From TM Wiki

This page intends to give helpful links and a short overview about user created content related to the TrackMania series of games.

When you deal with custom content, make sure you understand the meaning of peer-to-peer networking and locator files, which are the internal and the external ways to distribute custom content to other players. Custom content is stored in the game's cache.

If you put custom content into your track, be aware of the fact that it takes some time to load those media files if not previously downloaded already and e.g. the effect of showing an image in the intro might already be over before the image is downloaded. This is especially an issue for tracks which are to be played online and for which you cannot provide a media pack for downloading the content in advance.

Please also note that you can perfectly play TrackMania for a long time without ever caring about custom content any other than mentioned under the topic Basic Custom Content and may be Screenshots if you want to use TMX to upload your tracks.

Contents 1 Basic Custom Content 1.1 Tracks 1.2 Media Tracker (MT) 2 Custom Content - Track related 2.1 Signs 2.2 Skinnable Objects 3 Custom Content - MT related 3.1 Music 3.2 Sounds 3.3 Images 4 Custom Content - Car related 4.1 Car Skins 4.2 Stickers and Stencils 4.3 Horns 4.4 Engine Sounds 5 Advanced Custom Content 5.1 Mods 5.2 Car Models 5.3 Mix Mapping 5.4 ManiaLinks 6 Miscellaneous Custom Content 6.1 Avatars 6.2 Campaigns 6.3 Screenshots 6.4 Videos

Basic Custom Content

Tracks

Tracks are of course the main custom content in the TrackMania series of games. For beginning players it usually takes a while to get used to the track editor and to memorize where which building blocks are located in its menu.

Although there are a few dos and don'ts building tracks in the different environments, this is the part of the game where everyone can let his personal own creativity rule. Besides the in-game track exchange introduced with TrackMania United, there are external sites like TMX or ShareMania where you can upload your and download other players' tracks.

• Simple track building tutorial with videos attached
• Track building workflow video from zero to validation (TM Sunrise)
• TM Blog: Theory of Track Building

Media Tracker (MT)

Replays are today's standard in almost every racing game. However merely TrackMania has the Media Tracker built in, a feature which works like a kind of video editing software. With the Media Tracker you can add camera view changes and movement, text, images, music and sounds, color fades and other effects to your tracks.

The Media Tracker allows to create intros, i.e. before the race starts, and outros, i.e. standard replays altered with MT effects. It also allows to put all effects into the actual race, however this feature should be used with care since most players will not appreciate effects while racing other than may be changing to internal car view in loopings and corkscrews for better handling of those obstacles.

Another use of the Media Tracker is to build a GPS to help the player orientate on the track.

The Media Tracker takes some time to get explored and used to, especially if you never have worked with a video editing software before. However the effects - if not overdone - can really make your track(s) stand out.

• MediaTracker (Short overview)
• TM Blog: Camera Clips Tutorial
• TM Creative: MT Workflow

Custom Content - Track related

Signs

Signs in every of TrackMania's environments are usually used as direction signs or advertisement. The actual graphic showing on a sign is called a "skin". The game offers a preselection of skins for every track block with a sign on it. Additional skins can be made to build custom signs which within limitations even can be animated.

Skins for custom signs must be designed outside the game in the *.jpg, *.dds or *.bik format and then be copied to the right location.

• Static Billboards
• TMX: Video Signs Tutorial

Skinnable Objects

Besides signs there also are some environment specific objects which can be skinned, e.g. the blimp in stadium or the yacht in coast. Every object which is color-marked, when the ink pot for skin changes is clicked, has changeable skins and thus custom skins can be created for it.

Skins for custom objects must be designed outside the game in the *.jpg, *.dds or *.bik format and then be copied to the right location.

Custom Content - MT related

Music

Custom music is a nice feature to set or support the mood of your own tracks. TrackMania supports the *.ogg music file format and its own *.mux format. Put in the right place in the file's comment (author, title and comment), color codes can be used to spice up the display of information about the music when the track starts playing.

Music files must be handled and edited outside the game and then be imported (ogg => mux) or copied (ogg) into the according directory.

• Custom Music
• TMX: Custom Music Tutorial
• TM Creative: Trackmaking - Challenge Music

Sounds

Custom sounds can be used to create and support the atmosphere of your tracks. Examples would be applause when passing the finish, "pings" or "clicks" when passing through a checkpoint, the famous "Gentlemen, start your engines" in a track's intro or the like.

• TM Creative: General Sound Formats

Images

Custom images can be used to spice up the intro or outro of a track or even in-game to help tell a story track.

• TM Blog: Using Custom Images in MT

Custom Content - Car related

Car Skins

Car skins hold the paintwork of the car and are usually created in-game with the Painter, however external tools also can be used.

Car skins can be exchanged with other players. There used to be a web site called "Skin Center", however nowdays car skins are included in the Car Park.

• Painter workflow video (TM Sunrise)
• TM Creative: Custom Cars - Paint Skin

Stickers and Stencils

Customized stickers and stencils can be created external to the game, then be imported and applied with the Painter onto the cars.

• Custom Stickers

Horns

Car horns can be customized with just any sound file you can imagine. Just keep in mind that too fancy sounds might annoy other players online.

Horns must be handled outside the game.

• Horn

Engine Sounds

Engine sounds can be customized with just any sound file you can imagine. Usually there are six different sound files for different situations the car can be in.

• Engine sound modification
• TM Creative: Custom Cars - Engine Sounds

Advanced Custom Content

Mods

Mods in TrackMania are modifications to the game environment like in other games too. Mods for TrackMania are specific to the driving environment, thus there are mods for stadium, mods for island, mods for rally and so on.

Mods are the largest custom content in terms of file size. Some mods can be as huge as 50 megabytes and thus the (automated) loading can take considerably long if not downloaded previously.

There is a web site exclusively up to provide links to mods: TMMod

• Mods
• TM Creative: Modifying Environment

Car Models

Custom car models are truly an advanced topic since the car needs to be designed and build with 3D modelling software, then converted and packed into the right format for TrackMania. It's a work-intense process.

There also is a web site exclusively up to exchange custom cars and skins: Trackmania Carpark

• Creating Custom Cars with Freeware
• TM Creative: Custom User Cars

Mix Mapping

Mix mapping is a relatively new trend in TrackMania. It appeared widely in late 2007 and basically means nothing else than hacking the track files with external tools.

In contrast to bug maps which exploit the odds and ends of the track editor, mix mapping is about merging two building blocks to a new one. It can be achieved by changing the position of one block, which is stored by the means of track coordinates in the track file, to the position of another block.

• TMX: Short tutorial

ManiaLinks

ManiaLink and ManiaCode are concepts used to design pages for the in-game network introduced with TrackMania United. ManiaLink is for designing the pages and ManiaCode is for providing content like tracks, skins and other stuff in exchange for coppers.

• Manialinks
• TM Creative: ManiaLink + ManiaCode Introduction
• TM Creative: Building a Manialink page

Miscellaneous Custom Content

Avatars

Avatars are the little graphics you see left to your name when you play online. Nadeo has provided some Smiley-like avatars and the flags from Nations versions of TrackMania, but many players prefer to use customized ones.

Custom avatars can be a single picture or short animations. They can be changed on the player's profile page.

• Animated Avatar
• TM Creative: Avatars
• TM Blog: Avatar Tutorial part 1 and Avatar Tutorial part 2

Campaigns

TrackMania Sunrise supports custom campaigns. Like the original Nadeo campaign included, players can compile tracks into groups, for example thematically or with growing difficulty. Playing the tracks from the following group requires to achieve medal times in the previous group. Several groups make up a campaign.

Screenshots

The TrackMania games have support for screenshots built-in. Screenshots can be used in ManiaLink pages, as desktop wallpapers or as images in the media tracker. You may want to spice up your track with a screenshot if you upload it to TMX.

• Screenshots

Videos

One of the most creative aspects of TrackMania besides track mapping and media tracker editing is video making. It's also the most unrelated topic to the actual game. Except for user created campaigns in TrackMania Sunrise, which supported short video sequences for track loading screens, and short sequences for animated signs, making videos basically means leaving the game at all.

Videos in the *.avi format can be produced from single or merged replays with the replay editor and then be further worked on with external video editing software. Any video sequence to be used within TrackMania must be converted to the *.bik format.

• TM Creative: Video Creation