TheGolfClub Creating a course

[Maverick]

Use this topic to talk about course creation tips/ideas and GNCD (Greg Norman Course Designer).

Course file location(hidden): c:\users\(your name)\Appdata\locallow\HB Studios\The Golf Club\Courses

GNCD Tutorial Videos http://www.hb-studios.com/forum/index.php?topic=2341.0

GNCD Keyboard/mouse controls http://www.hb-studios.com/forum/index.php?topic=3033.0

HB thread on GNCD http://www.hb-studios.com/forum/index.php?board=17.0

Nice guide for beginners on how to build a golf course in TGC.

http://www.hb-studios.com/forum/index.php?topic=7991.0

How to create a quality course.

http://www.hb-studios.com/forum/index.php?topic=8015.0

[Maverick]

Craig, any tips for a newbie trying to build his first hole? Like how do you widen the fairway at certain spots only?

Thanks.

[Craig118]

Z Go to Create Add... Create Surfaces. From here you can choose green, rough , fairway etc. HB has a bunch of good tutorials on their site, I recommend watching them.

One tip, when you create a new plot , minimize the amount of water as much as possible. You cannot add any surfaces to terrain that you have raised from water. You can always add as much water as you like manually with the elevation tools. Kinda sucks but hopefully they will fix.

[Maverick]

Cool. Thanks for the tip.

[cvclub]

Wow, very impressive Craig!! As a newbie could you suggest a primer on how to get started? I assume there are pre-reqs, SW,HW,etc. IS there a site that can help me get started in the design space? My goal is to replicate my club courses and perhaps a few local favorites.....thx!

[Maverick]

cvclub, read this thread for HW specs. They are pretty steep.

TGC tutorial videos: http://thegolfclubgame.com/category/video/tutorials/

[Craig118]

As Z noted HB has some pretty good videos for the designer. I typically generate a random terrain and create zero holes with the course generator. I then lay out each hole individually around the randomly generated terrain. Keep water to a minimum on the preset,maybe 25% max. You can always add water later but if you raise generated water later you cannot place a fairway or green terrain upon it. After laying out first hole i will minimize fairway,rough and deep rough width. The auto generated fairways suck,by doing this you can create you own custom fairway.Also this allows you to route fairways and holes around ALL of the trees ,makes for better variety. I work on one hole and get at least 50% completed before i start routing the second hole.try to route the holes in close proximity to each other to minimize large open spaces around each hole. Makes for better asthetics.

[cvclub]

Craig, have you ever built a course using the google earth image as a starting point? I would think it's possible but then the elevations might be difficult?

[Craig118]

Funny you ask, I just started a " World Tour Par 3" course and have been using Google maps as an aid. Your right though, it does not help much with elevations but you can get the 2D pretty

accurate......http://www.hb-studios.com/forum/index.php?topic=6465.0

[Craig118]

Perfect parallel's Course Forge, if it ever comes out, will allow you to overlay Google maps and Topographical data from the USGS. That will make real courses a whole lot easier to design.

[cvclub]

Kinda thought that......so if I do a local course I can guess-timate or maybe take my garmin with me and create waypoints next time.... Question, is PP and TGC compatible? Do you think a PP course will Pro Tee playable?

[Craig118]

It wont be compatible even though both use the Unity engine. I doubt if protee will partner with PP since they are already sidled with TGC.

[Maverick]

PP needs to finish it first.

[cvclub]

Has anyone used Ghostwin to overlay a google earth image onto the TGC plot? Not sure but it seems like it might expedite the design process? My local courses have elevation (via GE) so now I am thinking I could jump start the layout using a transparent image as a template? Am I off base ? This stuff is very exciting and could make a long winter a lot shorter!

[SFR]

Been wondering on how one could make a driving range without having to hit rewind each time. Has this been done yet?

If not I was thinking one could make a range hitting into water and then you are just put back onto the tee after the ball hits the water. Not sure how to have makers in the water but possibly the use of the objects like boats and such might work for targets.

All I know is I suck at trying to build course stuff so far so this may be a job for Craig or someone else.