable/playable 3D grass in PG1?? ... Could you elaborate on what you are trying and explain it to me as plain as you can so I can understand?  This looks very interesting!!   

[Birdie]

Yes, I think there are a few different 3d grass shaders(the tools which add the 3d grass...) available which work in Unity 5.2.3f and in PG1. The key issue is they easily eat a lot of fps/performance/fluidity but at least the one I use is capable of different settings to tune the performance. Drawing distance, density and so on. Balancing is the key. But it generally works, yes. I'm also in the beginning of trying this out so no final conclusion how this comes out in a full featured course.

[Charles]

Well!... This is sensational news to be sure! I'm hoping your search and testing will bear fruit for us all! This could be a biggy ...

[Birdie]

I can't promise but I hope too. And I hope others jump on the train too.

[Joe Habiger]

Well if this really does work than I am here and my 3 other courses I am working on slowly (VERY SLOWLY) will look even more impressive!

 

This would breathe extreme new interest in this forum and JNPG forsure. Since Andrew and Mike don't even post here anymore i'm sure they could give a crap about us but we wouldn't even need them anymore unless they take it off steam and then we are stuck with nothing and that's what I'm scared of.

[DPRoberts]

When I requested beta access to CF (a little over 3 years ago), I told Mike I promised to be a value to the community. I figured I would never amount to much of a designer but I would learn as much as I could and help others do the same.

I can't say for sure if they cut us off but it's better for us to help show we are a value to the community and hopefully, Mike and Andrew have learned from us along the way. I feel like we, as the community, have impacted the way they design at least a little bit.

We, as designers, players, experimenters, are in the same position Mike and Andrew sat in the Links days.

For legal reasons, they may not carry us to PG2 but that would mean they are all Trackman based. I think that they would have no reason to return to shut PG1 down because we don't represent a valid threat to Trackman's income.

I can't worry about what I don't have. I can only make the most of what I do have. If it gets shut down, people are creative enough, someone could probably figure out how to unlock it...

[Charles]

I understand the legal ramifications pretty much but still, if JNPG has become a bit of a 'backwater deal/situation', and the business-end of this whole JNPG package has moved on to greener pastures -meaning more bucks- and nobody is looking after the remaining folks playing the (PC) game as there is no revenue generated, why can't there be a bit of a 'backwater' (silent) back and forth between the PP guys and some of the premier guys in the community in unlocking some parts of the game so as to (silently) improving 'this 'n that' of the game? If this game has become so 'invisible' why not take care of these little titbits lying around forever, like a bit more glitch, the side hill lies, teebox and pinselections, new player/clothing, etc etc. Again, without making a big hullabaloo about it? Just a thought..

[Sliceapottomus]

Well said DP

[Buck]

Agreed DP

 

The only risk here I think shows up when they ultimately have TM Sim owners on a new PG version and legacy/PC PG1 becomes just an extra expense line item (assuming it is one?) with still being on Steam.

 

That said - I don't know how that works - does anyone here?

 

I've always assumed there is some ongoing cost to being on Steam and using their integration and MP connections, etc.

 

Right now we are riding the synergistic wave of using basically the same platform as TM users.

Once those synergies don't align is when I'd start getting concerned...

 

So, to your point - not much to worry about at the moment most likely (luckily)

[jmk59]

Charles - we now have a way to select specific pins-per-hole, and wind direction with the CreateAGame APP at PGLS.

https://pgls.golflad...createagame.php  I re-created 4 rounds of the last Masters.

You're basically creating your own private tournament for single play (only you can see it in the Tournaments-Public section).  You also have the option to hand pick your Friends to join you.

[jmk59]

DP - totally agree that our community has a lot of "smart" people that could be put to free use to help finish what we have now.  It would be a shame to lose the current course library if we had to start over (again) with another vendor's game.

 

Besides all the great course designer here, I'm sure we have some knowledgeable Unity programmers, network coders, and physics or engineering types that could add the finishing touches to what already exists.  I've got physics models for wind correction, plugging, and LPGA club set already worked out - I just don't have an "in" to the Unity code.

 

As far as a Career Mod, I think the only way a realistic one can be put forth is by a third party APP ( community built).  A free Mod separate from PG1, that's built and given away by one of us wouldn't require PGA licencees to use player names and courses. 

[Charles]

Charles - we now have a way to select specific pins-per-hole, and wind direction with the CreateAGame APP at PGLS.

https://pgls.golflad...createagame.php  I re-created 4 rounds of the last Masters.

You're basically creating your own private tournament for single play (only you can see it in the Tournaments-Public section).  You also have the option to hand pick your Friends to join you.

Thanks for pointing this out. I've never used this before as I mostly play online live with friends a/o on PGLS. This looks to be a brilliant interface for creating games/matches though, so I will check this out further. Ofcourse, my remarks were more about the in-game/pre-game options etc but mentioning the Create-a-Game option is very interesting.

[SebGOLO]

mind a little bit blown...you guys rock. Any hope we ( the poor PG1 people) can give your creations a try soon?? 

[Birdie]

mind a little bit blown...you guys rock. Any hope we ( the poor PG1 people) can give your creations a try soon?? 

I'm pretty sure some of our experienced creators will release something in the near future. They "only" have to implement the 3d grass in their already finished courses. Myself i'm far away from a finished course. The only thing i could maybe do is release an one-hole-pre-alpha or so. But first i would have to learn how to upload a course...

[DPRoberts]

mind a little bit blown...you guys rock. Any hope we ( the poor PG1 people) can give your creations a try soon??

I hope to release this week a beta. Issue is I'm working on a best practices sort of presentation. I want uniform planting but I'm being limited by the mesh vertices. I would like this all to occur without UV unwrap to make it easier for the community to convert courses.

I just need a little time to read through the developer forum or send him a message.