Golf Sim Clubhouse Forum

Following Polslad's interesting thread 'wot are you up to' I thought maybe we could try posting where we're all at at the end of a week's designing, even if there's not been much progress. Any critique or suggestions are always welcome of course, its how we've always rolled. I'll start then, see if there's any mileage in it.
For the longest time now I've been playing with getting course water to look 'right', not simply stuck on as a 'solid' mass. I think this week I've settled on what you see in the pic and planted a little foliage if only to move along with other design thoughts on Snowdonia. There's no perfection to it, just getting the falls to 'anchor' properly so that they retain some realism from all parts of the course, has been the trickiest part.
Pye

Hi Pye, I think the waterfalls look pretty good. The black part that simulates rock looks good. What are the texture that you used? I feel that building a decent looking waterfall is probably the hardest thing to do in the architect. You can use planting to cover some jagged spot but then when you reverse the camera you can see that area you tried to cover. Like I said I like the look of those waterfalls. Keep up the good work. If I wanted to post some pics of my current project, can I put it here or start a new thread?

Pye - love the ambition and dedication to creating a spectacular and realistic view. This grab is awesome - been looking at it for a while. Love the waterfalls - they are the single most difficult thing to recreate in PGA and you've done an amazing job here. Planting also great, view = AWESOME. Not too sure about the texture between the tee and rough though - not even sure its required. More pics please!!

Kind words guys, thank you and great to see you both drop by, I was hoping this type of thread could help spark a little more interaction than we've seen recently, but not to derail a designer's own course design thread. Maybe more a shot or two of what's blocking a designer's way forward that a tip or two might find a breakthrough.
DC, achieving the 'black part' took the ugliest design cheating you could imagine, but finally ... they seem to work, and from all points across the course. The pic is actually from the 11th tee, the back end of a 9 waterfall complex of which 3 front the closing 9th and 18th double greens and where most of my waterfall trials have been spent. Planting the back ones was a temporary, easier way to upload something resembling a finished idea, to get this thread underway.
Dunc, your present course might yet reset the design bar here, it looks seamless. The uploaded pic was a bit hurried as mentioned, at this time the original temporary tees haven't been refurbished, they're something I generally leave to a last fix from a template, because I find it tedious. But that teebox trim texture is part of a blended rock series created for building the coastline holes, which you can catch a glimpse of up in the far right area, a remnant from initially having the waterfalls tumble down through rock.

Pyecraft! Impressive work on the water & waterfalls. Keep up the good work.

Birkdale.
17 holes done, just the 18th to go before play test and planting.

Ahh another Polslad Gem nearing completion. David looking forward to the new Royal Birkdale, the old version just not up to today's standards.

Looking good Dave

Great stuff Pols, all your hard work now done, only some simple planting left
Found a wee bit of time myself, tried using some older objects, but ... alas couldn't get them to match the new textures, so quality time lost to creating new photoshopped objects. Planted a few to test and took a coupla pics, not too bad for a first run at it but such a long way to go adjust colours and the like.
Here's the 1st tee: Back from the green:

But probably the trickiest work has been creating trees which match the pano and help bring it into the course. So many possible colour variations between photshop, the arch and course creator, have to accept these now as a final fix. Here's a random glance from the 18th fairway over the first tee box layout toward the background trees with a few buildings provisionally set among them for later colour adjustment: