Mana Games

[wjdygert]

I now have three Acapulco night courts, all from excellent court creators. All of them look very dark to my eyes, as if the flood nights are barely lit. I've seen the tournament on TV and the internet, and it looks fairly well-lit (not well enough, but far better that my Tennis Elbow Acapulco courts). I was thinking that it might be a problem with creating night clay courts, but my night Santiago, Buenos Aires and Rome courts are all pretty much perfect. Does anyone else notice this? If it's not just me, do any of the court creators know if there's something about the screen grabs of the court that make it difficult to work with?

[ComeonANDY!!]

I Know what you mean - but the Acapulco clay court texture is dark anyway compared with other clay courts, so under lights it looks even darker...

[wjdygert]

I Know what you mean - but the Acapulco clay court texture is dark anyway compared with other clay courts, so under lights it looks even darker...

Thanks for the reply. That's interesting, hadn't considered the clay itself. It almost looks like it's just been watered. Maybe the tropical humidity in Acapulco? Sao Paulo is the only other important tropical clay tournament I'm familiar with, but I believe it's indoors, so I don't really have a reference point.

On a whim, I messed around with my TV's video settings for the court. Putting brightness on full and increasing the color setting by about ten percent did the trick of simulating how the court looks to my eyes during a broadcast. I've had to adjust brightness once before (an Indian Wells day court), but never color.

[ComeonANDY!!]

Thanks for the reply. That's interesting, hadn't considered the clay itself. It almost looks like it's just been watered. Maybe the tropical humidity in Acapulco? Sao Paulo is the only other important tropical clay tournament I'm familiar with, but I believe it's indoors, so I don't really have a reference point.

On a whim, I messed around with my TV's video settings for the court. Putting brightness on full and increasing the color setting by about ten percent did the trick of simulating how the court looks to my eyes during a broadcast. I've had to adjust brightness once before (an Indian Wells day court), but never color.

It's nice from my point of view to have a sensible conversation with at least someone today? I was going to suggest to you about the brightness of your T.V's video settings - Anyway look at the houston clay court and how dark that is? Thank god that's NOT played under the lights

[wjdygert]

It's nice from my point of view to have a sensible conversation with at least someone today? I was going to suggest to you about the brightness of your T.V's video settings - Anyway look at the houston clay court and how dark that is? Thank god that's NOT played under the lights

I've never watched Houston, as it doesn't attract players that interest me. I just compared it to Acapulco on the ATP site, and it must have the most vile looking 'red' clay I've ever seen. I looks like they're playing on mud (actually something more disgusting, but I don't know what kind of language is tolerated on this site ) Acapulco is dark, but it still looks nice enough ( if cheap) under the sun, and the floodlights give it a neon orange look that's perfectly watchable.

All moot since they're playing Acapulco on hard stuff next year. Don't understand that move at all. The top power players will still go to Dubai for more money/prestige. And I see that they finally decided Rio will be clay, which makes the Acapulco decision even stranger. The Latin America clay swing would have provided serious points for a Rio/Acapulco double; that's the only way to make the Latin American clay swing worthy of the top players' time. What top player would play just one tournament on clay (Rio) between the Australian and Acapulco before the big hard court Masters in Indian Wells and Miami? They're certainly not going to play Buenos Aires, Rio AND Acapulco.

Sorry for the off-topic rant. And thanks for being ready with the screen adjustment tip. Should have tried that right away.

[ComeonANDY!!]

I've never watched Houston, as it doesn't attract players that interest me. I just compared it to Acapulco on the ATP site, and it must have the most vile looking 'red' clay I've ever seen. I looks like they're playing on mud (actually something more disgusting, but I don't know what kind of language is tolerated on this site ) Acapulco is dark, but it still looks nice enough ( if cheap) under the sun, and the floodlights give it a neon orange look that's perfectly watchable.

I know houston looks like thick mud The T.V commentators in this country call the clay of the french open "the dirt" i wouldn't like them to describe the Houston clay

All moot since they're playing Acapulco on hard stuff next year. Don't understand that move at all. The top power players will still go to Dubai for more money/prestige. And I see that they finally decided Rio will be clay, which makes the Acapulco decision even stranger. The Latin America clay swing would have provided serious points for a Rio/Acapulco double; that's the only way to make the Latin American clay swing worthy of the top players' time. What top player would play just one tournament on clay (Rio) between the Australian and Acapulco before the big hard court Masters in Indian Wells and Miami? They're certainly not going to play Buenos Aires, Rio AND Acapulco.

I didn't know this about Acapulco,it has being played on clay for years! That's a strange decision to change it to hard courts? Well one thing is for sure..
I hope they enjoy seeing rafa because he'll never go back there once they change it to a hard court

[wjdygert]

I didn't know this about Acapulco,it has being played on clay for years! That's a strange decision to change it to hard courts? Well one thing is for sure..
I hope they enjoy seeing rafa because he'll never go back there once they change it to a hard court

I believe Rafa was a big supporter of Brazil getting it's 500 event. I suppose he could play that as a one-off clay event and then Acapulco as a hard warmup for Indian Wells, but I wouldn't bet on it. I just don't see playing a single clay event in the middle of a hard court season if you're not a clay court specialist who has no real hope of winning on hard.

[wjdygert]

I went ahead and made some adjustments to the night Acapulco court from Sam's Patch 2013 (apologies to the creator of the original court, but I'm not sure who made it; doesn't look like either rogerfed1 or hamzafederer).

First, here's a screen grab of how the court looked on TV:


Here's my edit:


The original I edited from:


Link for the full resolution version: http://postimg.org/image/p80fv9ndh/5fee4503/

The court.ini (not my work) is in the Acapulco Night folder in Sam's Patch 2013.