Scenery in Trackmania is great to elevate any track, make it stand out and evoke a feeling. This page will cover both the technical and creative side of scenery creation.
¶ Technical
The technical side of scenery building can be somewhat limiting. Below are tips and tricks to work with these limits, and to get the most out of the file size limits in Trackmania.
¶ Size limits and optimization
Trackmania maps can be up to 7168KB in total for online play. That’s including the map, MediaTracker, ghosts, author ghost and map thumbnail. The file size is only 100% accurate after you calculated shadows, validated your map and saved it afterwards. Before validation and shadow calculation, maps don’t give an accurate file size, so be aware of that as you build. The item limit of 5MB can easily be bypassed using the Infinite Embed script that comes with Openplanet. Offline/local play does not have a file size limit.
¶ Ultra 2
Items add up quickly, and so does the light map calculation. One thing you can do to optimize the light map calculation is enabling the Ultra2 shadow compression. This takes longer to calculate and doesn’t look better outside of the map editor, but does lower the overall file size to some extent. It’s definitely worth trying if you’re barely over the limit. To enable Ultra2 head into Documents\Trackmania\Config\Default.json and change "LM QUltra" : false into "LM QUltra" : true. Restart the game if you had it open and you can now go beyond High when selecting Shadow Quality in the map editor.
Note that when calculating Ultra2, the shadow quality will default back to Default when playing the map online. Using Ultra2 is mostly only useful to bring down the overall file size of your map, or to get the best possible shadow calculation for screenshots and video recording purposes.
¶ Light map priority plugin and script
You’re now able to set light map priorities in Trackmania; get the Openplanet plugin or the map editor script made by Nadeo. Before you use this, a basic understanding of light maps is advised. Refer to the texture coordinates guide for some background.
The light map priority plugin has seven light map quality options; you choose the light map quality the same way you choose colored blocks which were introduced in the 2021 Royal update. The seven light map options are named (from lowest to highest quality) -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3.
The way this works is that the options are relative to the other ones and the light map calculation (Low, Medium, High, Ultra, Ultra2). Setting everything at +3 won’t have any effect at all; it won’t make it look better, nor will putting everything at -3 make it look worse. It’s also bound by whatever overall Shadow Quality you will set in the map editor. However, what makes this tool work its magic is when you have all your background items at -3, but the road and items close to the road at +3.
¶ Author ghosts
Ghosts add to your overall file size, whether it’s a GPS or an author ghost you used to validate the map. If you’re working on long maps with a lot of scenery, you could run into file size issues.
One way to cut down on the size is by using the Map Validator Openplanet plugin to validate your map. This plugin allows you to set an author validation without having to drive the author time, thus removing the need to store a ghost inside your map file.
¶ Custom thumbnail
The default size of a thumbnail that gets embedded in your map is a 1024x1024 image which varies from around 70-120KB, depending on the complexity of the image.
If you change the thumbnail to something smaller, your mapsize gets smaller as well - if you’re just above the size limit, this might be enough.
Using Miss’ Map Thumb tool, you can pick any image and set it as the map thumbnail.
Be aware that you have to change the thumbnail each time you save the map.
This is because each saving process generates a new thumbnail that will overwrite the old one.
¶ Custom materials
Using custom materials (CustomRock, CustomPlastic etc.) is cheaper than using other materials. This is because custom materials only use the UV2 channel, since they’re projected materials. Materials such as ItemBarrier, RoadTech and others rely on UV1 and UV2. UV1 splits up your mesh behind the scenes based on where your UV seams are, increasing the overall triangle count of your mesh.
¶ Large walls
Usually when you build scenery, most of the times you switch between ghost mode and the normal block mode and therefore your maps looks bad from below. For normal sized maps this is not a problem, but when you are building bigger maps it can actually cause issues since all the blocks/walls below the map still affect performance. To fix this, you should fill all the gaps and empty space below the map with 13-2-1-1-1 blocks. This is because it removes all the unnecessary walls below the map, resulting in better performance.
It makes calculating the map’s light map faster, as well as reducing the file size a bit.
¶ Framerate (FPS)
Framerate can be a tricky thing to tackle, and of course you can never test it on all setups. Here are some tricks to keep the Framerate reasonable.
- Using simpler items multiple times is less expensive than using one complex item once.
- Using water blocks on multiple height levels is known to cause FPS drops since TM2.
- Placing a lot of trees seemingly drops performance; especially the cherry blossom trees which have particles falling from them.
- Sometimes you might accidentally place multiple instances of a block inside each other. This is known to cause severe frame drops. You can check if you have duplicated items by using the Copy/Paste tool inside the Map Editor. Simply select everything on your map and see which parts of the map become a thicker yellow highlight.
You can also use the Blocks & Items Counter plugin by Beu to see if any blocks are used more often than you would expect (pointing to accidental duplicates).
¶ Creative
Often times scenery can become overbearing; it can become distracting, create blind turns and generally detract from the racing aspect. There are a few things to keep in mind as you fill your map with scenery.
¶ Distractions
Distractions can come in many different ways. These are often items found too close to the route, or ones that create too much contrast to focus on the track.
- Try to create a buffer between the road borders and the scenery. This will allow the player to use all of the road block for the driving line.
- Think about colors and contrast; for instance, a bright sky against a dark road creates a lot of contrast, making it difficult to focus on the track.
¶ Blind turns
This refers to turns where you can’t judge the exit. This is often caused by placing items within the curvature of the turn.
Try to keep items from creeping into the curvature of a turn. You can also remove blindness by using only lowly placed items, so that the player can still look over it and judge the exit of the turn.
¶ Guidance
Scenery can be and is often used for guidance; having your scenery guide the player essentially means it creates easy to read depth and contrast against itself and the track.
- Use lighting: Your eye naturally responds to light; lighting up the next important area of your track ensures the player looks and follows the route towards the light.
- Flow with the route: Having your scenery flow with the curvature of the route is one of the simplest ways to guide a player. Large walls and curved platforms are great to point an imaginary arrow towards the next part of the route.
- Use signage: An arrow is a simple and instantly recognized symbol on where to go. Good signage and arrow placement will ensure the player never has to second-guess which direction to go.
- Place landmarks: Large and/or stand-out items will naturally draw the player towards a goal.
¶ Collaborations
Collaborations in Trackmania are possible, although it’s not a simultaneous process. Planning out your collaboration and sharing items can pose a problem, so there are a few things to keep in mind.
¶ Item directories
If you use custom items in your map and you send it to somebody else to work on, make sure that everybody uses the same working directories for the custom items. This is important because then the same custom item doesn’t get saved multiple times in the map, which would result in bigger file sizes.
For example, if mapper A used a rock in the directory Items\Rocks\Rock01 and sends the map to mapper B, mapper B should have this exact rock located at Items\Rocks\Rock01 as well. This is because items are instanced around the map. An instance is a link to one original item, but with its own unique light map data.
You can also simply use the embedded item in the map to build with again. They show up in the editor with an E symbol, and no thumbnail (in the original folder locations that the author had them in).