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Post by trailducker on Mar 22, 2021 2:59:24 GMT -5
 Starting out my WIP. We'll see how much I post in this because I can get to caught up in the designer but thought I might document my progress as people continue to get to know me. A quick run through my designing timeline. Just got the game on a Black Friday deal last November. Been interested in the TGC games for their course designer but haven't had a game console the last few years. I have a designing background and the course designer has always intirgued me! I would watch some videos every now and then on YT and admire from afar. Just got Stadia last fall for it's cheapness, bought a few games but once I bought PGA 2k21 that has taken over. I should have just gotten it on Steam years ago but I never thought about it, probably was a bit for the best for me own time comittments. haha Back in late December I published my first course Cape Trios Chutes D'eau. I feel as a first course it was a pretty valient effort on some of the harder to learn aspects (some of the strategy and the planting/atmosphere) but had some big rookie mistakes that now drive me crazy now that I know more about the designer tools and what to look for. Main one being my weird tunnel vision trying to make the tee boxes nices and tight which made them slope on the ends and tee markers floating at times. It's the first thing EVERYBODY points out when they play it. DERP! There was a bit of trying to jam too many ideas in the first go around but still overall I think it's a solid introduction into my bold but throught through design style. Just a month later I published my second course Ghost Town Canyon which I feel was much more successful. The strategy isn't quite as high brow as some of what I was trying to do on my first, it's a bit more straight forward but that simplification helped me perfect some things I missed on my first course. Also it was bunkerless so it made me really think hard about different hazards as well as allowed me to ignore scultping them for this second course. Still would like the person who reviewed it to PM me what kept it from Tour Worthy if they are out there reading this and remember. I've always been told it's close by others and I know a few people on FB put it on their societies. Just would like to know for furture projects. My third publish was my Design League entry for the first competition which I want to eventually turn into a whole 18. It was the second course Ben reviewed for his current review series on his YT page. At the time of the publish for National Treasure I will have a third full 18 publish that will be for the Facebook Dream Team competition. Look out for that from a good group of designers coming in late April/Early May. We got a few guys from the Barbarians design group, as well as some from the new Groundskeeper design group, so there should be some cool courses coming out from that. I'm pretty excited about dropping mine. Ok onto Angola Africa!
Didn't know much about Angola as a country going in. Random fact. Angola is the 2nd largest contry that speaks Portuguese to Brazil from their time under Portugal rule. I started by researching the existing courses but that didn't help much. There's one public course called Luanda a bit south of the Capital city of the same name, that is pretty low budget and looks like a good amount if dusty fairways.  Further South on the coast is Mangais Golf Club which is part of a resort. A bit more manufactured and a bit more problematic capitalism then what I want to go for for this competition   But check out their cool Hotel area!   There is also a 9 Hole Golf Course built buy a oil company for their workers that doesn't have much out there for information. With all of this I knew I needed to find inspiration outside of the existing golf facilities. So onto researching more about this new country! |
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Post by trailducker on Mar 22, 2021 3:31:02 GMT -5
I began looking up natural landmarks I could base my course in. I found quite a few great options I will list below: Kalandula Falls![]()   I mean just a magnificient water fall and you know people do love their falls in this game, right Matty from Canada  But I've done the falls thing and wanted to branch away for this from the obvious. Moving On Maiombe Forest The Northern border of Angola and the Congo is the second largest Rainforest in the world. This image with the trees in the merky water gave me some pause but I felt the rainforest for Africa is a bit too on the nose for what I want to do as well as it's pretty simialr to my Design league entry so I wanted to keep looking, but noted this if I can't find something. Iona National Park While the North of Angola is more tropical/rainforest the Southern end gets more drier plains. This is the biggest national park in the country on the South Western corner. I admitt the other great Sahara African themed courses that recently came out gave me pause of going this route so I continued to look at what else I'd find. Black Rocks at Paungo Andongo   I found these really cool rocks and immediately got intrigued. I logged it as a potential site. Eventually I came to a different location but also found out coordinating with the other Angola participants someone else is planning on using these so I will concied these cool rocks to them and hope they pull it off! The Tunda Vala Fissure  This is my runner up. Something along these cliffs with some Artic Fury style height! I got a little intimdated by it and worried it might come off gimmicky. Plus my winning location has some of these same cliffs/height personality I was interested in but not quite as overwhlemingly dramtic and with it's own unique flair. It's getting late so tomorrow I will post the winning natural landmark as well as my real life influences I will use and some of my initial sketching. |
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Post by hallzballz6908 on Mar 22, 2021 23:55:47 GMT -5
They all look awesome but sites 2 and 3 get my vote!
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Post by trailducker on Mar 23, 2021 0:32:54 GMT -5
The Winner:Miradouro da Lua Valley of the Moon:   The Precedents: Seeing these jagged mountains gave me an idea I was already kicking in my head of a desert course with inspiration from Wolf Creek in Nevada    I love the way the mountains jut up so dramatically from with the green of the course creating such a striking contrast. In terms of hole design I want somethign a but more dramatic in elevation change and felt taking some hole design notes from Kidnappers Bay and Cabot Cliffs were good courses to look at and did some hole by hole research on those as well as playing the LiDAR of Cabot Cliffs that's in the game a few times   The skinny approach to cliff side greans from Kidnappers is something I wanted to impliment and the sort of dance Cabot plays with the cliffs going back and forth is another aspect I wanted to bring in this course. I then played around with routing and ended up with something diffferent them ny usual interwieving style to two seperate opposite direction routes for each 9 on each side of clubhouse. The course would sort of cascade down the jagged cliffs on the front 9 while be a bit more direct up and down and play around a bay in the cliffs on the backnine. Also something new for me is hole 9 and hole 18 will have a shared green sitting below the clubhouse on the cliffs for a hopefully dramatic finish to each nine.  This will also be my first forey in Steppe theme. The last couple days I have entred in the designer and started. My technique is a layered one rather then finish one hole nefore I move on. So I layed out my routing, then made the big elevation movements with a sharp brush and then utilized the Mayday plot randomization techinque. I just finished laying the main surfaces down for all the holes I do first to make sure they all actually fit. Most of the surfaces will be replaced (bunkers are just standard brushes to get them in there, a lot of fairways will be redone). So now It's on to actually crafting my cliffs and beginning to make each hole an actual living thing. Still to figure out. How I want to set up course circulation (I usually make it so people can have carts but I'm thinking this will be a no carts course) and how I wat to craft the tee boxes. Planting is usually last although I will get a little ADD and usually halfway through pick a hole to make a template planting hole. Still need to find a good cle image of this area to figure out the vegitation. It looks like maybe a lot of those dryer tropical trees from Delta and maybe take some liberties with steppe grasses for the game then what I find in real life so it looks good in here. All things to figure out as I progress.
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Post by trailducker on Mar 25, 2021 14:46:46 GMT -5
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Post by Davidius74 on Mar 28, 2021 3:10:02 GMT -5
Looking forward to how this turns out especially trying to get the different colouration in the cliffs
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Post by trailducker on Mar 28, 2021 3:20:00 GMT -5
Looking forward to how this turns out especially trying to get the different colouration in the cliffs Yeah Those are just a first pass with the cliffs. I will have to spend a lot of time on each one as I do another run through. I want to do layte evening lighting to bring out the red but the shadows form the cliffs kind of kill it, so still got to play around with lighting. I'm really a bit anxious about planting. I have some ideas but it's still not totally figured out. Also trying to figure out what to make OB and what not to. |
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Post by trailducker on Mar 28, 2021 3:38:52 GMT -5
Seriously though any idea wtf to put in this area?!  |
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Post by cd06 on Mar 28, 2021 3:42:16 GMT -5
Hmm... not sure - I'd have to do some research on Angola to know what could go there.
Also, you have 18 holes surfaced already? What kind of sorcery is this?
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Post by Davidius74 on Mar 28, 2021 3:58:04 GMT -5
Hmm... not sure - I'd have to do some research on Angola to know what could go there. Also, you have 18 holes surfaced already? What kind of sorcery is this? I have deliberately limited myself to 1 a day but if I worked for a hours each night instead of the hour or so I have been doing I could have had all mine done too with only the planting and minor tweaks left to go. |
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Post by trailducker on Mar 28, 2021 4:21:35 GMT -5
Hmm... not sure - I'd have to do some research on Angola to know what could go there. Also, you have 18 holes surfaced already? What kind of sorcery is this? I work in waves rather then finish a hole a move on. So I Sketched, then in the deisgner routed, then worked the majpr land movements and randomized the plot. Then I lay the main surfaces for each hole to make sure the routing works, there usually is adjusting to the routing when doing that. I am now going back through and basically redoing all my splines and sculpting my bunkers. Then I go through hole by hole and do the miticulous sculpting. This take the longest. Then a round of playtesting. Then comes the planting. it's not the fastes but I feel it leads to the cohesiveness of the course doing it that way. Also I tend to make things like burancas/water features, ect. that connect hoels together so doing these in waves makes those connects work better IMO. |
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Post by Davidius74 on Mar 28, 2021 8:12:30 GMT -5
I also prefer doing planting at end. Besides hating planting I also feel it keeps it all similar instead of doing it a certain way and then risking it completely changing as you near the end of the course.
Having said that I am having differing planting on my course to have one style near the water and another away from it.
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Post by trailducker on Apr 1, 2021 23:36:48 GMT -5
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Post by trailducker on Apr 4, 2021 20:51:56 GMT -5
Long session today. Got 5 holes about 90% done each. Thought I'd give a little tour of the first few: Hole 1 - Starting out out with a shorter Par 5. Hit the narrow landing zone weaving between two bunkers on the tee shot and you're task with the question of carry the deep burraca in front of the green or hit into the bank long and left and try and roll down to the green?   Hole 2 - Lobg Par 3 to a two tiers green meant to be rolled onto from the fairway. An inaccurate shot could roll into the central bunker or for the upepr tier pins down to the wrong plateau.  Hole 3 - A short Par 4 with pleanty of room for those that just want to grip ti and rip it but hitting driver into the lower depression doesn't always lead to the best option holding this left to right sloping green.  Hole 4 - A long Par 5 that's reachable, but that involves a tight approach shot to an infinisty fairway/green surrounded by burrancas too deep to be playable. The green is forgiving to those that successfully make it with a half punch bowl for 3 of the four pins. My take on Cape Kidnappers Plank Walk hole. Still to build when you get on the green you will see the jagged Valley of the moon extend down with a dense jungle meeting the beach along the Atlantic ocean.  Hole 5: A daunting blind tee shot but one of the actually more safe tee shots on the course. There's an aiming rock on top but just make sure you are between the cliffs on the left and hill peaks on the right and you should have a shot up to the perched green. But bewhere this green slopes heavily back to front so landing with too much the shot could roll back much further then you need. Off Line approaches could lead to a devilish chip/pitch to make an up and down.    |
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Post by trailducker on Apr 9, 2021 0:42:40 GMT -5
Finishing out the front 9. You may be able to tell I did some more filling out with planting. Here's 6-9 Hole 6: A Down hill midlength Par 3. This hole hits to a Lions Mouth green tucked along side a hill. From thsi tee you see views of the club house, Hole 9 below and Holes 16 and 18 in the distance.  Hole 7: A Short Par 4 Where you hit to a hogs back fairway. The right side is super sloped but has a less impeaded shot to the detached green, while the left side is more flat but a bit blocked by the bunker (that is in play for big drivers and with a back wind). When on the green you realize the hogs back is carried through to this green, so pick your side of it wisely.   Hole 8: The shortest Par 3 on the course hits to a sloping right to left infinity green that overlooks the valley of jungle that eventually leads to the coast. In the distance you see the exciting 17 Drivable Par 4 as well as the Volcano green Par 3 14.  Hole 9: Ending a long Par 5 that is just outside reachable for most without a back wind. The tee shot is faced with the decision from the two ridges disecting the fairway to hit to the tighter top tier or the wider but sloping to the cliff bottom tier. Top tier gives you more potential to hit the top ledge of the narrowed fairway and roll on the green, but also brings the bunker cluster to the right into play and is at more of a risk to hit the hill and roll too much off the cliff to the left. The lower left approach is much more difficult to make the green in 2, but gives you a backstop to hit into for a "safer" second shot (but one that leaves you quite an intimidating pitch). The green here is a shared green with the 18th and with the clubhouse overlooking it all perched above.   So behind the 7th green, and the whole left sides of 8th and 9th are going to be the lush jungles you see around 6 still too plant. I probably will finish out the first part of the back nine to get the back end cliffs done and then hop on my Design league 2.2 entry for a bit. But I am REAL excited for this course. Haven't gotten to the point that I am tired of it so hoping to continue to ride this wave haha! Feel free to tell me what you guys think so far! |
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But I've done the falls thing and wanted to branch away for this from the obvious. Moving On
