Since last update I completed mappings, the hillside, small bridges (simplified) and made Out-of-Bounds borders and the custom flag. I decided to turn the Ladies tees into a custom set that plays mostly in between Back and Mid tees, in large part to fill a gap for the driveable par 4 that I think might play nicely in Links. For 3 or 4 holes they play a few yards longer than the Back tees. I also realized a few more holes needed rock walls in some important places so I added those. Then I selected alpha textures and seamblended everything, which felt quite fun, since it went much faster than Im used to - with a lot of the work having been done long ago with most seamblend areas horizontally meshed out, rather than needing extrusions. Also it naturally helped a lot that I didnt insist on having a bunch of tricky-to-seamblend texture 3-way-border spots on this course.
After that I went through and selected trees from my overall planting set that were most appropriate for the setting. As I've said from the beginning, for this course (which I still regard as a minor, less meticulous project, even if it has grown somewhat), I wanted to keep things simple with the planting, so I didnt want to create a bunch of new tree objects this time around if I could avoid it. Well, I was going to add two available trees that would have fit in really well, but sadly they both turned out to be too poor cutouts to allow for editing, and I didnt have the energy to fix them. As a result, this planting set ended up being fairly narrow/small... with only about 30 different large trees making up most of the planting, with an extra 30 or so for more rare plantings like small or special trees or larger bushes.
After selecting the tree objects, I expermineted with some changes to them in terms of colour, brightness and contrast for a somewhat drier, sunnier look than the courses I've planted in the past. Doublechecked that object settings were ok with them all, then planted one hole and asked a few alpha testers for opinions (and adjusted some things) before I proceeded with the rest of the planting. The trees that will mainly be in play and visible from common gameplay areas are now done for the first 15 holes, all planted one by one referenced from videos. It is taking more effort than I expected, mostly because of it being rather tricky to avoid obvious clones when not having a lot of objects to choose between. But now its almost done!
After that though, I will have to plant the surroundings further away from play areas as well, which I will probably do with the 'forest planting' feature in most places.
Then it is not much left, just Hole Previews, perhaps some light underplanting in a few places (most of the course doesnt need any at all), some quick bits of misc planting, making a simplified clubhouse representation (it is basically not visible from play areas except for roof/chimneys), and planting residential houses in the surroundings (the 3D objects will probably(?) be sufficient), planting crowds, a background sound, logo and splash screen.
![Austin July 1.jpg](./download/file.php?id=2548&sid=8f935a061763cdc2d17fa2b3e17f338b)
- Austin July 1.jpg (333.97 KiB) Viewed 2057 times
(The trees may appear out of place in the above picture, but it is because the satellite image (like many others) is taken from an angle rather than directly above.)