3D

One of the aspects of some Links courses that adds to the realism and immersion factor, is seeing various man made objects dotted around the course. These may be benches, bridges, houses, ball washers, fences etc. Now I've never believed in cluttering up a course with a myriad of objects which detract from it's natural beauty, but it's a fact that many of these objects do appear on real courses and so having at least a few on any Links course certainly adds to it's overall appeal.



Once again I turned to my friend Pat Auge who created the fantastic 3D for my Las Joyas course. At some point virtually everybody who has made 3D objects for Links courses has turned to him for advice - he is a virtual encyclopedia of all things 3D related to Links!



We talked about what I wanted and sent various pictures back and forth trying to decide what style of houses would sit on the outskirts of the course and also pictures of other objects such as drinking fountains, fences and of courses the clubhouse. I mentioned in an earlier blog that speed of screen redraws is an important factor - I didn't want anything slowing the rendering down too much, so the 3D would have to be optimized with this goal in mind. The idea being that the quality of the textures is what really makes a good building or clubhouse stand out, rather than the minute details that only the most curious will ever see.



The houses that are sprinkled around the course will certainly not detract from it's natural feel. For the most part they will be semi-hidden behind strands of trees and enhance, rather than detract, from the experience of playing the course. Perhaps in real life, it's a dream for an architect to work on a course that doesn't have any real estate attached to it, however this situation is not very common. Trying to integrate the buildings into the resort so they are well placed and relatively inconspicuous, is part of the land planning process.



At first the idea was to build a lot of the 3D early in the process but it was decided that it would be much easier to integrate the buildings in the way we planned, if the course layout and planting was at an advanced stage before the major construction work started.



Recent work by Andrew Jones from apcd-courses.com, has enabled the importation of 3D objects from programs such as 3ds Max. At this point though the texture implementation is limited and so it's currently best used for objects that don't require complicated textures in order to look good.
The imported objects have no 'self shadowing' and they always show as 'full bright' with shadowing having to be built into the textures which given their current limitations, is not easy. When we have unravelled the mystery of how to get the best out of the texturing, I'm sure we will find a place for them on the course. The big advantage of these imported objects is that no matter how many of them you need on the course, they only have to be built once, and you can share them with other designers for use on their courses too.



On this current project we will probably use the 3D import for smaller objects such as stakes and rope pathway guides with the rest of the 3D being built from the terrain but this is still unclear and we may yet use the imported objects on a much wider scale.



One thing I wanted for this course was vertically orientated log tee markers. They have this kind of tee marker at places such as 'Pine Valley' and I've always thought they looked great. I wanted mine to be a little different and more substantial so they could be seen from a little further away so adding to the ambiance of the course. It's surprising how little things such as this add to the overall experience in Links.



I searched for a few royalty free photos of tree bark and log ends on the Internet and then made them into a couple of nice high res textures to use on my 'log tees'. Below is a closeup of one, mapped and ready to go.









This was my first attempt at creating 3D tees and I'm pleased with how they turned out. Although there is nothing to the build, the accurate placement and alignment of the textures and ground shadow is very time consuming. I'm doing it in sections and when I get bored with it, I just more onto another aspect of the course.

If there is one thing I wish for in apcd, it's the automation of mundane tasks like this. Some sort of macro feature for repetitive tasks, where texture and mapping would be able to be 'one clicked' onto an object or texture area would save countless hours in the construction of a course.