2551 replies to this topic

[highfade]

Okay the name can stay. Thank you sketchUp. 

 

[Arsam]

What an terrific course Highfade. I just played a round from the member tees at pro level and the course kicked my a$$, but I enjoyed every minute of the round. It was a real challenge in choosing the correct club since the club distances were adjusted back. This would be a real bear at championship tees. Thanks for sharing this gem with the community. Your creations are always top notch.

[xooze]

Highfade  great looking course. I don't think my frame rate ever fell below 57. Really had to think which club to use.

Thanks for sharing.

[Mike Jones]

Great looking course Highfade!

[Kablammo11]

Now, World, what did I tell you about leaving S&T unattended for too long, hm?

Especially these days with the charming gents over at "It's time for an open beta" occupying the only main page slot for the CF forum and talking endlessly and uselessly in circles about their gut-wrenching woes and possibly luring traffic away from this thread. And for what? For circumlocutory navel gazing at it's worst! Aah, the futility! Harrumph!

 

Now then, over at the Peacemaker, you will be happy to learn that it's getting near that time when I start adding a few thing that I use to refer to as "stuff". As if I care if you're happy, pft! The clubhouse is a club manor and I made it look a bit more aristocratic.

 

 

And keeping in the same style, and more importantly with the same texture atlas and material, I then fashioned some gazebo-like structures to serve as shelters.

 

 

And while I was at it, I quickly created some matching bridges for the many water crossings

 

 

More to follow as it transpires. I will try and go for a autumnal set of trees and plants.

 

[DPRoberts]

K11 really enjoying your 3D work, both courses and assets. I notice you are always trying to keep poly counts low and textures to make up for that difference. It also appears your water is an upgrade, is that Unity 5.2 or an asset you have purchased? I purchased Aquas Lite the other day and am struggling a bit to get it to show correctly in the scene, has to do with differed rendering and my lack of developer knowledge. Your semi-pantheon inspired gazebo has me contemplating a post apocalyptic course based in a Mediterranean type setting with fallen relics abound. Maybe in 3 years when Terra Firma is complete...

[NoPutt]

Very Nice K11, love the reflective water. It's difficult to tell the scale, but that bridge looks wide

enough, and strong enough for a tank, what the heck are you transporting? 

[Kablammo11]

@Neal: The bridge needs to be wide enough for two caddie carts to squeeze past each other when approaching from opposing directions - which could happen, on this layout. And that was a nice thought from the original builders, because when they constructed the bridges some 250 years ago, these had to be able to carry the horse-drawn coaches and carriages of Kings and noblemen.

 

@DPR:

Correct, I always try to keep my assets low-poly. I could easily cram tens of thousands of additional polygons into my models to accentuate every window frame, every column, every roof tile. That's not really difficult to do. But I don't, because 1) that would quickly overwhelm the overall game performance and 2) it's not necessary: these things have to look acceptable when seen from a distance, nothing more.

Also correct, all the decorations you see on the gazebo, for instance, are achieved by the texure (and normal map) and are in fact simulated while resting on a flat surface.

 

Here's the 2048 sized texture atlas I first assembled and then used for the manor, the gazebo and the bridge:

 

 

I used the Unity Water4 for this one - the same that our ocean prefabs are made off. I of course also used new textures for the wave ripples bump map and for the foam.Then I spent three hours trying to figure out the many, many settings in the Inspector to make this water look like this - hating mankind because of this unnecessarily stultifying ordeal. That water, alas, looks a lot better in Unity - in the game the refraction and the skybox reflections don't work and I'm yet to figure out what to do about it. 

[NoPutt]

Ahh, I see, I was thinking this was a newly built bridge and 

not one built a quarter millennia ago.

I don't think I didn't notice the K11 inscription on

the gazebo. I had no idea you were that old!

[Kablammo11]

The bridges are original, the gazebos are new. Except the one in the second image, which is also an original and served as a template for all the other replicas. The original engraving in the shield decoration read: Beati Pacifici (Blessed be the Peacemakers), was carefully chiseled away by a stone mason and then replaced with the K11 monogram, which in itself represents the same purpose as a dog pissing on something to mark his territory.

 

And millennia is the plural form of the correct word millennium. 

[NoPutt]

My apologies for the incorrect usage, It won't happen 

again in this millennium or future millennia; at least not from me. 

[NoPutt]

Still tons to do at Pine Lake Golf Club,

but it's coming along. Next is more planting, second terrain,

furniture and signage, more 3d buildings and houses, and last

the cartpaths. 

[DoGgs]

New track on the burner for those that give a rat's rump   7 holes down!

[garynorman]

Good to see a lot of new courses in the works...

 

Can only imagine that it's going to get busier once CF is released too!!

[Arsam]

I for one always look forward to any course by you DoG, so I guess you can say that I give a rats rump. LOL

[DoGgs]

Do you guys buy assets etc, i'm still using the base package, trying to stretch out the contents is getting a bit same old, same old.  I need some recommends for sound files, objects (already using sketchup) and especially some new trees, Gary, those trees on old warden are fab! did you buy them? if not, where can i source them please.

[garynorman]

Do you guys buy assets etc, i'm still using the base package, trying to stretch out the contents is getting a bit same old, same old.  I need some recommends for sound files, objects (already using sketchup) and especially some new trees, Gary, those trees on old warden are fab! did you buy them? if not, where can i source them please.

 

I made quite a few speedtree broadleaf variants and also purchased scots pine and white oak models (which I also made several variants of too)...

[NoPutt]

I buy, alter, model, and scrounge for most of my trees and bushes.

Nice one Dogg, like the bridge.

Leaving the Clubhouse to the First Tee.

Still a WIP and will go through changes I'm sure.

[Kablammo11]

Nice new projects. Thanks for chipping in, guys.

Meanwhile, back at the secret country retreat for international diplomacy that is the Peacemaker, I would like to waste your time with talking (at length), about one particular area of course design that has kept annoying me ever since the beginning. As you don't know, I always define a sore spot or promising new aspect, something that I feel I need to work on, to examine, tackle and improve with my latest project. And for the Peacemaker that is the Tee Zone Factor. Let me explain by showing you the following atrocity:

 

 

And this is what irks me - there is NOTHING at all happening between the tee zone and the beginning of the fairway in the distance. Maybe a lazy swirl of terrain texture and that's it. It's an utterly boring and dreadfully empty piece of real estate. Neither does it give an idea of space and dimensions, nor does it instil the player with any sort of fear.

 

 

So my contention is that the strip of ground from green to the next tee and from there to the next fairway is "forgotten land", taken for granted and insufficiently regarded by me so far. As the above image shows, I have initiated to include some direly necessary counter measures into my workflow in order to rectify my past sloppiness.

 

 

Nr. 1: A network of footpaths. Not just one, but several of them, surrounding the tee zones and cutting across the terrain, linking each bit. For the peacemaker I use gravel as a material. These paths look great in the top view as well - just check out Troon to see what I mean.

 

 

2. Some minor terrain sculpting. I elevate low mounds between the footpaths or lower them into the terrain. This creates are rather irregular and variable terrain in front of the tees. No longer will golfers tee off over flat ground, the bit between them and the next fairway has come to life.

 

 

3. This done, the newly created tee-to-fairway excitement can be enhanced by planting some grasses. They will no longer be placed on some flat ground, but instead espouse the contours and increase the sense of bumpiness ahead of the green. Not much, it's almost not noticeable in normal player view, but it is there...

 

 

...but in panoramic view it can come across as quite dramatic.

 

 

So look again at the tee in the first image. Then at the situation around the tee in the following image. Which one is more fun and slightly more worrying to tee off from, you think? Yeah...

 

 

And once we get volumetric grass, this will look totally different. Ah well, for now this is what the Peacemaker will be like...

[Skunky]

im diggin it K11, very natural,great textures.