146 replies to this topic

[Kablammo11]

I have been invited to take part in the CourseForge Private Beta 14 days ago, and have been testing it ever since. MJ, a few hours ago, lifted the NDA and asked me and the others participants to go public with the experiences we have made so far.

Well, in a nutshell, this is what I have found out so far.

 

• The CF is for real. It works and is stable. It didn't crash. Not once.

And it works impeccably on my Mac. (Sweet Baby Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you!)

 

 

• The CF is quite easy to use. I could say "very" easy, but it does have its odd moments, mostly due to the fact that it is piggybacked by Unity - which can't be helped -  Let's say that it is easy to use, especially on default settings, and that it is quick to work with - yet offers, to those who like to dig deeper, many opportunities to add their personal touch.

 

 

• There is considerable room for improvement for the CF in its current state, and - imo - a few more features that need to be added. Not technically, but with regards to issues of "ease of use", "quality of life", comprehensiveness.

To wit: There is no way to define O.O.B areas yet. That is not an oversight, but simply due to the fact that it's not a top priority at the moment. It will be added, I'm sure of that. So, the CF still needs to grow a bit.

 

 

• I've had loads of fun. But one thing can't be stressed enough at this point: You can't use the CF without some basic understanding and command of Unity. See the bunker above? It's the 6th hole, a 229yd par 3 at my Willow Heath test course. Well, the sand mesh, the bunker lip, the green fringe, the fairway and the green were made by the CourseForge - but the excavations, the bumps, the slopes, the hills, the 3D ground underneath them, that was created with Unity terrain tools.

 

 

• We all have marvelled at Brian's and Steve's lovely courses and sometimes I fear that some of you believe that all the trees, bushes, grass, rocks, bridges, car paths, bulkheads, fences etc are included into the CourseForge. Well… no. The CF gives you the golfy stuff (what you see in the picture above: The surfaces on which computer golf is being played, a selection of special meshes that have different ball physics attached.)

Everything else needs to be imported and applied through Unity. MJ mentioned that there would be some additional objects shipped with the Forge at release. Trees, bushes, grass, stones and rocks, buildings etc. The CF Beta did not contain any of these, so I can't report about this aspect.

 

I'm not privvy to release dates, priorities, schedules etc, so please, don't ask. If I can describe, answer or explain a few things about the CF, though, I will gladly answer questions.

 

 

[alannala1]

Thanks for the information K11. I have no questions at the moment but just a comment for the administrators to consider. I assume that whilst it is a private beta the protection of the code has been resolved. There was a fairly firm indication that CF was going to be available before Christmas 2012 and it is very frustrating to still be waiting. Clearly there will be updates but I not not see why CF can not be made available to everyone on the basis that we would pay and then get free updates (or if free it does not matter). I would like to practice CF even though it might mean that the course I design may never be able to be used. At the moment I am designing a course for the Tiger Woods PC game but it is difficult to undertake this with 100% enthusiasm when you know this potentially wonderful course designer program can be used. So in summary please release CF to all. 

[Kablammo11]

I do feel your pain, alannala1. Not too long ago, I was similarly afflicted. But, please, there are many other "CF Now!" threads already. Kindly do not turn this one into that as well. If you haven't begun with it yet, start practicing Unity 3D.

[Maverick Spirit]

Kablammo11,

 

Congrats on your selection for the Closed Beta CF Testing Team. I'm sure you have and will continue to provide the PP/PG Development Team great input and constructive comments.  It's nice to see a really positive step for the games development. As well as how quickly PG lifted the NDA so you can share with the community your progress and discoveries, as I recall another closed beta where it was months before the NDA was partially lifted.

 

Not being a course designer I have no questions for you but, look forward to reading everything you and the other testers post regarding the CF.

 

Maverick

[Acrilix]

Glad to hear your now on the team, K11. With your knowledge-sharing philosophy, you should make the ideal middle man.

[Joe Habiger]

very nice so far..

Yep things I hate about unity, everytime they update means PP has to update and throws this project even farther out. How many have there been now??

[shimonko]

It is PP's choice if they wish to update when Unity does. Unity keeps all its past releases available for download.

[Kablammo11]

@Joe. I'm not overly fond of Unity myself - but I can't deny that Unity, imho, is the ONLY way to bring virtual golf course design into the reach of the many in this day and age: The many different people wanting to have a go at it - and the many different platforms and operating systems...

 

@Acrilix. Thanks - but I ain't the middle man in any way. I will share what I can - though quite a lot of it is rather hard to describe to all those not used to Unity or the Forge. There's not so much I know more than you guys, and it's rather specialised and limited to the usage of CF. 

[Jimbo63]

Looking good K11, I think that they made an excellent choice in picking you for beta testing. The terrain tools in Unity are easy to use IMO, once you get used to using them. Great to see that the project is progressing.

[IanD]

"Well, the sand mesh, the bunker lip, the green fringe, the fairway and the green were made by the CourseForge"

 

The above comment makes me assume the outlines to any objects are created using CF ? (I know outline is mesh but wanted to ask if you can be clearer with the comment regarding one of the terrains created).

 

Thanks mate.

[axe360]

Congrats K11... Gr8 pics and thanks for the insight into what you see with CF so far.. Look forward to more from you..

[Kablammo11]

The above comment makes me assume the outlines to any objects are created using CF ? (I know outline is mesh but wanted to ask if you can be clearer with the comment regarding one of the terrains created).

 

Yes I can, IanD - and, so help me, I shall! I myself regularly confuse the terms shape, outline, mesh and spline that are used by the real pros. Short answer is: Yes, the outlines to course meshes are created in the CF.

 

As the 1 year old video (has it been 1 year already?) of the CourseForge shows, you start by drawing your outline, officially called a spline (or something similar to a closed Bevier curve to Photoshoppers) onto the terrain.

You can either draw it in freehand mode or in Point-to-Point mode. I prefer the latter: I click on all the points that I want to touch and once I double click, the spline closes and I get an outline. In the Layers Library, by the way, I can set how many meters I get between the control points of that spline, and how many "bending" segments I can have in between the points.

Once drawn, I can edit the shape of the spline by shifting the control points, adding some more or taking others away, until I get my nice, round contour right and matching the terrain.

So at this stage all you have is a spline-outline (an "outspline"?) that defines the outer line of the shape or mesh that you wish to create (a fairway, a bunker, a tee box).

Next step: To render it visible, is to tell the Forge to Calculate the mesh. The outline basically gets filled with textures and the desired shape or mesh or object is rendered. Such as all the course shapes you saw in my picture above.

 

I mentioned the Layers Library above… It's sort of a private CF database for textures, where default textures and shaders can be combined, sizes and dimensions adjusted. Every fairway, green, bunker etc basically is made out of 2 Textures. 1 is large and sets the color and the variations, 2 is small and gives 1 some sort of grain (I'm grossly simplifying). I was just busy in my little Layer Library Alchemy Lab moments ago and as you can see, I've hit a bit of a rough patch with my customized experiments:

 

(This image is NOT a replication of the CF interface, it has been constructed by me)

 

… resulting in this very familiar kind of fake 3D made out of 2D elements. Still, I hope this shows you that you can very easily and quickly draw any outline you wish in the CF, in seconds, and then fill them with any texture combo out of millions and millions of possible permutations. Hope that helped.

[KenR]

K, thanks for the update, congrats on being selected to beta test. I'm sure you've been having fun.

 

Since this really hasn't been addressed in detail, could you list just what is needed for those waiting for CF?

In other words, which version of Unity and any Unity add-ons, if any, needed to begin when CF becomes available.

 

Thanks, and will look forward to more info.

[Kablammo11]

Since this really hasn't been addressed in detail, could you list just what is needed for those waiting for CF?

In other words, which version of Unity and any Unity add-ons, if any, needed to begin when CF becomes available.

 

- You need the free version of Unity - currently any version will do, so download the most recent one.

- You do not need any more Unity packages from the asset store. But check it out anyway, there is some free stuff there that could be useful. But to start with CF, they can wait. Best start simple and easy and add packages later, based on what, by then, you know you want.

- Not sure about PC specs, RAM and VideoCard, but anything "newish", 3 years or younger, should be ok.

- If you want to build a real course, you will need the PP Terrain Importer. That's an additional piece of software, another part of the PG suite, and all I know about that is that I wasn't invited to beta-test it… which is okay, I'm rolling in the hardcore fictional scene.

 

So: You will need to download and install Unity (free) while waiting for the Forge. That's it -  the basic, minimal setup that will work - with more to be added, or not, later and over time at your own leisure.

[shimonko]

At one stage I tried something similar to what you describe K11, trying to make use of all the quality blemishes on the course that show up in a satellite image. I textured my course using the satellite image as the large (low freq) image controlling color and had a grayscale grass image for (hi freq) detail.

So the satellite image on the terrain in Unity:


 
Then the grass texture that I defined at 3 different sizes (green, fairway, 1st cut) in Unity:

 

 

To give:

 

 

The problem I found was the satellite image (even being 4096x4096) still got too stretched out when mapped onto a terrain which was nearly a mile by a mile, so the larger color variations were too gradual and too low detail, and it just didn't look right.
 
Pity, because for real life courses, you'd have the blemishes where they really are without a ton of manual painting. The only painting I did was running a 100% opaque brush over the greens and the rough, no opacity blending (although I did modify the terrain shader algorithm).
 
Did CF use normal maps for their grass? When I did the above I didn't bother with normal maps as I didn't think they'd be appropriate for grass, but it could be promising. I might try it someday.

[KenR]

K, thanks for the info on what is needed to begin. I have Unity installed already, will check and make sure I have the latest version.

 

As for PC specs, I have a new system, so no concerns there.

 

Thanks for the update!

[Kablammo11]

Nice job, shinmonko, yvw Ken

 

Texture 1 in my example is a 512pix jpg, set in the Layers Library to tile once every 35 meters

Texture 2, the shader, is also a texture (not a normal map or a bump map or anything, a just a texture) but in the tar format (Targa), sized 1024 and tiling once every 6 meters. I constructed it from a free texture downloaded from Google images, then arranged it a bit and made it seamless. 

The tar only displayed the darker portions, the brighter ones letting Texture 1 through without effect. I don't know enough about that to explain it better.

 

it is possible to apply bump maps as well in the Course Forge, I tried, but they look weird. I plan to do a better sand bunker combo tomorrow, also clone the sand bunker and create a waste or grass bunker, and for these a normal map texture might be an option. We'll see, trial and error.

 

I agree with your point about blemishes. My textures are made to look a bit grungier than the default textures used by the other guys, because logic dictates that there simply have to blemishes. I stared at nothing else during last weekends PGA recap at Torrey Pines… blemishes everywhere! Forgot to watch the golf (who won?) I caught myself just watching the textures of real nature...

That's why I think it's realistic to add some discolorations and slight changes in hue everywhere. It also somehow distracts from the smooth, inhuman perfection of computer graphics.

Unfortunately, it's not - I repeat: NOT - possible to paint textures with a paintbrush onto the CF shapes. That was one of the first things I asked. And that's a great pity! The terrain brushes are for the Unity terrain only, which you have to imagine lying hidden from view a few inches underneath the CF shapes. I would have loved to create a delicately hand colored golf course with lots of subtle variation and lovely blemishes etc… Not to be. Yet. I'll keep nagging.

[Brucey Mc]

Sounds to me that CourseForge release is a long way off for some of us then..... 

[IanD]

Unfortunately, it's not - I repeat: NOT - possible to paint textures with a paintbrush onto the CF shapes. That was one of the first things I asked. And that's a great pity! The terrain brushes are for the Unity terrain only, which you have to imagine lying hidden from view a few inches underneath the CF shapes. I would have loved to create a delicately hand colored golf course with lots of subtle variation and lovely blemishes etc… Not to be. Yet. I'll keep nagging.

 

Thanks for the reply and for this titbit... in fact I think it's one of the most important aspects of what we didn't know.

 

Like many here, we've dabbled with unity and painted terrain heights and textures.. and to discover the uniqueness regarding that ability to sculpt and paint a 3D enviroment, and not be able to paint the fairway shape sounds strange.

 

I'm assuming, and unsure if you'd know, that the game itself won't recognise a fairway unless it is actually confined within the shape defined specifically as the fairway?

[olazaboll]

Very nice pics K11 , good to see that others than the PP-team is up on  the saddle

 

Got 2 Q`s:

 

1st:

Have you designed for TW08  or another golfgame before ... or have you just done other "stuff" with Unity ... Just intresting to know of any past experiance you might have  ...

 

2nd: Does the CF you work in  come with some 3d objects  ?( ... we dont use 2d´s in Unity ... do we ??? )

If so, Have you planted any of them into your course ?

If there is a stock of 3d objects that come with CF , I presume that it is also possible to import others from , for example, the Asset Store.

If you do that , does thoose objects , once imported , work exactly the same as tih CF Stock ones ?

... or do you need to handle thoose differently in some way

... basic question I know ... but still a question.