286 replies to this topic

[rustymike]

How will existing courses be converted?

[Dazmaniac]

Rusty,

We dont know yet, whether it is a straight forward process or whether it will be something more complicated.

It will also be change in Unity version, so there may be some original course file converting to be done first.

I'm sure the Devs will share the details when they are ready.

[mebby]

Rusty,

We dont know yet, whether it is a straight forward process or whether it will be something more complicated.

It will also be change in Unity version, so there may be some original course file converting to be done first.

I'm sure the Devs will share the details when they are ready soon.

There.  Fixed it for you. 

[DC#1]

LOL @ mebby

[Dazmaniac]

There. Fixed it for you.

Noooo.

You'll start a soonami.

[Kablammo11]

Looks like the usually rather narrow rough edges will have to be widened a bit to allow for this kind of grass - just 5 m of it around each hole is probably not enough.

We might need a bit of deep rough around the standard rough as well, to allow for even higher grass.

As it is now it looks a bit too repetitive - acres of the same. A nice same, but still untreated acres of it. 

I'll take it, IF designers get to customise it properly, add their own grass and colour and perhaps even set the density.

That said, a few select old-fashioned grass billboards in there, bushels of grass, small bushes, flowers, might still be required to counteract any semblance of monotony this might unwillingly conjure up.

[Dazmaniac]

In The October Dev update thread, Andrew posted this about the 3D grass

 

 

Basically we will be creating a variety of grass types that can be selected in the layers library in CF.  The color of the grass will also be an option.  Then when the game loads it will generate the grass.  Since this is not real grass objects there is nothing for the course designer to do except define the grass type in the layer library and rebuild the course.  The grass is actually directly injected into the rendering pipeline inside unity.

[Kablammo11]

I remember that - but the level of customization is still unknowable imo. The Layers Library is a place with lots and lots of sliders, tiles and slots for additional texture maps.

To have to make a build to see the grass in the game is also a bit of a downer, but that's okay, I guess. 

[JCat04]

It's marginal as it's a DX 11 onwards only feature so the GPU will take care of the extra rendering. I didn't lose more than 2 FPS from my normal frame rate during initial testing.

 

Are these screens from a Windows 10, DirectX 11/Unity 5.5 build?  I know elsewhere you were saying you only lost about 2 FPS, with Turf Effects 3-D rough enabled.   Is that with or without SpeedTree Instancing?

[wim1234]

i do hope this is going to be an option..i am all for imrpoved visuals, unless its going to cost fps.

realise some ppl do have to play on lower-end hardware.

[frank70]

i do hope this is going to be an option..i am all for imrpoved visuals, unless its going to cost fps.

realise some ppl do have to play on lower-end hardware.

I agree. But all in all the devs shouldn't make themselves dependant on 8 year old machines. If they want to sell more games, they have to implement the newest technology. In the current graphical state the game won't sell good on the consoles. Needs some bells & whistles imho. And 3d grass is one of them. (Better trees and animations have to follow).

[Vernon520]

i do hope this is going to be an option..i am all for imrpoved visuals, unless its going to cost fps.

realise some ppl do have to play on lower-end hardware.

As I understand it 3D Grass will only work on those who have DX11 cards or DX12 cards. I may be wrong but I believe that is how it will work. Post #3

[Andrew]

So couple of questions to answer.

1) Initially we will be providing a number of different grasses, short long, etc.  In Course Forge you just select the grass type you want to add to a layer.  So for example there may be two different first cut grass objects.  you select which one you want to add from the drop down list in the layer library.  Each grass type then has an associated material which is completely editable from which you can change the color etc of the grass.  So to upgrade a course you just open up the course in CF and add the objects to the layer library

 

2) Right now there is one grass type per layer library, our goal is to allow you to mix it up by adding different types but that requires NVIDIA to make a couple of changes on their end.

 

3) We are focusing on the first cut, rough and deep rough areas, but realistically there is no reason why we could not also do the fairway and greens tees etc, we have certainly looked at it but to look good you need a very high density of seeds.  So step one may be to roll out the roughs.

 

4) The point made by K11 is valid, this will require broader rough areas although we are looking at Turf Effects for the terrain we are also looking at a complete mesh solution too.  

[wim1234]

I agree. But all in all the devs shouldn't make themselves dependant on 8 year old machines. If they want to sell more games, they have to implement the newest technology. In the current graphical state the game won't sell good on the consoles. Needs some bells & whistles imho. And 3d grass is one of them. (Better trees and animations have to follow).

that will mean a lot less players able to play the game then on pc.

a lot of my old golferbuddies are not gamers at all, so they dont have fast pc's

some(just 2) are willing to invest in a better machine, when the older one gives out, but most(6 ppl) say, too much money that cost.

and i still think this is not going to be a success on console...exactly because the game is more a simulation than a game.

with the putting like it is now, a lot of consolegamers are not going to like that.

it is not so easy to make in one program a great game and a great simulation.

but we will see what happens..i bet the game will change a bit before it will go on console.

why is it that 12 thou copies are sold and not soo many are playing today....well answer me that..if possible.

i think its an amasing program, but still only few ppl playing it...there are causes for that.

[Dazmaniac]

I'm all for more people playing the game, but with game development (whatever the genre) you have to draw the line somewhere.

 

If you are wanting to take advantage of newer technologies, like 3D grass, it requires DX11 minimum, other facets may require Win 10 as a minimum on Windows based PC's and laptops. This is why TGC had the 3D grass from the outset as the game was DX11 minimum.

 

If you want to continue gaming on machines from the mid/late 2000's with only DX9 compatible hardware, it is going to come to a point where newer games are going to be out of your reach. You can't expect gaming development just to stand still to accommodate folks who want to exist on old generation hardware.

[frank70]

that will mean a lot less players able to play the game then on pc.
a lot of my old golferbuddies are not gamers at all, so they dont have fast pc's
some(just 2) are willing to invest in a better machine, when the older one gives out, but most(6 ppl) say, too much money that cost.
and i still think this is not going to be a success on console...exactly because the game is more a simulation than a game.
with the putting like it is now, a lot of consolegamers are not going to like that.
it is not so easy to make in one program a great game and a great simulation.
but we will see what happens..i bet the game will change a bit before it will go on console.
why is it that 12 thou copies are sold and not soo many are playing today....well answer me that..if possible.
i think its an amasing program, but still only few ppl playing it...there are causes for that.

The game is in a way barebone. If you don't like online multiplayer or playing in online tournaments .... what does the game offer? Solo rounds? That's not enough? A lot of gamers are purely offline gamers - so a deep career mode (like NBA2k or Madden) is needed to get people to playing the game regularly.

Why participation at OGT is dwindling? I have no real answer for that. I thought that most players there are passionate golf gamers. And the game has gotten better in the last year. Maybe realism isn't everybodies cup of coffee. But what would be the answer. Make the physics unrealistic on purpose? So that everybody can stick any shot with dial a distance methods like TGC? The game is easy enough on beginner level to get into it. I don't know what to do more.

Console: To sell there the game first and foremost has to look stunning. That seels games on the consoles. And to go Directx 11 or better 12 is the only way to accomplish that.

P.S.: the main market isn't PC or consoles but the simulators. Therefore the development emphasis lies on realism. Golfers are the main market - not necessarily gamers. Although it might be possible to satisfy both groups.

[zmax - sim]

that will mean a lot less players able to play the game then on pc.
a lot of my old golferbuddies are not gamers at all, so they dont have fast pc's
some(just 2) are willing to invest in a better machine, when the older one gives out, but most(6 ppl) say, too much money that cost.
and i still think this is not going to be a success on console...exactly because the game is more a simulation than a game.
with the putting like it is now, a lot of consolegamers are not going to like that.
it is not so easy to make in one program a great game and a great simulation.
but we will see what happens..i bet the game will change a bit before it will go on console.
why is it that 12 thou copies are sold and not soo many are playing today....well answer me that..if possible.
i think its an amasing program, but still only few ppl playing it...there are causes for that.

Most of those sales occurred during the beta I believe. I will bet a good number of them didn't like the how the game looked at that time or the limited number of courses and just stopped playing. Or perhaps they didn't want to deal with the beta aspect of it. I think the most players I ever saw online at the same time was 250 or so.

[rogo]

Cool!

[zmax - sim]

Why participation at OGT is dwindling? I have no real answer for that. I thought that most players there are passionate golf gamers. And the game has gotten better in the last year. Maybe realism isn't everybodies cup of coffee. But what would be the answer.

One big reason is the division in the community. There are now two PG tournament sites using the API. The number people playing tournaments haven't gone down as drastic as some people make it out to be. The numbers have just been divided is all. There's only so much time to play.

[Mike Jones]

Plus we have official tournaments to throw into the mix too and we will be adding more this coming week.