Making Clubs.....Need Help

[Big Sexy JC]

Gents,

I took a break from making anis over the weekend and looked into making some clubs. I knocked out a few sets of irons and some drivers without any problems. However, I have no idea what to do with the putters.

I know Adelade made a set awhile back so maybe he can help, but I'll take the help from anyone that knows. Thanks in advance.

I'm hoping I can start making clubs available the way I've done anis, but I can't be a two trick pony. I've got to know how to do it all.

[Adelade]

Hmm do I remember this or not... I mostly asked Saramago the club expert for advise, and then I made a custom Iron by replacing most bits from another iron set. Driver I dont think I ever did anything with, just used ones from existing sets that I liked. Putter I dont think I did much with, mostly used an existing that I liked, but I did slightly alter the grip and colour of club head of a putter. Im looking at what must be the putter TGA file and honestly Im pretty confused. Grip and shaft are pretty obvious, but the rest dont look like they fit how the putter looks in game lol...

JPEG pic of CLUBS_S TGA file.jpg (104.42 KiB) Viewed 3299 times

I think what I edited about the putter clubhead is the bland part with blank colour and pixel-like white details (marking the area in picture below). I think it already looked bland like that before I made any edits, and I only made the dark colour darker.

JPEG pic of CLUBS_S TGA file 2.jpg (105.97 KiB) Viewed 3299 times

The white pixels must be the aim marker details, heres how it looks in game:

Adelade's Custom Clubset.jpg (74.73 KiB) Viewed 3299 times

As for the shape of the putter, no clue, maybe it can be figured out by looking at the alpha channel of the TGA file.

Thats all I know, hopefully Saramago is around - he knows how it all works and can give better answers

Oh and one great tip for checking the clubs out in Links is to use RTS swing where you can control the backswing which gives the best views of the club from different angles.

[Big Sexy JC]

Adelade,

I spent way too much time trying to figure this out today only to be very disappointed. Below is the exact same TGA you posted, but I've highlighted the part that makes up the top of the putter (blue) and the face of the putter (green). The original putter TGA files were 256x256 so the resolution was grainy/blurry when trying to get those little areas to look anything like the putter you are trying to make.

I actually made pretty good progress when I made the putter TGA 1024x1024. That allowed me to use higher resolution putter faces and tops of putters so now they are at least recognizable in the game. The most impressive thing at that resolution was the drivers and irons though. I mean you can read the wording pretty clearly on the drivers at that resolution.

Thanks for chiming in Adelade. Much appreciated. I think I know the layout now, but I'm just not sure it's worth making many putters. I will definitely be making some drivers and irons though.

[Weeler]

Hey, JC : How's the club making coming along ? Any more progress ? I would think that Saramago would be an ideal source for help , since he's compiled so many different sets already. ( Unless he still wants to be THE club designer for all of us who play LINKS ). You said you've contacted him, right ? Also.....just curious, any new info on changing "driver" head sizes to be proportional ? ( 3 wood, 5 wood, instead of looking like the driver head size ) If anybody can figure this stuff out, you'd be the guy. Of course, given the age of this software, it may be that it's just NOT possible to do. I have no idea. I hope you're still plugging away at it. Your work has become a valuable asset as far as the tons of ANI's you've created !

Ron Weel

[Big Sexy JC]

Ron,

I'm still tinkering with clubs and have made a handful of sets. I had to do some research on what clubs are used the most and all the different models of clubs out there is a bit overwhelming. I stepped away from the club making for a bit to play my 2023 season and to update all my anis to hi res, with the correct body types and all BMPs instead of TGAs. The 2023 season is over, but the ani upgrading is still ongoing.

From what I can tell with the clubs you can't distinguish between the different irons and woods. You create a driver file, an iron file and a putter file and the driver file is used for all the woods and the iron file is used for all the irons. I know this game is old, but the clubs have been one of the most disappointing things I've stumbled across in my tinkering. They have this 256 x 256 area (I've gone hi res on clubs too so mine are 1024 x 1024) and only a very small percentage of the space is used in the game for the club.

The putter is completely ridiculous. From what I can tell you are unable to determine if the club is a mallet putter or a blade putter because the game uses such a small portion of the TGA for the actual putter. It makes doing putters almost a waste of time.

I have not contacted Saramago. I've never seen him on this forum so assumed he was no longer active in the community. Obviously I'd welcome his or anyone else's input on any of this stuff. At this point I feel like we are all just putting our heads together to get as much out of this antique as possible.

[Big Sexy JC]

I did some club testing tonight and attached some JPGs that might simplify club making for the group. Hopefully these help some others get into the club making business. The JPGs are pretty self explanatory, but I've also provided a share below where I've uploaded my template driver, iron and putter TGAs.

If you want to make clubs you just need to download my TGAs, grab some club pics off the internet and open them in Paint Shop Pro or whatever your favorite graphics software app is. Once you have the pics in your graphics app, you use the lasso or freehand tool to "cut out" the portion of the club you need and add it over the top of my templates. Save the files and use the Golfer Utility to create the club set. It's almost the exact process for creating/modifying apparel and then adding it to your golfer using the utility.

I also learned a lot more about the putters tonight. All the clubs have .SKL files just like the golfers do. For the golfers, the SKL files define the height, body type, hat type and apparel type for each golfer. For the clubs, the SKL files determine the size of the driver club head, the type of putter and really not much of anything that I can tell with the irons. So far, the putters come in 3 varieties. The blade putter, the U shaped mallet and the regular mallet. Drivers come in 2 varieties, normal and oversized.

Once you've done the graphics work to create your clubs, you can use my .SKL version of the golfer utility to switch the SKLs between club sets.

I used a very similar process when I started creating anis so that should be a hint that I'm about to turn on my mass production factory of golf clubs. I hate that the driver is also the woods and all the irons are the same and the putter is very limited, but there isn't a damn thing I can do to get around it so not gonna worry too much about it.



https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[Adelade]

Giving away fish is awesome, but teaching how to fish... now thats even more awesome! Makes me really happy to see efforts like these Big applause.

This deserves to be made into a sticky thread, except your most recent post here should be made into the first post of such a sticky in some way...

Could you also add a link to your .SKL version of the golfer utility please?

[Big Sexy JC]

Adelade, All,

Below is the link to all the versions of the golfer utility. This should allow you to open any .l3 file and see what's contained inside of it.


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[saramago]

Hi guys!
I've been away from the forum, the game and the drawing board because of my second children's birth.
To make things more difficult, I had a problem with my computer and I need to install windows 10 again. Most of the clubs I've been working on the past 12 months where lost.
Meanwhile, I reinstalled Links 2003 but had the same problem with windows 10. The problem is that I could not see the ball or the marker in the top view camera.
Back then, I know that I solved the problem with the dgvoodoo fixer but now I don't remember how I did it. Can anyone give me some help?
About the putters, I took 2 years to deconstruct the file. If you guys want it, I can start a topic about the club files.
Please PM if you guys need help.
After so many years, Links is still my game!
Cheers

[Big Sexy JC]

Saramago,

You have a PM.