Golf Sim Clubhouse Forum

Dars doing a fine job of keeping this game going and has always had a keen interest on how it all worked. Personally I think he has got to know it probably better than me.

Im working on a few projects of my own now im running my own business but I still keep coming back to PGA as an old and loved program to see if there is any way that I can rig up a patch to get the thing working on its own server. Now Im in the position of having access to dedicated servers of my own, I am willing to set up a server which after a patch is applied to the game should bring the original lobbies and chat system together again on one server. Im about 50% of the way through the server routine and will be working on it more now my kids have all left home and Ive got time to develop stuff and continue forgotten projects.

Im glad to see my old Course Collator is still around on your download listings and quite prowd that it actually still works properly.

As for the cloaking device troubles Im working on a new version that should just give the original libraries and courses listed as well as any compiled new ones without the 20 library problem. The new program should be able to handle 3D stuff as well, Tiger woods pinched our course designer and modified it so why not modify theirs to work on ours.

Anyhow I will keep you posted on this link as to progress once ive got my own servers shell which will be globally based in Canada and timed for GMT, this will mean a possible clocking problem for some of you, but there will be a clock program included to keep everyones data streams timed correctly to enable multiplay instead of single player without hangs or crashes. The max number of online players Im aiming for will be 128. The server will also run a copy of the new Teamspeak 3 which is probably going to be the first of the programs to go online.

Keep tuned to this channel for more developments.

Dig.

Great to have you here Dig! Would be great if you get PGA working with your server. I haven't been able to play online since the hard drive died in my old XP box.

The idea of being able to create our own 3D objects for PGA sounds very exciting as well. Might be enough to get me interested in doing another PGA course design again someday. I know you've got a lot on your plate but I'm just going to throw out a couple more suggestions, as these are primary reasons why I stopped designing courses for PGA.

The current Terrain Assist program only lets you import at best 20 meter resolution elevation data into the architect, if I remember right. Today a lot of places are starting to get 1 to 3 meter data and it is making doing real courses for WGC a lot easier and a lot more accurate. I would think there would be a way to create a more detailed mesh in the PGA architect file format from the data but figuring out how and programing it is over my head.

Getting a satellite image overlay into the PGA architect for tracing and planting. Ghost it is too much of a pain because every time you move in the architect you have to realign the satellite image in your image program. I did some experimenting on this, trying to set my base texture as the satellite image but it turned out the resolution to make it show up to scale was way too big and crashes the architect when trying to load it. If there was a way to lower the resolution the texture is rendered at in the architect while you're working, this could still work but I had to give up on it because again that was over my head.

If both of those problems were solved I would definitely do more courses for PGA again. They are the primary benefits of working with the WGC course designer. The nice thing is I could do a course for PGA and then convert it for WGC and have it in both game. Thanks to Chet Bzdak who made the Terrain Assist program, I do know how to export the elevations out of a PGA architect file and into WGC.

Elevation problems, hmm thats down to the camera angle, as I recall that can be adjusted fairly easily using the games main camera adjustment icon, top right i think. In the architect, think about it. whats the point of looking down on a satellite view at an angle and misplacing trees. Placement of the overhead view is vital for boundaries, fences 3d objects etc. Over the years the number of courses people have put together that really don't look that brilliant is all down to the view angle. Learn how to use it to contour your planes and objects first its vital. Ask Dar he will tell you how many courses we played together to see how good they were.

Perspective is everything on a course. Want to see a mad design that was done more as a joke really, check out my "Vertigo" course. I made it purely to see what could be done with altitude and placement and on closer inspection youll find trees that were added individually that float above the ground in places and vanish into hills in others.

I can see where your coming from but for the overhead view centre the camera over where your working every time and dont forget "SAVE REGULARLY"

Dig