21 replies to this topic

[uvmnick]

Hello all,

I've started to acquaint myself with Unity in preparation for the release of CF. It's a lot of fun to sculpt the terrain. I've been watching a number of you tube tutorials and have been reading all the different threads in the CF forum. Picking up a lot and am slowly seeing the light.

 

One question I have relates to the textures. The stock grass textures in Unity are limited, at least the ones I have seen. Maybe there are more? If everyone is not creating their own textures, where is everyone getting fairway, green, rough textures?  I haven't bought any new assets from the Unity store. I'm happy to, I just don't know how. Is that where everyone is getting the textures?

 

Any recommendations on texture sets to look for in the store would be greatly appreciated!

 

Also, what has everyone done for measurements in Unity? I have no idea how large or small the holes I'm creating are? 

 

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Nick

[Armand]

I think most are using textures they've created themselves - either in the past for other golf games or new textures for Unity/PG.  There are possible free places to get textures, but you'll have to wait for a designer to come along - I only play the game!

 

As far as I am aware, Unity measures in meters; I have no idea whether there is a toggle to change that or if you simply have to convert to yards if you're unfamiliar with meters.  I don't know if there is a tape measure tool either, but I've heard K11 talk about making a 1.8 m tall block to represent a player (1.8 m is approx. 6 feet) to help with scale.  I believe the CF beta has a measuring tool/tape, but I'm not certain.

[M Rose]

You can add any texture you want as long as it is in a suitable format. I usually use .jpgs but there are other formats like .png and .tif that will work, and I generally use 1024 x 1024 size.... most of my textures I've used so far are just ones I borrowed from my Links designs as well as some I've made that can be integrated with the stock Course Forge textures.

 

To use one, just find a suitable texture file somewhere on your computer and import it into your Assets, then add it into your texture list in the Inspector window.

 

If you want to find some, there are free stock texture sites out there that have photos of grass that can be made into tiling textures. If you have a graphic editing program like Photoshop and are game enough, you can make some yourself. Just make a green square in a shade you like and experiment with filters like noise, grain, sandstone, sharpening tools and such.

 

Course Forge has a ruler which I believe will use imperial or standard; mine gives me feet and yards so I'd guess it works with your Windows settings.

 

Regarding textures, one thing I really love about Course Forge is that if you want to change the hue of your texture, you can do so in the library window by just moving a shader. Changing textures in the APCD meant opening all of them in Photoshop, adjusting them manually, saving them, and reimporting them.

[Kablammo11]

I create all my textures myself. What newcomers need to understand is that in CF, there is not just a single texture doing the work, but a mixture of different elements working together.

 

Here is a standard texture with mow lines that I just used for greens and fairways in my latest project. It will deliver the general colours and patterns. It is tiled at 15m.

 

 

But the above is combined with an additional detail texture for the grass blades, tiled at 1.35m: 

 

 

And to top it off, a normal map texture is added, tiled at 25m, to add a bit of grunge and irregularities to the package:

 

 

Culminating in a result looking like this:

 

 

You may dl these if you want to use them. 

But you will need CF to start playing around with them. It's one of the reasons why there is CF at all.

 

My point is this: In CF terms, we're not talking about just a texture, but about combinations of textures. And this: The one texture that you might think is the most important one, the coloured one at the top, is in fact utterly ineffective without the other two - only by mastering the other two you will get a satisfactory result.

[jimbob59]

Dont assume that the Unity Assett Store is the only place  to get textures/3d models etc.

Simply  use a search engine to search for textures, normal maps,3D models etc  or if your  poor like me   stick  the word free into your search.

 

There are literally hundreds  of sites offering free and paid for assetts

 

For example a quick search of FREE UNITY ASSETTS turned up this amongs a host of other pages

 

 

Models and Textures

 

1. http://www.3dvalley.com/
2. http://www.cgtrader.com/
3. http://www.blendswap.com/
4. http://www.gfxtra.com/
5. http://sketchup.goog...om/3dwarehouse/
6. http://www.3dsmodels.com/
7. http://3dmagicmodels.com/
8. http://archive3d.net/
9. http://opengameart.org/
10. http://www.sharecg.com/
11. http://e2-production...es/PDdownloads/
12. http://www.morguefile.com/
13. http://www.sxc.hu/
14. http://www.texturemate.com/
15. http://www.public-domain-image.com/
16. http://creativity103.com/
17. http://www.openclipart.org
18. http://www.gfxplace.com/
19. http://www.3drt.com/
20. http://bunbun.com.au/
21. http://activeden.net/category/unity-3d
22. http://www.unitymagic.com/shop/
23. http://www.thegamecreators.com/
24. http://www.the3dstudio.com/
25. http://www.3dmagicmodels.com/
26. http://www.dexsoft-games.com/
27. http://www.creativecrash.com/
28. http://www.turbosquid.com/
29. http://www.gametextures.com/
30. Unity Asset Store (Inside Unity)
31. http://indiegamestock.com/

 

Sounds 

1. 8bitcollective.com
2. http://www.chibola.com/crfml
3. ccmixter.org
4. flashkit.com
5. freesound.org
6. hartwigmedia.com
7. incompetech.com
8. musopen.com
9. newgrounds.com
10. openmusicarchive.org
11. openmusic.linuxtag.org
12. indiegamemusic.com
13. sfxr

[Kablammo11]

I get my textures from this one. You need to register, but you get to download 15 1024 textures for free every day. And they have an excellent preview feature for seamless texture, which helps me to eliminate the many bad seamless textures.

 

https://www.textures.com

 

My next-best stop for textures - or rather for images that I can turn into textures myself - is Google images.

All my sounds I get from freesound.org mentioned above.

[DPRoberts]

I get my textures from this one. You need to register, but you get to download 15 1024 textures for free every day. And they have an excellent preview feature for seamless texture, which helps me to eliminate the many bad seamless textures.

https://www.textures.com

My next-best stop for textures - or rather for images that I can turn into textures myself - is Google images.
All my sounds I get from freesound.org mentioned above.

K11,for those who do not yet have CF,do you think there is a reasonable way to experiment with 3 textures in Photoshop to have a small sense of how those 3 will interact? I have tried a bit myself but not yet nailed it but what I mean is basically layering the 3 in photoshop and using soft light or overlay at different levels of opacity. It would be convenient if we could figure out a way to "demo" the texture in photoshop. I know you won't get the up close interplay but at least people could get the hue and value of the 3 close. Maybe you stick with black and white on the second 2 textures but all kinds of craziness can occur using difference clouds and colors as Mike has done on his. Often, you have to train your brain to what CF will be melding for you but I think a close approximation in photoshop might prove valuable. Hopefully, you get what I'm trying to say. I can work on it as well but I'm guessing what might take me days to solve, takes you a few minutes. And, yes, as you know, it's actually 3 images and 1 color swatch that produce the magic.

[Kablammo11]

Good question: To a certain extent, you can do that - and I have done it many times. It's also very helpful to create the terrain texture that will transition into the CF meshes. You get one great texture for free if you test out your CF elements in Photoshop...

You best arrange these textures in 3 separate layers. Put the colour at the bottom, then the normal and the details on top - I use the blending mode "Multiply" for the details (it makes white transparent and black opaque with shades of grey in between). And the blending mode "Overlay" for the normal map, with a reduced opacity of that layer (around 20 to 30 percent).

Keep in mind that all 3 textures will be tiled at different side lengths in CF, so you will need to reduce the detail map in size and tile them smaller manually to get a reasonable approximation.

 

I quickly used the 3 textures shown above: Here's the result...

 

 

That said, CF will also add a Fresnel effect to that - and 3D contours, so you shouldn't rely on this method as a precise prediction of how things will look in the end. More as the vague, general idea of a rough preview.

[uvmnick]

I think most are using textures they've created themselves - either in the past for other golf games or new textures for Unity/PG.  There are possible free places to get textures, but you'll have to wait for a designer to come along - I only play the game!

 

As far as I am aware, Unity measures in meters; I have no idea whether there is a toggle to change that or if you simply have to convert to yards if you're unfamiliar with meters.  I don't know if there is a tape measure tool either, but I've heard K11 talk about making a 1.8 m tall block to represent a player (1.8 m is approx. 6 feet) to help with scale.  I believe the CF beta has a measuring tool/tape, but I'm not certain.

Thanks Armand. Adding an object to represent a player is a good idea.

[uvmnick]

You can add any texture you want as long as it is in a suitable format. I usually use .jpgs but there are other formats like .png and .tif that will work, and I generally use 1024 x 1024 size.... most of my textures I've used so far are just ones I borrowed from my Links designs as well as some I've made that can be integrated with the stock Course Forge textures.

 

To use one, just find a suitable texture file somewhere on your computer and import it into your Assets, then add it into your texture list in the Inspector window.

 

If you want to find some, there are free stock texture sites out there that have photos of grass that can be made into tiling textures. If you have a graphic editing program like Photoshop and are game enough, you can make some yourself. Just make a green square in a shade you like and experiment with filters like noise, grain, sandstone, sharpening tools and such.

 

Course Forge has a ruler which I believe will use imperial or standard; mine gives me feet and yards so I'd guess it works with your Windows settings.

 

Regarding textures, one thing I really love about Course Forge is that if you want to change the hue of your texture, you can do so in the library window by just moving a shader. Changing textures in the APCD meant opening all of them in Photoshop, adjusting them manually, saving them, and reimporting them.

Matthew, thanks for the feedback. I didn't realize how simple a process it was to add in a texture. I might try to make one myself, but photoshop skills are lacking. This would be a good reason to try. It seems like CF will really simplify a number processes.

[uvmnick]

 

Dont assume that the Unity Assett Store is the only place  to get textures/3d models etc.

Simply  use a search engine to search for textures, normal maps,3D models etc  or if your  poor like me   stick  the word free into your search.

 

There are literally hundreds  of sites offering free and paid for assetts

 

For example a quick search of FREE UNITY ASSETTS turned up this amongs a host of other pages

 

 

Models and Textures

 

1. http://www.3dvalley.com/
2. http://www.cgtrader.com/
3. http://www.blendswap.com/
4. http://www.gfxtra.com/
5. http://sketchup.goog...om/3dwarehouse/
6. http://www.3dsmodels.com/
7. http://3dmagicmodels.com/
8. http://archive3d.net/
9. http://opengameart.org/
10. http://www.sharecg.com/
11. http://e2-production...es/PDdownloads/
12. http://www.morguefile.com/
13. http://www.sxc.hu/
14. http://www.texturemate.com/
15. http://www.public-domain-image.com/
16. http://creativity103.com/
17. http://www.openclipart.org
18. http://www.gfxplace.com/
19. http://www.3drt.com/
20. http://bunbun.com.au/
21. http://activeden.net/category/unity-3d
22. http://www.unitymagic.com/shop/
23. http://www.thegamecreators.com/
24. http://www.the3dstudio.com/
25. http://www.3dmagicmodels.com/
26. http://www.dexsoft-games.com/
27. http://www.creativecrash.com/
28. http://www.turbosquid.com/
29. http://www.gametextures.com/
30. Unity Asset Store (Inside Unity)
31. http://indiegamestock.com/

 

Sounds 

1. 8bitcollective.com
2. http://www.chibola.com/crfml
3. ccmixter.org
4. flashkit.com
5. freesound.org
6. hartwigmedia.com
7. incompetech.com
8. musopen.com
9. newgrounds.com
10. openmusicarchive.org
11. openmusic.linuxtag.org
12. indiegamemusic.com
13. sfxr

 

Jimbob, thanks a ton for these links. I didn't realize there were 3rd parties creating assets to this extent. I was under the impression the store was the place to go.

[uvmnick]

I get my textures from this one. You need to register, but you get to download 15 1024 textures for free every day. And they have an excellent preview feature for seamless texture, which helps me to eliminate the many bad seamless textures.

 

https://www.textures.com

 

My next-best stop for textures - or rather for images that I can turn into textures myself - is Google images.

All my sounds I get from freesound.org mentioned above.

Kablammo11, thanks for sharing. This is a nice site. Do you download 15 everyday? You must have quite the library!

[uvmnick]

I create all my textures myself. What newcomers need to understand is that in CF, there is not just a single texture doing the work, but a mixture of different elements working together.

 

Here is a standard texture with mow lines that I just used for greens and fairways in my latest project. It will deliver the general colours and patterns. It is tiled at 15m.

 

 

But the above is combined with an additional detail texture for the grass blades, tiled at 1.35m: 

 

 

And to top it off, a normal map texture is added, tiled at 25m, to add a bit of grunge and irregularities to the package:

 

 

Culminating in a result looking like this:

 

 

You may dl these if you want to use them. 

But you will need CF to start playing around with them. It's one of the reasons why there is CF at all.

 

My point is this: In CF terms, we're not talking about just a texture, but about combinations of textures. And this: The one texture that you might think is the most important one, the coloured one at the top, is in fact utterly ineffective without the other two - only by mastering the other two you will get a satisfactory result.

Thanks for allowing me to dl. Do you create the 2nd two layers (grey layers) yourself as well? How do you decide how those two layers should appear? I'm assuming a lot of trial and error, and experience. Are those grey layers available in any of the resource links provided?

[Kablammo11]

Thanks for allowing me to dl. Do you create the 2nd two layers (grey layers) yourself as well? How do you decide how those two layers should appear? I'm assuming a lot of trial and error, and experience. Are those grey layers available in any of the resource links provided?

 

 

I created the grey layers myself - they are grey because I made them grey, btw, they might as well be colour. But to me they are effect layers and making them b/w helps me remind myself of it: The detail layer I made my importing several lawn/grass textures from the public domain, combining them into one continuous patch of even grass, making it seamless, then using the Level adjustment to bring out the bright and dark bits slightly better. The normal map I made from another grass texture I got from textures.com, applied a bit of filter magic as well, such as render clouds and Reticulation (Tipp: Filters > Others > High Pass is extremely helpful for texture creation). 

With time and mileage I developed a bit of a visual anticipation of how they would contribute to the end result. Yet there always is uncertainty: What may look great in Photoshop may turn out to be an epic fail in CF. As you say, trial and error is the only way to find out what's what. 

 

I understand why certain, very keen yet computer graphics-illiterate members would want reassurance that they will not need to go into texture creation themselves and can get all they need from the public domain. Well... you should be okay and if you look long enough you should find all that you want. And if you are willing to pay for dl's of high quality stuff, no worries at all. But no pain, no gain - DIY textures are always a bit more special imo, and since they are one of the most vital parts of course design, this is where you can, as a designer, gain a lot more control over the look and feel of your work. 

But that's just how I roll, so don't fret. Most players are utterly oblivious to the finer points of texture making and CF, they keep proving this in their reviews, and as long as it looks green and grassy they will be happy. If you start your CF adventure, play to your strengths and don't bother about your weaknesses, just design with passion and put in the (many) hours  - and you should be okay.

[tlvx]

The real test is if textures appear like actual golf courses.

Fantasy course textures don't prove anything, because there is no standard to uphold.

We now have several dozen fantasy courses; and yet, no Oakmont and no Baltusrol.

If the guys with access to Course Forge refuse to take on relevant Major venues... it needs to be in the hands of those that will.

[uvmnick]

I created the grey layers myself - they are grey because I made them grey, btw, they might as well be colour. But to me they are effect layers and making them b/w helps me remind myself of it: The detail layer I made my importing several lawn/grass textures from the public domain, combining them into one continuous patch of even grass, making it seamless, then using the Level adjustment to bring out the bright and dark bits slightly better. The normal map I made from another grass texture I got from textures.com, applied a bit of filter magic as well, such as render clouds and Reticulation (Tipp: Filters > Others > High Pass is extremely helpful for texture creation). 

With time and mileage I developed a bit of a visual anticipation of how they would contribute to the end result. Yet there always is uncertainty: What may look great in Photoshop may turn out to be an epic fail in CF. As you say, trial and error is the only way to find out what's what. 

 

I understand why certain, very keen yet computer graphics-illiterate members would want reassurance that they will not need to go into texture creation themselves and can get all they need from the public domain. Well... you should be okay and if you look long enough you should find all that you want. And if you are willing to pay for dl's of high quality stuff, no worries at all. But no pain, no gain - DIY textures are always a bit more special imo, and since they are one of the most vital parts of course design, this is where you can, as a designer, gain a lot more control over the look and feel of your work. 

But that's just how I roll, so don't fret. Most players are utterly oblivious to the finer points of texture making and CF, they keep proving this in their reviews, and as long as it looks green and grassy they will be happy. If you start your CF adventure, play to your strengths and don't bother about your weaknesses, just design with passion and put in the (many) hours  - and you should be okay.

Thanks K11. Great insight. I will likely give texture making a shot once CF is released and I'm more comfortable with everything else. I will say that I tried creating my own textures for Links and it was an epic fail, but I didn't devote much time to it as I did to learning APCD.

[Crow357]

There's some really good stuff in this thread.  Someone should make it a sticky.

[Mulligan]

I became quite acquainted with Radiant back in the Quake era, this post is enticing me to yet once again, become severely addicted to creating virtual areas to waste countless hours I no longer have.

 

If I begin disappearing for months on end chances are this thread was the start of it.

[SReesor]

I'd like honest opinions of this attempt to use K11's detail texture above as a normal, combined with my fairway grass texture.

Thanks K11 for making these available to us!

It still looks a little coarse to me...

Ignore the rest of the scene...this is a rough terrain I created with GAIA to play on.

[uvmnick]

I think it looks great, but for a 1st cut or rough. For fairway, I agree, it seems a little coarse/thick/long for a fairway texture.