Village Hills Proof of Concept (Beta)

[mattspy05]

Hey everyone,

I have just finished a rough proof of concept for my new links course, Village Hills.

I have tried and failed before with hilly links style courses so I've put a lot of work into it to see if I can make this concept actually work.

First of all it's suppost to have the features of an older links course meaning that it's bumpy, minimalistic, and has huge greens.

There also quit of few blind landing areas off the tee (you can see the fairways just not where it lands) and some blind looks at the green from certain location on the holes.

I still need to finish some of the aethetic aspects of the course but all 18 holes with 4 pin positions are done.

Please give it a try and let me know what you think, all crisiticisms are good.

Thanks guys!

The course is listed as Village Hills POC in the game.

[fargo]

Hey mate, lot of nice stuff here, course plays well. Couple things that stuck out to me:

I'm not a massive fan of the strip of light rough around the greens. There's already a fringe there, I don't think you need another cut. Also that light rough colour is a little bright green, and contrasts too much with the more subdued heavy rough and the bare areas in the rough. Speaking of which - those bare areas where they hit the cut grass give an unnatural boundary between watered and mowed grass and then immediately dirt. For example back of 2nd green. Maybe try brushing some heavy rough close to the other textures to see if you can get a more natural looking transition?

I think you should experiment with different fairway textures and / or with the lighting. I don't think this fairway colour works super well for this style of course and the rest of the aesthetics.

Blindness is fine with regards to the landing areas, but I think there's too many blind bunkers. Lots of them aren't necessary I don't think - for example fairway bunker on the right of 1 is completely blind and doesn't really add much to the hole. There's going to be blind bunkers on a links course, but generally there's going to be an indication of where they are or where to avoid based on the movement of the land. Not so much on quite a few holes on this course.

Hole 2 right Greenside bunker is completely hidden, it's sort of hidden behind a mound - I think if the mound wrapped around the back of the bunker then the bunker could be raised up and cut into the mound from the front so it's visible from the tee. Then you could maybe have a hollow in front of the bunker (where the mound is now) connecting with that trench across the green. I think that would play better and look better.

Super easy to make the front bonkers on hole three visible from the tee. And you'll get more of an impression of the shape of the hole from the tee if you can see them framing the green complex.


Hole 6 is the first time where the bunker is cut right up to the fairway / light rough fringe. It's not in keeping with the rest of the course so far and I don't think it's necessary.

Again blind bunkers on the right - there's no real reason for them to be blind. Don't necessarily have to be able to see the sand, but you could do something with sculpting (mounds, a visible drop off, etc) to create some visual indication that says trouble over here. Personally I'd drop the short right segment if fairway down a bit and then build up some mounding around where the bunkers and see how that looks. And the bunkers around the green could easily be made visible - I'm 55 yards from the hole and I still can't see them.

Ditch the windmill on 13. Also that little jetty. Why is it there? There's no reason for boats to be parked up at a random corner at the 14th tee next to a random windmill.

One more thing - there's a hell of a lot of space between the holes. On the 14th tee and seeing acres of bare grass to the right. Not sure if that is going to be Forrested or covered in some other way? Most links courses will have a much tighter routing.

Some good stuff here, some nice holes, greens are great, lots of nice sculpting. Maybe some fairways are a little narrow - consider including some wider areas if players want to play it safe off the tee with a shorter club when they don't feel up to taking on a really narrow landing area with their driver. And watch the blindness of the bunkers - yeah there's going to be blind bunkers on a links course and that's fine but you can use the movement of the land to paint a better picture.

And have you considered changing the lighting? A lower sun can help make the landforms more obvious and more visually striking, which is important in a links course.

[mattspy05]

Thanks for the suggestions!!!!

Love the ideaa of removing the light rough around the greens, links courses really don't have them anyway, it was more out of habit then anything, that would also make for some crazier rollouts if you miss the green or some more fun bump and runs. I will also brush some heavy rough in the dried out rough for sure.

I really wanted a brownish/yellow color for the fairways since that it will look dryer and faster but it looked wierd to me I will certainly give it a try.

I will certainly work with using the land to "signal" the bunkers better.

I think you were talking about hole 8 with the blind right side bunker, hole 8 was a huge rebuild, it was orignially flat with a very high teebox and the only move would be to launch it, so I raised the front fairway and and made the driver play riskier.

I'm not sure if I'm going to forest it or raise some hills between the holes, probably a combination of both.

The idea behind hole 13 was to make it like a bar shaped like a lighthouse/windmill but I think it doesn't match the rest of the courses so it's probably going to go.

And after further review after I published it, i agree with you, the lighting sucks.

Thanks so much!!!

[mattspy05]

NEW VERSION BETA 2.0

Take a look is titled Village Holes POC 2.0



Did some updates, changed the textures, the lighting, remove the fringe and light rough around the greens.

I shaped a lot of the bunkers especially around the greens so they would be easier to see.

I used the sculpt feature to build some natural hills to fill the gaps between the holes and then filled them with bushes.

Couple of things I'm considering:

1.Removing the light rough altogether
2. Need to figure out how to make a clubhouse
3. The routing might need to change because the 18th hole is pretty far from the clubhouse, so reversing the layout might be a consideration, although I like the Lake holes on the back 9 better. Or perhaps switching the "hotel" to the other side of the clubhouse since it's not really seen once the trees got added.