Hi all,
I'm pleased to announce that my first design for TGC is near completion.
It's a "real fictional course", as the course existed for a long time ago on different golf games. The original design was made by Bob Polin for the PC game "Jack Nicklaus Signature Edition". As I was a fan of the routing, I designed it later for "Jack Nicklaus 6" and Links 2003 (here's a link to my Estate Heights web page for Links2003 ->
http://doume.bois.free.fr/CyberGolf/Estate/Preview-en.html )
Though I find TGC exquisite to design purely fictional courses, I wanted to give a little test in designing from a "real" setting to see what can be done with the designer. For sure, I lack cart paths and roads and mostly, the ability to have lakes at different altitudes, and streams too. These features are rather important for the course's look, but not essential to the way you play the course. I could manage to have the lower lake with water, and for the others, I just built some depressions waiting to be filled with water when the feature will come to the designer. I filled the lake of the 18th hole with sand and that gives a rather nice look though. Another thing that is a "signature of the course" is the surrounding by real estate. I put some houses, but I wait for more different ones to gives a nicer look in the future.
The design was rather flawless if I exclude the mouse management in the designer, but I got quickly used to it (just before it changed with the official release
). I find it's really a nice thing to set the course a different times of the day. This permits to see the holes under several lightings, and is a huge help to refining the design. All in all, I find the design process a little faster than for Links 2003, a nice surprise !
I think that the first release of the course will come with rather fast greens as it's quite easy from tee to green, and a course need some defence, doesn't it ? I try to avoid that the approach shots are full club, it's nice to make the player think a little before the swing
. Pin positions are rather gentle but it's always better to be on the right side as the greens are far for flat for the most.
So here are some screen-shots. The release will wait until I clean all the flaws that remain.
The 4th, going back to the club-house :
The 6th with the 5th and 10th fairways behind the right trees :
The 9th green with the club name built in stones (originally it's with flowers, but that's impossible for the moment, and there's also a little pond just behind the green...)
The 18th, with a lake of sand on the right, and a welcomed club house
:
Dominique
