AJ Allen wrote: ↑May 25th, 2020, 4:48 pm
Please excuse my questions, I am still learning all this.
OK, so on the texture that leWaW posted, it has the bricks windows and door on it. I'm assuming that when a section of the building is selected and that texture is applied, you use the gizmo the set a wide and orientation, so that just the part you want shows? So maybe a window, and the rest gets hidden. or am I way off base with that? I had originally been thinking doing it the way I saw in Dannys #D house videos, where each texture is seperate, and verts/edges are added in the correct spots for each thing, like a window. Im just not sure which method is best, or easiest?
Cheers, AJ
Hi AJ. How you map out the individual textures and apply them to the various 3D structures pretty much depends on what specific textures you need. I taught myself how to apply each window and door individually when I did my very first course as I was first learning the APCD. Unfortunately I came along after all of the super designers had already moved on to other golf games, so there were not many folks still around to offer the best advice. Now that some of them have came back, we can all pick up more valuable tips that many of us lost out on back in the day.
I want to take the time to thank all of these guys for adding more ideas and details to designing that I had not seen or heard of until recently.
Thanks guys!
The method I used in my tutorial was simple, and spoke about small projects, such as simple houses. My first course was a small 9 hole course here in my SE Missouri home town. Nothing at all special, but it gave me a chance to learn the necessary skills to move on up to bigger and better things. Along the way I learned some valuable lessons. I'll explain...
I went to my local course and took pictures and videos of all of the structures that could be seen while playing at this course. It's surrounded by farmland and fields, and there was a row of houses that ran along one side the course. My intention was to replicate every building that could be seen while playing the course. There were 15 buildings I think. One of them was the one I built in that tutorial. I wanted the course and buildings to look as real as I was capable of making it, with the limited tools we have available with the APCD. By the way, in case you are not aware, the file size only grows by the use of each single new texture that you use. However, you can use that same texture a hundred more times, and the CRZ will not grow at all. Same way with 2D and 3D object in your planting set. Each NEW one adds to the file size, but re-using it dozens of more times doesn't...
It took me 14 months to complete, and when I was finished, I couldn't have been more pleased with the way it looked when comparing it to the actual IRL course. I personally can't imagine myself doing it any better than it came out, considering I was working with a very old and somewhat limited program, such as the APCD. (not bragging, just sayin') lol... I was building it for the owner and wanted to impress him.
When I finished it, I learned that I made a major mistake. Not knowing any better, I created all of those houses and buildings using windows and doors and siding and shingles that looked similar to the real house. I spent hours on the Internet locating pictures of the windows and doors, and saved them all in 1024 hi-rez TGA files. There were 9 or 10 houses, all using different textures that matched each house. You can imagine how large the CRZ grew. I believe the finished course came in at around 280MB (tiny little 9 hole course)
It also took around 6 minutes to load, the first time you played it in Links. 2 things I learned in this first attempt. 1: The individual windows, doors, siding, shingles, etc. can be created and saved in low-res, and they look just as good from the distance as the hi-res ones. Normally you don't get near enough to a house do see it up close during a round of golf. 2: The APCD is an amazing program, and I did a lot of experimenting during the building of this course, and I pushed it to what I thought was it's limit. I was a beginner, and I wanted to know what it could do. I am impressed.
I can't imagine putting it to a harder test than what I put it through on this first course. It held up just fine.
I finally went back to all of the building textures, and re-sized each one from 1024x1024, to 256x256. In the end, I really was not able to see much difference and it knocked a LOT off of the file size, and shortened the load times.
Bottom line is, it's best to work with the smallest sized textures as possible in areas that are not closely viewed and don't need detail. Use hi-res on things you will be seeing up close during a game, such as grass or rough textures.
I hope that helps, and good luck with your course.
Dan