Links Corner Forum

Hello gentlemen. I have a question about pano's..

I have created one for Shadow Creek, however, that place sits in the "flat-lands" near Las Vegas, Nevada. It is surrounded by mountains, but they are off in the distance. Its pretty flat for miles until you reach the mountains. Because the mountain are so far away, that doesn't leave much of an angle for you to be able to see much of the foreground. If I stand in the center of an empty plot at ground level in the APCD and load the pano, I can only see about half of the scenery. I'm thinking the pano needs to be higher so more of the bottom scenery can be see. Which leads up to my question...

I assume it can be raised, but what is the correct way to see more scenery near the bottom of the pano? I already have a large area of alpha across the bottom, but still can't see much of the lower scenery.

If anyone wants to play around with it to see what I mean, I'll be glad to send it to you.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Dan

Hi Danny, good to be hearing from you.

Can you post a pic of what you have so far?

Sage.....

Raising it is the correct way to see more at the bottom (make sure to raise the alpha along with it). What I tend to do when making panos is to reference another pano I made in the past and have the "base" level of the new pano (where the horizon would have been if it had been just an ocean horizon) same as an earlier pano. Of course that base line can be harder to determine if there is no water horizon anywhere, especially if its a mountainous horizon all around the course, but you can still try to imagine where it ought to be. I see that I use to have the base line around 480-500 pixels from the top of the file, or in other words 220-240 pixels from the bottom of the file.

But keep in mind that the horizon in real life often isnt very visible from a gofler's eye level at courses surrounded by trees (I think Shadow Creek mostly is?)

Usually when I make panoramas, I have to "invent" some scenery at the bottom (usually cloning some other stuff from the pano), because the pictures I use for panoramas are rarely taken from very high up, so there is no real footage to go on unless you want to fill it with foreground stuff (which will likely look unnaturally close to the camera if ever seen), and even if the pictures are taken from high up, they are still very unlikely to fill the panorama until nearly the very bottom (I say nearly because Lez advised to have at least 1 row of pixels at the very bottom of the panorama transparent by the alpha in order to avoid issues). It doesnt really matter that the scenery is cloned or "invented" near the bottom because it normally isnt seen, the further down on the panorama, the less likely it will ever be seen. The only times the lower parts will be seen are some situations with the dynamic cam or if Links glitches out and shows a hole in the terrain. Then a cloned "invented" backdrop is better than full transparency on the pano, because transparency would mean that Links would display a blank brown-ish texture with some Links logos (which tends to look really odd).

I hope it is possible to make some sense of what Im trying to say.

I use Photoshop 7 to raise panoramas then check them in the game if not high enough I go back to Photoshop and raise it some more and check in the game till it is as it should be. Same applies to lowering a Panorama.You could use Gimp or any other free photo program to do this.If you have a lot of space at the bottom of the Panorama because you have moved it up just fill in the bottom with a color that matches you Panorama.I have done this for years always worked for me.

sagevanni wrote: ↑July 9th, 2023, 7:12 am Hi Danny, good to be hearing from you.

Can you post a pic of what you have so far?

Sage.....

Heres a pic. Had to convert it to a JPG for the board. It's complete, just needs to be fit into the background. I post a download link to the actual TGA...

Dan

Here is my original completed PANO that I asked the question about...

Thanks for the help,

Dan

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/eg6n6ym1 ... r7k7v&dl=0

It looks rather high up to me but I suppose it might also depend on how high the plot is elevated in APCD to begin with.

Looking forward to the course as always

Adelade wrote: ↑July 10th, 2023, 5:58 am It looks rather high up to me but I suppose it might also depend on how high the plot is elevated in APCD to begin with.

Looking forward to the course as always

The course elevation is between 20 and 100 feet above the grid. There are no verts below grid level.

I guess I'll leave it as is and see how it looks on the completed course. Thanks for your input...

Daniel wrote: ↑July 9th, 2023, 6:00 pm I use Photoshop 7 to raise panoramas then check them in the game if not high enough I go back to Photoshop and raise it some more and check in the game till it is as it should be. Same applies to lowering a Panorama.You could use Gimp or any other free photo program to do this.If you have a lot of space at the bottom of the Panorama because you have moved it up just fill in the bottom with a color that matches you Panorama.I have done this for years always worked for me.

Thanks Daniel. That info should help.

Dan