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Best software for drawing golf holes

JLD984

New Member
Hello all, I'm making new tee signs for a golf club with a 3D drawing for each hole. I usually just use Illustrator but now want to show more detail for hills/contours etc. I looked into AutoCAD over the weekend which I learnt for a year while studying drafting but that was many years ago and I can't remember any of it, wondering if there's anything similar and easier to use. The problem with Illustrator or Photoshop is you're stuck with the one angle once you start working on it but with CAD you can work on it then change the view. I've also bought some of the best landscape design software but they're not accurate or workable enough and the view it renders is terrible.
 

JLD984

New Member
Punch is one of the ones I bought, I actually ended up buying their deluxe one after trying a few of their cheaper ones and they're all terrible for the reasons stated earlier. $270 down the drain for Deluxe.
 

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Why not just take a picture?

You could posterize it or do whatever to it. A whole hell of and cheaper and vastly more accurate than whatever drawing software you might buy. For the sort of money you appear to be spending you could hire a helicopter and take close-up aerial shots. Or stand on a ladder. Or a boom truck. Or sail aloft powered by sheer force of personality.
 

JLD984

New Member
On the left is an earlier one I did, I've since improved the trees, texture etc but want do show the contours/hills like the picture on the right.

Photos are not what I or the customer want and a lot of holes need to be shown with a few trees missing so the best angle can be shown. Therefore it's always best to draw the hole from above then rotate and find the best angle and height. I also want the whole course drawn in vector format from above for other purposes.
 

JLD984

New Member
Helicopter is out of the question for a variety of reasons, as is any type of boom or lift equipment, they won't go high enough and it is winter here. There's no way any golf club would allow them on the course anyway.

I need to draw the files, I have my way of drawing the files which I'm more than happy with, I do not want photos. I simply want to know what software would be good for displaying the contours.
 

S'N'S

New Member
As Techman said, take a picture and print it. I have a friend with one of these that films with a gopro and then you pull pics from it (he's been filming for TV adds).... good thing about a drone is you get a film so you can pick the best picture.
That picture of the golf course on the right looks like it has just been given shadows and highlights to give the contoured effect.
 

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JLD984

New Member
I'll say this once again, I need the entire course drawn in vector format which is not the part I need help with. I want to be able to find the best angle of each hole ON THE COMPUTER SCREEN and am wondering the best software for displaying contours/hills/topography automatically rather than add it all manually to one set position that then needs to be done again if a different angle is chosen. I DO NOT WANT PHOTOS. If I did want photos, believe it or not I know how to go about taking them. Sometimes these days people want artwork instead of photos, plus a bit of effort and attention to detail in their work and I refuse to go the cheap photo and effects way about it. Doing quality work for a quality customer.
 

GAC05

Quit buggin' me

Rick

Certified Enneadecagon Designer
I'd use the "Gradient Mesh" tool in Illustrator to make that effect... if you need the texture, you might be able to do that too by adding a texture, then playing with the transparency... oooops, I see you need it at various angles... I have Auto-Cad and can be done on it, but the amount of money to purchase, then the cost of doing it might be a bit cost prohibitive. You might try Sketchup... get your angles close, the add effects/countours to it.
 

letterman7

New Member
Unless you have the programs and computing power to do photo realism in 3D (think modern animation), it ain't gonna happen, especially turning something like that into a vector. You can't vector a mesh unless you want a million layers of color. Since you're in Australia, maybe a phone call to Weta Digital might tell you the best course of action. You may have a quality client but they may not want to put out that much quality money.
 

John Butto

New Member
what the animators do

You should make models of each hole or the whole course with either clay, sign foam by hand or a machine that will cut the contours from a drawing you set up earlier. Add the trees and such. Kind of like a building the architects do before it is build. Then tilt them to the view you and your customer are looking for. Then draw them out on a "story board" and use a 3d program or Illustrator or Coral and add the shading etc. Or paint them with oils, acrylics, watercolor etc. This project looks like a par 675 for you, good luck.
 

visual800

Active Member
you must be about to make alot of money off this golf course. May I ask why you feel the need to do this, is it for them? or for your personal? anytime I have done anything for golf courses it has a been a PITA!
 

JLD984

New Member
I've already done plenty of golf courses and got more lined up. I've improved them a lot since that image I attached but want to improve more and find a more practical way to go about it.
 

Stormyj

Just another guy
Try this software. Its actually for drawing maps for a game called halflife. You can create all kinds of terrain, buildings, has all kinds of goodies and its free. You might think its trivial, but with a game that has sold millions of copies, with thousands of people using it, it might be exactly what your looking for, and its free. It produces quite good imagery and can be rotated in different views and has fly around to spot exactly the angle your looking for. As you can see from the images, you can get quite complicated. Good luck.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=117467051

2013-04-11_00003.jpg 960px-Valve_hammer_editor.jpg
 

TyrantDesigner

Art! Hot and fresh.
On the left is an earlier one I did, I've since improved the trees, texture etc but want do show the contours/hills like the picture on the right.

Photos are not what I or the customer want and a lot of holes need to be shown with a few trees missing so the best angle can be shown. Therefore it's always best to draw the hole from above then rotate and find the best angle and height. I also want the whole course drawn in vector format from above for other purposes.


What you are doing here is more than adequate, and probably the best way possible. Cad software can help, but doesn't give you what you need in the end and vector software at it's best is an art tool, not an engineering tool. About the only way to make it appear more realistic that can be vectored is to make a 3d representation of the course in 3d design software (cad can help, but needs to be done in something like maya) and then can be twisted, rotated and given the right angle ... in fact the software can output linework. Most cartoons today are done with softimage and maya (sometimes 3d studio max) but they use special rendering engines to achieve the look of a hand drawn cartoon. (same with cartoons like southpark even though they are trying to go for a construction paper look)

If that sounds like 1/100th the work it actually is ... stick to what you are doing. trust me. the software alone would price you out of the jobs you are doing.
 
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