Tips and
Tricks
Permanently displaying tool menus
Using multiple cameras
Placing lots of objects at once
Editing the grid
Adjusting Preferences to the speed of your computer
Saving small ".FLO" files
Narrowing the camera's view angle for detailed work
Placing objects along paths and rivers instantly
Leaving a measuring line on your course
Naming your files
Using the hand of Zeus
Correcting jagged lines on rivers, paths and so forth
Permanently Displaying Tool Menus
You can permanently display all the tools in a tool set and move them to various places around the screen for easier accessibility. You can also dock any of the tool sets along the outside edges of the three main panes.
Right-click anywhere on the Status Bar or the Toolbar, or in the margin the Toolbar occupies in its default mode along the left-hand edge of the Course Architect's user interface. This will open a pop-up menu.
Click on the tool set you want, and a dockable window containing the buttons for all those tools will appear.
Click on the edge of that window and drag it wherever you want it within the Course Architect screen. If the tool set is somewhere in the middle of a screen, rather than at an edge, you can drag it around by its title bar.
If you want to dock a tool set in the margin space around the main windows, drag the tool set to a margin until its shadow outline fits into the margin.
To make the tool set disappear again, right-click on the set and uncheck its name from the pop-up menu. If the tool set is undocked, you can also right-click on its title bar and choose Hide from the pop-up menu.
Using Mulitple Cameras
To get a complete picture of a small area of the course, like a green, it sometimes helps to place several cameras around the area. This is often faster and more efficient than moving one camera around to see the same thing from different angles.
If you need a new camera activated, just click on its color from the Cameras tool set, then click on the color of your previous camera to return to the work area. Then, to place the new camera in that region, center your work area in the Top View, right-click in the Top View and choose Center Camera and the color of the new camera. Drag the cameras around by their camera handles until they're placed exactly where you want them.
Raise one camera's altitude high and with a wide view angle, place one low and close to the work area with a narrow view angle, and leave the other two cameras at medium altitude with the default view angle. Then use the Camera Tool to switch between them as you work.
Placing Lots
of Objects at Once
This is a good way to fill in rough terrain with a random scattering of objects, such as trees.
Define an area using one of the Shape Selector or Area Selector Tools.
Click on the Place Objects Tool. Make sure the work area on the bottom of the Place Objects dialog box reflects the number of acres in the selection, rather than in the entire course.
Check Random and Use selections. Make a Scale variation of 50 percent. Make the Density 20 to 30 0bjects per acre. Select your tree or other object in the window to the right, then hit OK.
You should see something like this variation of objects in your selection:
You can't use this method to place multiple objects on water, sand or greens.
Editing the Grid
The grid provides a good way to edit details on your course.
Select Grid from the Edit menu. This will activate the course's grid pattern in both the Camera View and Top View. The Camera View shows only small grids; the Top View will show both large and small grids (although you have to zoom in pretty far to see the small grids). You can use your mouse to grab the vertex of a small grid square and drag it left, right, forward or back; if you hold down the Shift key while you drag, you can adjust the vertex's elevation.
Choose Grid again from the Edit menu to turn the grid off when you're done.
Adjusting
Preferences to the Speed of Your Computer
Right-click in the Camera View and pick Detail Level from the pop-up menu.
This is where you can control how much work your computer must do to "draw" what you see in the Camera View.
For a 486 machine, we recommend keeping the default setting of: Maximum 1024 yards, Detailed Terrain 400 yards and Objects 500 yards.
For a Pentium100 MHz, a good balance is Maximum 1200 yards, Detailed Terrain 800 yards and Objects 1000 yards.
For a Pentium 200 MHz and higher, push up all three to about 1200 yards or so -- even higher if you don't mind dealing with increasingly long time delays.
See Detail Level for more information.
Saving Small
".FLO" Files
SimGolf courses that are saved using the default file format (with the extension ".FLG") include all the objects used in the course. This makes the files quite large, but complete.
Files saved with the ".FLO" extension, on the other hand, only save the information about your course, not the actual objects and terrain. When SimGolf opens a course that has been saved as a ".FLO" file, it looks in the object libraries for the objects it needs.
This means that ".FLO" files are much smaller, but the catch is they must be opened with a version of SimGolf that has all the objects the ".FLO" file needs.
Narrowing the
Camera's View Angle for Detailed Work
To get a much more accurate view of the contours of a piece of terrain, narrow the active camera's view angle.
You'll find the camera's current view angle (along with its position and altitude) listed in the Status Bar if you pass the cursor over one of the camera handles in the Top View. While the cursor is still over the camera handle, press the "-" key on the numeric keypad to narrow the view angle by small increments until the Camera View is more sharply focused. The "+" key will expand the view angle.
Placing Objects
Along Paths and Rivers Instantly
If you right-click in the Top View on the Control Square of a selection made by the Polyline, you'll notice "Make Highway" as one of the options in the pop-up menu. Make Highway allows you to plant objects beside your river or path in a nice, neat row, and to decide how many of the objects you'd like.
Choose the object you'd like to place in a row and click OK. The row of objects will appear.
Leaving a
Measuring Line on Your Course
When you're building a new hole, leaving a Straight Line measuring tool around in the Top View may help you size features properly.
Drag out a straight line and leave it in the Top View where you're working. You can use all the other tools and controls while it sits there. Then, when you need to measure how long a terrain feature is or you want to set the dimensions of a new fairway, just drag the end points of the line to the ends of the feature you're measuring. The length of the line will appear in the Status Bar.
Naming Your
Files
Each SimGolf Course has two names.
One is the file name, such as "Prince.flg." This is how your computer keeps track of it. The other name is the one in the title bar and under the View menu's Scorecard option, such as "The Prince Course."
You have control over both names.The file name appears on the icons for your course on your computer. You'll see this name listed in dialog boxes, such as Open and Save As. You can change these names the same way you change any Windows file names.
However, when you're playing SimGolf and looking for a course to open and play on, you will see only the Scorecard names. You can change the Scorecard name by choosing Scorecard... from the Course Architect's View menu and typing in the new course name. Make sure you change the Scorecard name of a new course so it will be similar to its file name.
Using the Hand of
Zeus
The "Hand of Zeus" is another tool that can change the scene in the Top View or Camera View.
To use this helpful tool, hold down the Alt key and click and hold in either the Top or Camera View. This will turn your cursor into the Hand of Zeus. In the Top View, it lets you scroll the map as much as you want. In the Camera View, it moves the camera around.
Correcting Jagged
Lines on Rivers, Paths, and So Forth
Sometimes you'll notice impossibly jagged lines of water in distant rivers. Very strange! What was in that water?
Never fear. If those rivers are in the distance, they are in fact perfectly smooth. The problem is that the computer is not drawing high detailed graphics that far away from the camera. This saves processor time and keeps things moving fast.
The most basic way to deal with this problem is to move the camera closer to the river. But you can also change this by right-clicking in the Camera View and selecting Detail Level....
Once there you can increase the Detailed Terrain distance. In our example, that river would now look like this:
See Detail Level for more on this subject.
Rabbits were the original golf course lawnmowers; their grazing on Scottish and British courses kept the grass short on fairways and greens before machines were used.