Sherwood Country Club beta

[Pete]

Tree encroaching drive on 15 tee, maybe that's the way it is

[Weeler]

Believe it or not, I have zero negative comments to say about the terrain on this beautiful course ! To me, the colors and textures all look great, and they complement each other well. In fact, the 'close-up' view of the rough is just about as good as it can get. The visuals of the course definitely "exude" that California look. The plantings are so varied from willows to fruit trees, to gnarly trees and very nice under planting too.
The Pano seems like a sort of "custom" composite of sorts. The low level mountains of the Thousand Oaks area are really well rendered. As are the
rolling hillsides leading up to them. I can see a lot of time and effort was given to the clubhouse also. Of course, it's a major focal point on the real course. Did Daniel Watson help with the Pano, or is that from one of you guys ?
So far, I haven't said a word about "playability". I thinks it's fun to play, and has some challenging holes. My first round was exciting, because you just never knew what to expect on the next hole. I do agree with the above post, that on hole 15, the large tree on the left could interfere with a tee shot.
Otherwise....it played very nicely. I know that Sage was sort of keeping this one "under wraps" until release time. No preview screens, or even a mention of it for that matter. Once again, a first-class collaborative effort , gentlemen ! Kudos.

[gene_golf]

Looking at tree on hole #15 if pull up provisualizer would be on hole #6 there by old routing---it certainly does look as if the tree is properly placed by Sage, et. al. Unlike Pasatiempo tree that recently came up in discussion this tree on Sherwood is not quite as bothersome needing a right to left shot. Certainly moving ball position on tee to farthest right is smart to do, but a straight shot to right side of fairway is entirely doable. Implementing a right to left shot to be on the safe side should be considered as winding up in the right rough about 175 yards out might mean next shot could be lessened in distance by the rough that has been set up to play as tough rough and therefore not be able to carry sand trap placed to right front of green leaving about a 35 yard third shot. It is more meaningful to play second shot from fairway compared to hole at Pasatiempo where not as critical to do so.

For the look of course it reminds me of old tv commercial, (Is it live or is it Memorex?) when Ella Fitzgerald or recording of her broke a crystal glass. This course along with a few others in Links have seen on tv when tournaments are shown almost totally replicate the look of the real courses. Also some fictional courses have been designed in Links to where take on sense that they could be real life courses. But having real course to play in Links the same week as pros play is something that I like doing and certainly miss having billw's hole settings as well as course conditions that he once provided.

[John B]

I'm very much looking forward to giving this course a try. I've been lucky enough to set foot on the beautiful course at Sherwood a number of times, as I used to live about 10 minutes away. Never played it though, but can't wait to give it a shot in Links.

[sagevanni]

Hi All,

Thanks to all.......

I did the basic course and elevations......Glenn did ALL the planting and green contours I believe and some textures.....Glenn, correct me if I'm wrong. Leo did all of the pre beta testing and thank the Lord for that......

I did the pano myself....it took many tries to get it where it is now.

Again my thanks to Leo and Glenn....!!!!

Sage.....

[braden1308]

Yes Leo did all the pre testing....and Thanks to Sage and Leo for all you contribute!

[gator]

It is a pleasure to work with Sage and Glenn, I appreciate them allowing me to contribute in any way I can.

I'm happy to see the positive comments.

Leo

[Adelade]

Yeah this was a pleasant surprise Played a round (though screenshots are from practice mode).

Beta Feedback:
-I agree that grass textures are all pleasant and harmonious
-Floating houses can be seen in some spots, mostly just barely I think, but noticeable enough on 2 spots I saw - red house left of 14th green (seen from 14th green) and red house close to 15th green (seen from 15th green with view back towards tee).
-Hole 10 on the hole preview shows a tree very close to fairway on the left side, but there is no tree planted there. I have no clue if the tree has been removed in real life since those hole graphics were made though, and if that is the case I am absolutely not requesting hole previews be edited for such a minor thing (you can clearly see the tree isnt there from tee anyway), Im merely thinking that - if the tree in fact still is there in real life - it would be worth adding it in, because it seems like it would have a fairly significant and interesting impact on how the hole plays.
-Finally, I play with Links graphics setting "Picture quality" (the slider) set to 2nd highest setting (5th out of 6), and I saw a lot of surrounding hills where bushes were seen floating in the air on the hill tops (see picture below). I checked briefly on occasional spots where I guessed it might be seen on the highest picture quality setting as well, and found that the same thing happens with that setting on at least one common spot (view from 2nd tee). I didnt check on the other settings but wouldnt be surprised if there are several cases of the same thing happening on some of those. I believe I understand what is causing the issue, because I dont think the bushes are actually floating, they only appear to do so within a certain distance sweetspot depending on picture quality setting. Only within the sweetspot where the largest bushes render, but not the smaller plantings among them. If viewed from close enough and high enough setting, the largest bushes + the denser smaller plantings all show, and then you cant see the texture below anyway, so there is no problem. If viewed from far away enough, the bigger bushes dont render either, and you just see the texture (or just panorama or sky) and then there is no problem either. What I believe happens, is that the texture faces tend to be loaded in simplistic ways at far distances by Links, at least when verts are very sparse, and therefore you dont see the texture all the way up to the top of the hills unless getting much closer. A pretty simple fix then is to simply add a few more verts around the hilltops, and then a validate and save ought to put plantings back to where they ought to be where the surface was slightly altered because of the new verts - at least plantings snap into correct elevation for me in APCD on V&S after elevation edjusts, I think Lez once said that they dont, but they've always done for me.

Here are screenshots of every spot I saw it on my 2nd highest setting (plus one picture of max setting from 2nd tee):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/czxd9tr22rbn ... hYkna?dl=0

Just one Example:

SB H3 green backwards view.jpg (379.19 KiB) Viewed 3297 times

[ChuckH]

As a side note to Adelade's picture, the hills before the pano are just a green texture with no bushes for me. Granted, I have my resolution set to 800x600x32 because of my eyes but the graphics slider is up all the way. Change to that resolution and you'll see what I mean. I changed to higher resolutions with some success but still not perfect. My system crawls at the highest resolution anyway. Great looking course. Pano, clubhouse, elevations all top notch.

[Adelade]

As a side note to Adelade's picture, the hills before the pano are just a green texture with no bushes for me. Granted, I have my resolution set to 800x600x32 because of my eyes but the graphics slider is up all the way. Change to that resolution and you'll see what I mean. I changed to higher resolutions with some success but still not perfect. My system crawls at the highest resolution anyway.

Interesting, I didnt think render distances depended on anything other than Picture Quality setting, but you're right it does depend on resolution in some cases. That is good to know still learn something new about APCD/Links every day... I tend to be on 1680x1050.

I tested things out a bit, texture render distances dont seem to change with resolutions, only plantings with APCD's "size" set to below around 5-30 feet, depending on exactly which resolution and picture quality settings.

For textures, and objects above size 30 feet (and seemingly as well down to 5 feet on many higher resolution/picture quality settings), render distances seem to be constant at these (approximate) numbers:
Picture quality setting 6/6: 1320-1350 yards
Picture quality setting 5/6: 1320-1350 yards
Picture quality setting 4/6: 650-670 yards
Picture quality setting 3/6: 590-610 yards
Picture quality setting 2/6: 520-540 yards
Picture quality setting 1/6: 450-470 yards

Might be slightly off in some places, didnt measure too surgically, but around there. Those numbers are for objects and textures around center of screen though, for some reason they seem to render a bit further on left side of the screen for example..