The Secret To Improving Your Game
First off the strategy and tools listed in this guide in no way break any of the terms and conditions. The reason being is because any third party software you happen to be running on your computer during gameplay is comepletely within the rules as long as it in no way tampers with the wgt game client or the flash plug-in container.
With that said, here is a simple solution to distance control on drives, approaches, and putting.We will be using your exact computer screen to make a simple % based ruler that instead of going through the trouble of getting the size just right and printing it out and taping to your screen you can simply use the image created and "float" it over the top of the game while youre playing.
Software Required
Adobe Photoshop or Paint.net (or any other image editing software that has magic wand selecting capability).
First Impression (this is an image viewing software that can be found at http://download.cnet.com/First-Impression/3000-18488_4-206529.html)
Always On Top Maker (a program that does what it says, makes an active window "always on top")
Step 1. Open the wgt game client and start a practice round (only need this for a screenshot so options do not matter). Make sure the window size of the game is the size in which you will be playing at normally.
Step 2. Hit PrintScreen (or whatever combination of keys are required to take a screenshot using your computer).
Step 3. Open Your image editing software and paste the screenshot into a new window.
Step 4. Using the magic wand tool (also called other things depending on the software but its the tool that allows you to click in an area and select specific areas of the image) Click in the area of the picture where the inerior of the meter is for WGT. Make sure when doing this it only selects the area between the beginning of the meter and the first marker line before the ding line.
Important! The size of this area changes pixel width when putting Vs. all other forms of shot so you will be required to make 2 seperate rulers. We will get more into this in a minute.
Step 5. Now that its selected copy and paste this into its own seperate image (this can be done in the edit menu of the image editor). This is reqyured for both the Full Shot meter and putting meter.
Step 6. Now that you have both images by themselves of the meter area (should just be simple black bars at this point) you need to figure out the exact pixel demension of each image. You can do this simply by selecting the menu option to "resize" the image. Once the resize dialogue is open you can simply just look at its surrent size and take note of the width of the image.
Step 7. Now that you have the width in pixels divide this number by 10. By doing this you now know the exact number of pixels for every 10% of the meter.
Step 8. Using this number you now have take the pencil (or pen depending on image editor) tool and place a line (preferably white) at each interval of the number you came up with (ie: if yours is 30 pixels then place a straight line going down at 30 pixels, 60 pixels, 90 pixels, etc...).
Step 9. Now that you have both images We will need to change the opacity of the images. This is done in different way depending on your image editing software but can usually simply be done by going into the layer properties and changing the opcacity. I find usually going between 40 and 60 opacity works pretty well.
Step 10. Now save both images anywhere you'd like on your computer.
At this point you now have an exact replica of your in game meter with markers at every 10% of the club your currently using. Again make sure you have done this for both a normal shot and with the putter.
Step 11. Open The AlwaysOnTopMaker program (this program will run in the background and uses only 1K of memory so it wont effect meter in any way).
Step 12. Now using the First Impression software open both images and they should now appear floating on your screen with the ability to click and drag them anywhere on your screen.
Step 13. Now open the WGT gameclient back up in the size you used to make the screenshots (which should be the size in which you will be playing the game).
Step 14. Click on each meter image you created and press Control + Alt + T at the same time (this now engages the alwaysontop software to make these images always stay on top of the game.
Step 15. Now depending on whether your taking a normal shot or putting just drag the image for the shot over the meter making sure it lines up correctly.
You now have meter markings at every 10% of your meter. From here all you have to do during each shot is a simple calculation to determine where on the meter to drag the power to.
And there you have it folks. A simple way of having an on-screen ruler, completely customized to the exact pixel demensions of the WGT gameclient during gameplay on your specific monitor without having to resize some random generic ruler created by someone else and guess and check it by printing out multiple copies and taping it to your screen (possibly damaging the screen, without breaking any of the terms and conditions and essentially "cheating" in any way.
If anyone has any issues with finding software needed or questions on specific steps. Just let me know.
By doing this you can very easily take 5 or 6 strokes off your game within a matter of an hour, instead of having to play 300 rounds to get a "feel" for where on the meter to drag the power to.
As proof of concept I have been using similar methods for multiple online strategy games that require you to essentially guess where to set a meter or other related item at a certain % of a meter. And within only playing this game (coming from TigerWoodsOnline and Links) for a matter of days can shoot well under par every round.
Alternate Fix for those with opacity problems.
Ok So I have solved the issue for the transparency and full screen mode.
First off you will not be using First Impression OR Always On Top Maker, so you can uninstall both programs if you have no other need for them.
We will be doing this with only one simple program.
You will still need to follow all the steps used to create the initial image, however with this new program you will no longer need to make the image transparent, the program can do it for you.
Ok so first you need to visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/cthruview/files/ download the cthruview-bin.zip file by clicking on it.
Once you have it downloaded, unzip it to anywhere you would like to. Now if you dont want to have to navigate to this location each time you can always create a shortcut on your dekstop or start menu.
Step 1 - To open the program navigate to the folder and double click the cthruview Jar file (not the batch file). Again you can create a shortcut directly to this file on your dekstop or start menu).
Step 2 - Once the program is open, you will see an input space for an image, Click the button next to this input to open up a browse box and select your meter image.
Step 3 - make sure the always on top checkbox is clicked and click on the "click-Thru" checkbox to put a check in it (this will allow you to play in fullscreen mode without it going to windowed mode when you click to move the image around)
Step 4 - Change the opacity setting on the draggable meter in the program till it is to your liking
Step 5 - Start WGT and move the image on top of the meter.
Step 6 - Tee Off!
The downside to this is that the program window for Cthruview has to remain open in the background behind the wgt window (do not hit minimize or it will minimize your meter image as well, but it will not effect anything, it will just hide behind it while the image itself stays in front of it.
I know for a fact this will work on all computers and will not effect any glitching on the meter.
I hope this solves any problems anyone had.
Again if there's any questions let me know and I will try to address them.
Here's an example of what mine looks like and how it looks in action.
