2551 replies to this topic

[Mike Jones]

I guess I just don't get it but I am an american, we generally don't build our greens to have 50 tiers on them so we don't need a bunch of pin locations. A slight side slope is just as hard as a hard breaking putt going down three tiers.

[Joe Habiger]

Mike... Awesome come back to put me in my place, and what a heck of a putt to put Johnny in his place..lol

 

I may be getting old and a tad old school, I just have played on many severe breaking greens already in perfect golf, there are seldom times you actually have a slight break because these greens are so slopey and have so many tiers. It's like all of you think that is the only way to give a player a challenge. This same thing was done by EASports, putting their pins on ULTRA severe slopes to combat there crappy easy gameplay.

 

But that is the European way, make a 100 yard wide fairway with a few small bunkers but make the green the hardest thing in the world to putt on..lol  (St. Andrews is a classic example), there is no challenge to the green.

 

I will say no more on the topic, how did I make this off-topic any how..lol 

 

Joe <------  (Insert Foot)

[NoPutt]

Incredible, and that's why I love tiered greens, excitement.

[Mike Jones]

That's why Jack is still the man! Pure magic right there.

 

The great thing about CF is that it allows you to do pretty much anything you want so tiers, no tiers, small greens big greens it's all possible.

[shimonko]

One thing I've found I've resorted to Photoshop for is putting a roughly constant slope (eg. 2 degree) on flatter greens. How have you been doing that?

[NoPutt]

I've wondered that too Shimonko. As I watched K11s'  videos,

I see verts or control points, and I thought it would be great

if those points could be added and moved vertically.

[Kablammo11]

You can't - they currently need to stay "glued" to the underlying terrain. Also, single control points can't be lifted individually with the move arrows, only the entire spline can be handled like that - but at calculation it would update its control points to become glued to the terrain again. CF meshes act like the molten cheese on top of a slice of Unity toast - they stick to it.

Retouching the height map in Photoshop strikes me as the mathematically most precise way to achieve the desired effect. I have not had the need for such precision yet, so I use Unity terrain tools exclusively myself. Takes a bit of practice to learn how to sculpt some parts higher than needed, and others lower than necessary, perhaps stagger them with intermediate height brush elevations - and then to smooth them into the intended slope.

[yesrushdt]

The great thing about CF is that it allows you to do pretty much anything you want so tiers, no tiers, small greens big greens it's all possible.

Hopefully you'll make pot bunkers possible soon too before we have to send K11 to the loony bin.

[Richard]

Hopefully you'll make pot bunkers possible soon too before we have to send K11 to the loony bin.

 

In the meantime, we just keep him supplied with lots of,

 

[Kablammo11]

 

Too sarcastic?

[shimonko]

Retouching the height map in Photoshop strikes me as the mathematically most precise way to achieve the desired effect. I have not had the need for such precision yet, so I use Unity terrain tools exclusively myself.

It's not just a straight gradient fill, otherwise yes, it would be too precise. The thing that stands out to me with the BLI and the current courses is just how it's left one second, right the next, left again, right.. Having BLI'd real greens, that just rarely happens because of their underlying drainage grade.

[Dazmaniac]

That's why Jack is still the man! Pure magic right there.

 

The great thing about CF is that it allows you to do pretty much anything you want so tiers, no tiers, small greens big greens it's all possible.

 

I'm all for tiers and big greens, but also like to see pins in playable/challenging spots too. Not unrealistic locations. Yes, I know it is a game, but sometimes all some pins are missing is a windmill and a clowns face, lol.

 

There are some on the courses currently available in the EA that suffer from Links 2003 disease and are put on sharp slopes that wouldn't be considered if they were being chosen for real life tournaments. I don't necessarily want 18 pins on 18 flat spots, but also don't want to keep finding them on slopes that are only accessible from one specific spot under the hole and from anywhere else you cannot get the ball to stop within 15-20 feet.

 

[Kablammo11]

I agree, Daz. That's why I feel I need some more input, both based on the game requirements and on reality. It would be so much easier for me to design the greens if there were less flag positions needed. If the word were to come down that we need exactly 4 pins for every green and this is how the game will operate, I would still build tiers, but I could make them more pronounced and still plant the flags on wider, more even spots that are more accessible to play at.

Hence my ignored suggestion to not classify the pins by aleatory difficulty but by Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Still, this whole debate has swayed me: Less pins, but better defined and on more generous placements. I must bow to this supreme insight and follow up on it - Black Swan will be redesigned to 4 (1+2+1) accordingly.

[Stephen Sullivan]

I always tried to spend plenty of time over the pin placements I made on my Links courses. There is no point just doing it quickly or it can spoil players enjoyment and your course won't get played.

[Kablammo11]

Overall, yes. I'm more of a trial and error guy with my pin placements - or I would be if I could export builds and then go putting at all the pins from all angles for a few hours. 

Unfortunately I can't do that yet. CF indie does not let me export my designs and play-test them. All the more a reason to reduce the number of pins - the time budget for each one increases accordingly. 

[Dazmaniac]

Having pin options is good, but in Links often 18 is overkill as you get 3 or 4 all within a few feet of each other, where 1 would suffice.

I totally respect course designers and appreciate all their hard work that goes in to making a course. I run a Links 2003 tour, so without their courses I'd be f****d.

I'd be more than happy with greens with 4 tournament pins and maybe 2 or 3 extra, so 6 or 7 maximum would work for me. If courses came with just 4 I could also work with that, but would expect this as a minimum requirement, so at least if selecting random pins for a round the game to least has a few to pick from.

[Joe Habiger]

I'm not against tiers it's just many greens I seen in this game already are pretty wavy and there is not really many that have a gentle slope. A gentle slope can be just as tough as well.

 

I agree with the Thursday-Sunday part as well, I just think more then 2 pin positions per difficulty is overkill but that's just me. I like to have fun while playing as well without having to bash my brains thinking to much.

[Stephen Sullivan]

As we Links players know for the pin difficulty setting to work correctly, the pins had to planted in a specific way.

1-6 Easy 7-12 Moderate 13-18 Difficult

 

Hopefully, PG won't have this limitation.

[Kablammo11]

And as we PG players and CF desginers don't know...

That's it: We don't know anything yet. 

 

And that means we can do anything in the safe comfort that whatever it is we do now will turn out to be wrong at some point in the future. Well, I did ask. Richard, more kittens please!

[Kablammo11]

And just when I thought I had run out of Stuff to Show & Tell, more stuff comes along.

My CF finally got updated and it comes with a few new things... Like custom.made tee markers:

 

 

In addition to the tee markers themselves, we also now get to define a tee zone in CF, the black square in the image below. It can be up to 12y wide and 12y deep. And in the game, PG will select a random tee position within that tee zone - offering players different hole distances and slightly different playing angles on every new round.

(Or so it should - I still need to test that)

 

 

Of course, the game does as yet not show all the tee markers of the same tee area in picture as of yet. But if it would, and I strongly believe that it should, tees would now look a little bit more like this:

 

 

The markers I'm using were self-made and imported by me: simple blocks of wood about 30cm high. But with this new feature, the designers imagination now is the new limit - instead of traditional tee markers you could as well plant unicycles  barber shop poles, translucent hovering air ballons or garden gnomes there instead. Not saying you should, but as per now you could.

 

 

 

In the big scheme of things, customisable tees and larger tee zones with random tee positions are not much at all - then again, this is the first golf game/designer coming with such a feature. One can fantasise already about perhaps adding a few random generated divots to other parts of the tee area to simulate past usage...

 

 

Oh, and hazard zones are now also included in my latest CF version: Those you know from the game already. They are drawn as splines on the terrain and CF then automatically plants all the corresponding stakes. This is a bit of OB dangerously close to the right edge of the 17th fairway, so don't slice it.

 

 

And here's a water hazard around the 13th clifftop green. That same very hazard line, a bit further away, becomes a lateral water hazard for players playing at the 6th hole from the background.

 

 

So that's that. Pot bunkers are still missing, but a well-connected source from high up in the PP hierarchy has sworn a multitude of his holiest oaths to me that pot bunkers, one fine day, will be added to CF. That is a bit of a vague promise, though, so there still is a danger that a few dozen kittens might get strangled while I patiently wait.

 

Ta!