2551 replies to this topic

[Kablammo11]

Lovely skybox. Gonna rain soon...

[Brucey Mc]

Neal can I ask how you set your 'base' terrain?  Is that a rough spline or is it a standard terrain texture?

[Keith]

Really liking it NoPutt.  Has a seaside links feel at first glance.  Agree with K11 about the skybox.  Nice. 

[NoPutt]

Neal can I ask how you set your 'base' terrain?  Is that a rough spline or is it a standard terrain texture?

I'm not sure what you mean by Base terrain, but most everything in the pic is CF splines, mostly Rough. The

shallow cliff is Unity as are the boulders poking through the CF mesh. The CF mesh has a sharp edge so in certain

places I paint slight elevations allowing the Unity terrain to poke through to break up the sharp edge. This is done after calculating,

then I lock the spline so it won't be included with the next calculation. My rough mesh is very large covering sometimes 3 or 4 holes.

I'm sure there are many ways to accomplish the same thing, this is just one. Kinda like the STYX album, Grand Illusion.

[Brucey Mc]

Neal I was asking if your rough is done using splines or if this non CF unity terrain. One of the courses I am currently working on I want the main course to be one big rough spline with the tees, greens and fairways etc drawn within the one large rough terrain. Unfortunately every time I try to do it Unity crashes. I was hoping for someway to draw a very large spline basically.

[NoPutt]

What you see is all CF except the trimmings of 

grass, rocks, fence, etc.

[TimBoch]

Neal, what kind of lighting settings are you using. I am thinking mine is set way to bright because the textures almost glow when the lighting is behind you as compared to when you are facing the lighting.  Go to the light, don't go to the light

[Kablammo11]

New U5 lighting, Tim... Coach says set directional at 45 degree angle and to 1 - for exporting builds. But if done right, this will look really dark and dull in Unity, because one of the most negatively new features in Unity 5 is that you don't have WYSIWYG between the editor and the game. I call it "The Curse of the Shader" - soon to be horror movie situated in the course designer subculture. Yeah, it's confusing and not easy at all.

 

To be able to work better in Unity, I usually make the light much brighter and, if I have to stare into it (which indeed is very awkward), I rotate the directional light into a different angle until I get to discern stuff again. 

 

Announcement: Currently upgrading Willow Heath to U5. Technical difficulties. Oasis Lodge suspended. Black Swan to return into the job rotation once Willow Heath is finished. 124 kittens so far.

[Kablammo11]

Neal I was asking if your rough is done using splines or if this non CF unity terrain. One of the courses I am currently working on I want the main course to be one big rough spline with the tees, greens and fairways etc drawn within the one large rough terrain. Unfortunately every time I try to do it Unity crashes. I was hoping for someway to draw a very large spline basically.

 

There is 65k cap on each of your splines, Brucey. If your very big rough spline exceeds this limit of 65k verts, it will not draw (and that might cause the crash). So should you have large spaces of endless rough mesh in your design, here's three ways to deal with this:

 

1. In the Layer Library, try to reduce the resolution of the rough mesh. Increase the distance of meters berween control points, edges per point and the grid value. This could allow you to sneak underneath the 65k bar. You would have to redraw the rough mesh, though.
2. Don't cover your entire layout in rough meshes, just surround your fairways with them. I know that creating and using matching terrain textures to extend the mesh outwards is hard to do and looks not nearly as good as the shaded mesh, but in places well out of reach of golfballs and the short grass it's the most economic solution.
3. Draw additional child meshes inside your large rough mesh. Same layer within the same layer, to reduce the space of the parent layer and move below the 65k cap. It will look exactly the same from the outside, but 1 parent and six children will grant you 7times the total of verts than just the big one without them.

[NoPutt]

New U5 lighting, Tim... Coach says set directional at 45 degree angle and to 1 - for exporting builds. But if done right, this will look really dark and dull in Unity, because one of the most negatively new features in Unity 5 is that you don't have WYSIWYG between the editor and the game. I call it "The Curse of the Shader" - soon to be horror movie situated in the course designer subculture. Yeah, it's confusing and not easy at all.

 

To be able to work better in Unity, I usually make the light much brighter and, if I have to stare into it (which indeed is very awkward), I rotate the directional light into a different angle until I get to discern stuff again. 

 

Announcement: Currently upgrading Willow Heath to U5. Technical difficulties. Oasis Lodge suspended. Black Swan to return into the job rotation once Willow Heath is finished. 124 kittens 

 

When you say 1 , is that intensity, position....?

[Brucey Mc]

Problem sorted thanks Neal and Chris

[Kablammo11]

1: Intensity (but only at the moment of creating a build and only if your textures then look a bit glum and bland)

Position or rotation don't matter. Elevation angle 45.

 

(just passing on what I was told)

[NoPutt]

Thanks K

[Kablammo11]

Oh, you entitled philistines, blithely consuming our golf courses, oblivious to our pains...

 

Willow Heath is back on my agenda. But what is that? The proud spires of Salixborough Castle engulfed by fresh and massive earthworks?

 

 

What shattering blight has befallen the old place? Why all these rugged and unseemly outbursts of terrain?

 

 

It's called "making improvements". I got rid of the surrounding mini-terrains and replaced them with a new, big one. Here's the schematic:

 

 

All the golfing will remain untouched. Everything 50 to 100yds off the golfing will be covered up by a low-res scenery terrain, peaking out of the main terrain all around the course.

Why? Two reasons: Better and quicker control over the surrounding landscape at low res. And 2: The ability to create dense forestation by occupying the scenery with billboard trees only. The barren hills surrounding the Heath have always annoyed me - I got a bit scared of planting as much as I felt warranted by the place. Now I can manage my vegetation much better: The serious 3D trees around the course, the scenic eye-candy trees and lush woodlands on the outside, at a much cheaper LOD cost. 

 

 

So I'm currently in the process of adding a new and improved scenery to Willow Heath (Also because the latest CF is not fully operational yet.) Don't worry, this may look a bit too monumental still, but I assure you that it's just 3 minutes and one smooth brush away from looking pretty much like it did before... You'll see. But now for some hot soup and off to my Mom to help her out on her PC. And then back to the detail work of making the transition between main and scenery a bit more seemless...

 

[NoPutt]

Willow Heath, seems like I was just there yesterday, 

but my how things have changed. Reminds me of  going

to my Moms, I used to climb those Oaks, and now the

first limbs are out of reach. Splendid work, I love it!

But, "No soup for me!", gonna get near 100 degrees

here today.

[Kablammo11]

Hm, nice kitten soup... with frog croutons.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Scenery resolution had to be upped from 257 to 513 to get a bit more detail. Still cheap, just 25K verts or so more. Some precision sculpting and assorted terrain smoothing later, here's the new element, coloured red for your visual convenience. 

 

 

Of course, a matching texture helps cover the tracks.

 

 

And so, as per today, the hills are NOT alive with the sound of music. Unless quacking ducks and angry swans are music to your ear.

 

 

Join me tomorrow for the second instalment of our new series "Willow Heath - The Quagmire Strikes Back", when more than half and possibly 3 quarters of these new hills will be covered in freshly planted sylvan delight - by the power of the mass planting tool.

 

[NoPutt]

Awful quiet in here, guess the new EA push

sent 'em away for a bit. Hopefully when you get

some of those deep vertical sand pits the Trilogy will be 

complete with, " Willow Heath" - Return of the Pot Bunkers

[Dazmaniac]

I saw that first pic of the new Willow Heath revisited and expected to hear Kate Upton asking "Will you be my hero?"

 

Could easily fit in to a fantasy themed RPG.

 

Neat work.

 

[Kablammo11]

 

[Kablammo11]

Daz, there's only Tara. Period.

(The fantasy style peaks were built due to the fact that in Unity you have to exagerate terrain sculpting so that when you apply the smooth brush the sharper edges will flatten and shrink into the intended shape)

 

Now then, since Willow Heath is known to most, having played the place already, I have decided to cover the refurbishing of the place extensively. I left you yesterday with the barren hillscapes of the new scenery terrain surrounding the golf course.

 

 

But between the image above and the image below, there is less than a second of difference. All I need to do is click the "Place" button after having called up the "Mass Plant Trees" feature in the Unity terrain editor. Abra-kaboom!

 

 

Sometimes certain things are that easy! All the new trees are assigned to the scenery terrain and are set to be old, boring, second-to-last-gen billboards: The sort of stuff that was already old when practiced back in links. Screw Speedtrees, the truth is that for 90% of all the trees in view on a golf course, these tech dinosaurs are good enough to supply players with the required eye-candy. There was one problem with this, though, which really wasn't that much of a problem (I knew that). Here:

 

 

Mass planting filled the entire scenery terrain, including its bits that where BELOW the main terrain. Now the new trees stuck through from below. So I had to delete them. But it's easier to take away than having to add stuff, so these intruders were dealt with quickly.

 

 

In certain cases I had to go underground, squeeze myself between the upper main and lower scenery layer to locate groups of trees invisible from the top.  Sounds painful, but isn't. Can be done very quickly. Finally, delete the trees on the hilltops and steep slopes, where they wouldn't grow naturally, and here we are:

 

 

Willow Heath inside a landscape much more in line with my original vision. And having economised on my tree budget (I hope), I could now invest some of this budget on the 3D trees nearer the areas of play. I want trees to intrude a bit more on the golf - not millions of them, just the one or two awkward tree that makes players pause.

 

 

Like here, on the 3rd. The teeshots are coming in from about 4'o'clock, but from the shorter tees it was easy to cut off the dogleg, fly the dirt pit and leave a short shot into the green. A new group of trees on the right-hand side ought to make this a bit harder.

 

 

Or on 6, the short par 4 with the huge ditch on the right side. It was possible to knock the ball into the rough down the right and still have an escape route to the green with a wedge. Not any more. Original design imperative: Miss right and you're dead!