Terrain tutorial out of date? Or just personal confusion?

[bigwill29]

With the current Quarantine I'm desperate to play my home courses in Wisconsin so I was going to work on creating my home course to import into Fitness Golf for play on my Skytrak. I have what I think is the correct Tiff file from USGS but I'm not 100% sure since the links in the tutorial don't work anymore. The Tiff file I have and go to use in 3DEM gives me the error code Predictor Value 3 not supported which makes me think I definitely don't have the file.

I know this forum doesn't have a ton of activity anymore but its worth a try since I do really enjoy the game and the golf club for sim use is way out of my price range these days.

[BrianZ111]

Yeah, that tutorial is way out of date, I think 12 years. We have much better sources of data now (LiDAR) then we did then if your area has it and most of Wisconsin does. I also don't know if you can do it with free programs like 3DEM anymore with LiDAR. I have a guide I could give you but the stumbling block in there would be Global Mapper because it's an expensive program. It'd be easier if I just put a plot together for you. What course are you trying to do?

[bigwill29]

Yeah, that tutorial is way out of date, I think 12 years. We have much better sources of data now (LiDAR) then we did then if your area has it and most of Wisconsin does. I also don't know if you can do it with free programs like 3DEM anymore with LiDAR. I have a guide I could give you but the stumbling block in there would be Global Mapper because it's an expensive program. It'd be easier if I just put a plot together for you. What course are you trying to do?

Well I was going to do 2 courses, Wanaki Golf Course in Menomonee Falls (a muni that we have been actively trying to save) and Glacier Wood in Iola, Wi (my father's home course and was a top 100 public golf course in America per Golf Digest....its fantastic if you can ever play it).

That would be absolutely fantastic if you could and please tell me how I can compensate you for such work as you'd be doing me one amazing favor.

[BrianZ111]

I actually have Glacier Wood in a Global Mapper file already so I'm halfway there on it, just have to convert it to a plot for the game. I try to get over there once a year though I don't get there every year. Love the course except for the par 5 15th. I actually previously downloaded the data specifically because I've wanted to see how much better that hole would be if they took the trees off the right side and made it possible to go for the green in two. I think it'd be a pretty great risk/reward hole then. Never got around to trying it but now I won't have any excuses not to try it. Either way I would love to see this course done so I'm happy to send it over to you. I can probably get Glacier Wood to you by tomorrow as there isn't a lot of work for me to do to turn this into a plot.

Wanaki I checked on and there is LiDAR data so I can do this one too. I have to do the whole process on it so I just have to find some time where I can spend a couple of hours to do it. Probably sometime next week. My condition for doing this is if you finish them I'd like to see them released on this site for public download. Normally (in case anyone else is wondering) I'm happy to do a plot for someone but won't do another for them until the previous course is finished and released. Since I've already done some of the work on Glacier Wood myself prior to this and don't have to do much to turn it into a plot already, this is fine, I can do both in this case.

[bigwill29]

Thank you very much! And yes that's the worst Par 5 ever....so brutal. Who shapes a hole like "U" and makes it incredibly narrow guarded with trees everywhere. Not to mention if you manage to get to the final corner to set yourself up for a nice wedge on to the green for a birdie/par attempt don't you dare go long. We've had a long standing debate over whether removing the trees like you said or I like my other idea of moving hole 16s tee box back and have that be the par 5 while 15 is just a very brutal par 4 dog leg instead. If you're there when I am I'll buy you a beer as I golf that course probably half a dozen times a year. If not I'll have Andy (the course pro) to hold one aside for you.

And.....hole 12 more than makes up for that hole anyway. Such a beauty.

[BrianZ111]

Yeah there's too much tilt on that green as well. I putted it right off the front of that green once when they had it running a little faster than that slope could really handle. I would also level that out some if I were making changes. I hadn't considered that you could turn 16 into a par 5 but I still think I prefer my solution, particularly now that I've tried it in game. You open up that beautiful view that you see on 12 to this hole too and the second shot is about 220 yards uphill 20 feet with a forced carry so it's not as if it's a push over reach in two. It would be a pretty fun challenge to try. Any layup would have a reasonably clear shot then too but there's still some risk reward strategy on a layup as the further down you hit it the better off you are for your third. It would go from the worst hole to one of the best holes on the course (debatable with 12 I think).

Here is the plot: plot_glacier_wood.7z. For the blueprint I included a satellite image and a terrain shader image that you can switch between. Sometimes it is hard to see things like bunkers or tees when they are partially covered by trees and switching to the terrain shader you can make out the elevation outline. You also may have to shift the blueprint offset here and there as it doesn't away line up perfectly throughout the course. Basically you just have to go to the height layer and check that it lines up on bunkers and tees as you move to different holes and if it doesn't make a few clicks of adjustment on the offset for that hole.

To help give you a start I drew in holes 12 and 15, included some of my custom textures, masks and trees, and added blends and borders to those shapes the same as how I do it on my other courses. I've added this plot to the utilities section of the site as well because I think looking at how I did things here can help other people get started with their own course. I'm going to make available some more custom trees and dig up some more short tutorials I have lying around in the coming days when I get time. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

[bigwill29]

Looks great and thanks for sharing. With this course and Wanaki most of at least mostly played courses so I'll feel at least less depressed about the lack of real golf.

[bigwill29]

This is probably not your area of expertise but I have a demo working version of the course setup that works in WGC but when I try to open it in Fitness Golf to see how it plays (trying to hammer down correct bounce, roll, etc) it just says "Error with File". I don't change any of the "publish" settings so not sure what I'd be doing wrong. Works just fine in the play section of WGC. Also, how does it know what par a hole should be?

[BrianZ111]

Have you defined and least 1 tee, at least 1 pin, and the correct number of shot points for all holes you've created so far? All par 3s should have zero shot points, par 4s one shot point, and par 5s two shot points. That's about the only thing I can think of but not sure why it wouldn't also be a problem for playing in WGC.

Par is determined by yardage. Unfortunately it gets it wrong sometimes, particularly in labeling short par 5s as par 4s. In those cases you can manipulate the last shot point closer the green, on the green, or in extreme cases beyond the green. This creates a loop in the orange line making it think the hole is longer while the default aim at the shot point will still be in the correct direction.

[bigwill29]

I had a shot marker for each hole, even Par 3s. I'll remove those tonight and see what happens. I'll post an update either way. But yeah works in the "PLAY" section of WGC just fine but not in Fitness Golf. I get to select the course/conditions/which holes to play/etc but once it loads to play it just says "Error with file". Do I need to publish in a different texture setting?