Links Corner Forum

Just uploaded my update of this classic course, will update when it's available for download. [Edit: Course available at https://linkscorner.org/courses/course.php?crz=2569] Very, very happy I got a chance to work with this one Amazing course. Dont be greedy when playing from the potbunkers folks Pasting the Readme as well as some screenshots:

Sean Landry kindly gave me permission to update this course from 2012 and agreed with the changes I had in mind. Bill Bunning made the original version so this is the 3rd update and 4th version in total this course is seeing. My goal was mainly to make it more playable on the "challenging" conditions, with added options for more fair pins, and slightly softened greenslopes where otherwise difficult to find a decent variety of realistic pin positions. I also wanted to see if I could change some grass colours a slight bit, seamblend the areas that were missing it, and fix some minor details here and there. As always with other people's courses, I changed as little as possible while still achieving my goals, a full list of changes can be found further below. I already loved the 2012 version so I'm extremely happy I had the chance to work on this update, and with the result. Thank you so much Bill Bunning and Sean Landry for the work on this amazing course before me!

This is a tough tournament course in the rotation for The Open Championship, with narrow fairways, pressing heavy (but escapable) rough and over 200 bunkers - most being deep potbunkers that definitely demand respect. Even with just a breeze this is an excellently challenging course. It includes custom grandstands and other custom details to imitate the atmosphere of the 2012 Open Championship, as they were made by Sean Landry aka 72animal and in the case of 3D Hole Signs superduran aka alarduran for the 2012 version. If there is enough expressed interest I will consider making a non-tournament version as well, but I highly recommend at least giving the Open atmosphere that the two of them achieved a chance with small crowds, I personally think it's great.
Pins #0-3 are based on locations for the 2012 Open, #0 for day 1, #1 for day 2, #2 for day 3 and #3 for day 4. Many of them may not be fully enjoyable on challenging green settings to everyone, but all other pins (#4-17) are easily playable on Fc/Fc.

Please do let me know what you think about any aspects of the course (while keeping in mind that it's a collaboration of multiple designers throughout the years, and that it's a course that exists in real life). All feedback is welcome, especially the constructive type, it's possible I'll consider further updates in the future if something comes up.

The course is not locked, but since I didn't make any of the raw files within this course (I only subtly edited a certain few of them) the permission to use or extract assets within this course is not mine to give out.

Full list of changes compared to the 2012 version:
-14 pins added per hole for a total of 18, all playable on Fc/Fc. The previous pins (#0-3) are basically untouched, I moved a few of them that were on the most extreme slopes tiny distances to make them at least a little bit more playable.
-I believe about 5-7 greens had their elevations softened where it was otherwise difficult to find a decent variety of realistic pin positions, perhaps a couple more if counting extremely small edits. I only adjusted them as little as I felt necessary.
-Slight hue, saturation and/or brightness change of fairway, semirough, and tee textures.
-Seamblending for several areas that previously had none or broken ones (which obviously included restructuring of verts and edges where necessary)
-Several unnaturally sharp elevations were rounded (without removing the elevations' overall character)
-Several seamblend texture properties tidied up.
-Mid versions of all textures removed except for Rough, new Mid and Far versions for Wild Rough made.
-Some corrupted 2D objects by 2nd and 10th tee removed.
-Some sand spots had their mapping scaling changed, and a couple wayward sod wall mappings were moved.
-Wind direction variance increased a bit (its still quite prevailing)
-A few of the sharpest shadows on one of the grandstands slightly lessened.
-Slight changes to sound timings or volume of a couple sounds to what I believe they were intended to be set to (based on the settings of the other sounds)
-Minor edits to hole boundary shapes.
-Course name changed to 2020...
-Updated information on splash screen.


Since I've done less work on this course than with my other releases so far Amedal and Whirlpool, it would be awkward to have a ceremonial thank you/acknowledgment section. However I definitely want to say thank you to Sean Landry for help along the way with some files as well as beta testing, in general to all who have aided me with APCD/Links in the past, and the whole community for keeping APCD design going in all the various ways. Last but definitely not least, thank you Royal Lytham for being such an amazing course, and Bill Bunning/Sean Landry who brought it to us all.

did you add flags to the flag sticks? That was the only thing missing from the last version that was out.

barry

So glad to have another Open rota level course! Many thanks for getting this one done!

Pete

bear2016 wrote: ↑June 27th, 2020, 8:35 pm did you add flags to the flag sticks? That was the only thing missing from the last version that was out.

barry

There indeed seems to be an issue with the flag graphic that I hadnt noticed. I recommend no one download this version for now (that was just made available) as I am working on a fix already that should be available very soon.

As you can see in one of my screenshots a yellow flag shows up but it seems to be the stock flag rather than the custom yellow 2012 Open one. I tested and it seems like it shows up sometimes and sometimes there is no flag at all. Upon inspection it turns out the custom flag had a dark alpha channel which most likely is what caused the issues. I have changed it and testing it out at the moment while working on making the updated version available.

Adelade wrote: ↑June 28th, 2020, 8:55 am

bear2016 wrote: ↑June 27th, 2020, 8:35 pm did you add flags to the flag sticks? That was the only thing missing from the last version that was out.

barry

There indeed seems to be an issue with the flag graphic that I hadnt noticed. I recommend no one download this version for now (that was just made available) as I am working on a fix already that should be available very soon.

As you can see in one of my screenshots a yellow flag shows up but it seems to be the stock flag rather than the custom yellow 2012 Open one. I tested and it seems like it shows up sometimes and sometimes there is no flag at all. Upon inspection it turns out the custom flag had a dark alpha channel which most likely is what caused the issues. I have changed it and testing it out at the moment while working on making the updated version available.

Hi Adelade...

I don't believe flags are supposed to have an alpha channel. I'm pretty sure there is a mistake in the "Image Sizes" listing in the APCD manual. I brought that up recently in another post. I couldn't think of any logical reason why a flag should contain an alpha channel. Why would any of it need to be invisible?

Dan

Why has the download been suspended please

You are right Dan, but they can have alpha channels as long as they leave no transparency, at least all flags I've seen out of Links Extender have been 32 bit with alpha channel (wouldnt surprise me if APCD doesnt even accept 24 bit flags). I suppose the idea from the APCD devs was that you'd be able to have non-rectangular flags, I remember Lez said he tried it out but abandoned the idea, perhaps flags behave improperly if having any transparency from the alpha channel, all I know for sure is that full transparency from the alpha channel seems to cause issues.

I have fixed the issue (at least flags show up properly for me when I tested) and the new version should most likely be available within 24h, I probably caught Andy when when he was about to sleep (I dont know his timezone) but he suspended the download of the 4.00 version at my request (to avoid circulation of different versions that dont match with eachother for online play - I recommend to the people who caught the 4.00 version to delete it and wait for the 4.01 version that will be available soon). Thank you Andy you're the man Sorry for the inconvenience everyone.

linksrevisited wrote: ↑June 28th, 2020, 9:28 am Why has the download been suspended please

(See what I said in this post above )

Course available now at https://linkscorner.org/courses/course.php?crz=2569 with the updated 4.01 version fixing the flags. Thank you admins and thank you barry for bringing it up so quickly I guess I dont pay much attention to the flags but now that I see the 2012 ones they look pretty great.

Remember to upgrade if having 4.00

Adelade wrote: ↑June 28th, 2020, 9:41 am You are right Dan, but they can have alpha channels as long as they leave no transparency, at least all flags I've seen out of Links Extender have been 32 bit with alpha channel (wouldnt surprise me if APCD doesnt even accept 24 bit flags).

I'm far from being a graphics pro, but I have noticed while creating various images that images with alpha channels come out in 32 bit, and without alphas they are in 24 bit. A while back back when I created a flag, I read in the APCD manual that it was supposed to have an alpha channel. I always thought the purpose of an alpha channel was to mask part of the image out so parts of it were transparent. I became confused when I put a logo on the flag and was wondering what part of it should contain the alpha channel, so I created it for everything that wasn't part of the logo. When I took it to Links to look at it, I cranked up the wind so it would fly straight out, and all I saw was the logo suspended in mid air and flapping in the breeze. After I got done laughing, I went back and re-created it without the alpha channel, and it came out in 24 bit. Then when I viewed it again in Links, it looked perfect. So from that I concluded that the manual must have been incorrect. Also it seemed to work in 24 bit.

But I am confused about something that you might clear up for me. What possible purpose would an alpha channel serve is it weren't used for transparency?

Glad you got it worked out.

Dan

Yeah if 24 bit without alpha works then that sounds like the simplest way to do things

Danny D wrote: ↑June 28th, 2020, 1:53 pmBut I am confused about something that you might clear up for me. What possible purpose would an alpha channel serve is it weren't used for transparency?

You're correct, just transparency nothing else. I could give an example of how one could potentially use the alpha channel to create some transparency effects in theory for flags (I dont know if this actually works, as I said before there may be issues caused and if anyone wants to know for sure I suggest going to check Lez' video for exactly what he said about his experimentation.) For example you could make triangular flags, or even irregular shape flags like the one for the country Nepal, or perhaps a tattered flag with holes in it if you wanted some kind of... I dont know, pirate theme or something? I think that sort of stuff was probably what Lez experimented with but I dont remember what he found, except that he decided not to pursue it further.